Watching brief - Amanda Platell mourns Mark Bolland's departure
Published 13 January 2003
Prince Charles is right to be dejected by the departure of Mark Bolland. Without his spin-doctor, the prince risks revealing that he is as adept at public relations as his father
No start to the year would be complete without Tory turmoil and palace panic, and again we have not been disappointed.
The Prince of Wales is right to be dejected at the departure of one of the most talented spin-doctors in the land and the man responsible for transforming him from least-loved to respected royal. Mark Bolland even made Camilla Parker Bowles tolerable.
Without Bolland at his side, Charles is now left to ponder his position as the fourth person Today programme listeners would most like to see thrown out of the country. He is wallowing in self-pity and whingeing to anyone who will listen, and friends have said they haven't seen Charles in such sombre mood since the break-up of his marriage in 1992.
Some of us may have thought that the death of his former wife and adored mother of his two sons might have been more of an occasion for melancholy than the self-inflicted collapse of his marriage. Yet recently, the heir to the throne has demonstrated all the sensitivity and public relations flair of his father.
If, as Bolland's critics say, Charles's popularity came at the expense of the reputation of the lesser members of the royal family, then it was a price well worth paying. The promotion of Charles served only to illuminate the inadequacy of the other freeloaders whose idea of hard work is to travel the world at our expense - and insult the natives.
I was warned that there would be a concerted push in the new year to undermine Iain Duncan Smith and pave the way for a Ken Clarke leadership challenge, so no surprise, then, that John Bercow should use the first available GMTV Sunday Programme to prove that the Tories are still the nastiest of parties. In a vulgar display of naked ambition, up popped the pint-sized poisoner to announce that the Tories had as much chance of finding "an Eskimo in the desert" as winning the next election. Tell us something we don't know, shortie.
He warned that there were leadership "vultures circling". Dodos, more like it, if Bercow's lamentable display of party loyalty is anything to go by.
Madonna bans her husband Guy Ritchie from huntin' and shootin' at her - sorry, their - Wiltshire country mansion on the grounds that she is protecting "the souls of the poor birds". Hmmm. I prefer the explanation offered by the Daily Mail that, despite extensive private tutoring, she has displayed about as much talent for shooting as she has for acting - she is a "total flop". Shame that Madonna can't spare a thought for the souls of the poor movie-going public while she's at it.
Meanwhile, John Howard, Australia's prime minister, shows what it takes to be a successful modern conservative leader. The secret is to spend your mornings chucking out illegal immigrants and afternoons as guest radio commentator on the Ashes Test.
But one very good reason for not living in Australia is that you will escape the Sarah Ferguson WeightWatchers ad campaign. As New Year's resolutions melted with the first Koala Cream, she appeared on television and in the newspapers with the chilling promise
that you, too, could be "just like Fergie".
In a land that has about as much respect for royalty as it does for bogus asylum-seekers, it's difficult to work out the marketing strategy. Yes, you too can be an outcast, ridiculed and ostracised, just like Fergie.
"I've always had a problem with weight," she trills, impersonating Rory Bremner impersonating the Queen. "They used to call me the Duchess of Pork! But look at me now!" (If you can, through the Vaseline that covers the camera lens.) With readers of the women's magazines here all too familiar with the ups and downs of Fergie's little "weight problem", she is in danger of being dubbed the Duchess of Porkies.
In a world grown accustomed to having two of everything - cars, houses, televisions, newspapers, husbands - it is still confusing to have two homes. As I sit here writing under a clear blue Australian sky, the only distraction the flapping of the honeyeaters' wings as they squabble over a wattle bloom, miles of bleached white beach in both directions, the sound of the ocean - as reassuring as the beat of a lover's heart - I cannot imagine ever leaving.
Then I turn on the television, feel a mixture of both guilt and pride as the English cricket team trounce the Aussies in the fifth Ashes Test; try to watch the bilge that parades as quality television and long for the BBC; listen to a top news reporter whose idea of a suicide bomber is a young dude who writes himself off in a fast car on a country road; give up and start reading the newspaper - there is only one per state, and one national - and realise there is a heavy price to pay for this magnificent isolation.
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