{"id":112707,"date":"2021-03-16T16:14:19","date_gmt":"2021-03-16T23:14:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=112707"},"modified":"2021-03-16T16:14:19","modified_gmt":"2021-03-16T23:14:19","slug":"perfidious-albion","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2021\/03\/16\/perfidious-albion\/","title":{"rendered":"\u201cPERFIDIOUS ALBION\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"

Gamini Seneviratne<\/strong><\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 That is a term that historians of colonization are familiar with as a descriptive of the duplicity, treachery and the breach of treaties that marked England\u2019s relations with the peoples it sought to colonize \/ loot particularly in the 19th<\/sup> century.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 What this note addresses are the manifestations of trickery and the purveyance of falsehoods by and on behalf of the family that some people in Britain and some in former British colonies, directly and indirectly, support financially and otherwise. That applies in varying degree to its ancillary branches \u2013 few of them \u2018blood relatives as, for example, Camilla Shand, Kate Middleton, Megan Markle are not – as well.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 What we have witnessed following Megan and Harry\u2019s statements in an open interview is a series of cover-up tries by Royal Family Specialists\u201d, by sleazy tabloids, by purveyors of fake news via radio and TV and other scandal\nmongers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

           \nThe Specialists roused sympathy, aged old gals and old chaps struggling with\ntheir dentures, wishing this horrible lockdown was\ndone, the pub open and \u2018what was the word we were looking for? <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Some tried to blame Megan and Harry for 99 year old Phillip\u2019s\nhealth problems and asserted too that M & H were heartless\nto upset people despite a pandemic that has killed thousands of fine people who have always\nbeen behind the Royals and so remain. And will always do, amen. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

One of them, the \u2018This Morning\u2019 interviewer pushed a close\nfriend of Meghan, Janina Gavankar, for the desired answers and she said,\nI speak for myself. You speak for them!\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

That more or less shut him up but then,\nsurprise, the media mentioned above, went into Janina\u2019s \u2018bio-history\u2019 finding, oh no wonder,\nher Asian roots. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

           \nA more objective report,\nwhich is yet to be challenged by \u2018the Palace\u2019 or their \u2018Press\u2019 had the following: In an\ninterview stuffed with quotable lines, it was among the most resonant: the invisible contract\u201d,\nas the Duke of Sussex called it, that has bound the royal family and reporters together for\nyears.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In this telling, it is not that the royals enjoy their media\nduties, or view them as a responsibility, but that the only way to survive the\npress is to strike a deal with it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There\u2019s a reason that these tabloids have holiday parties at\nthe palace,\u201d Meghan said. They\u2019re hosted by the palace, the tabloids are. You\nknow, there is a construct that\u2019s at play there.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

How\u2019s that for perfidy \u2013 which includes \u2018their\u2019 handling of the\nNHS, of vaccines and a multitude of related\ncrimes against humanity? <\/p>\n\n\n\n

And of \u2018their\u2019 view of \u2018war crimes\u2019 and the UNHCR?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

           \nBy the way, \u2018Albion\u2019is said to have been derived from a Roman term for \u2018white\u2019\n\u2013 <\/p>\n\n\n\n

But that had to do not with the skin colour of any of its inhabitants: \u2018it referred to the white chalk cliffs along the south-east coast of England\u2019.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Albion<\/strong> is the original name<\/strong> of England<\/strong> which\nthe land was known as<\/strong> by the Romans, probably from the Latin albus\nmeaning white, and referring to the chalk cliffs along the south-east coast\nof England<\/strong>. … Albion<\/strong> was replaced by the Latin\n‘Britannia’, and the Romans called<\/strong> the natives of England<\/strong> the\nBritons.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Perfidious Albion” is a pejorative\nphrase used within the context of international relations diplomacy to refer to\nacts of diplomatic sleights, duplicity, treachery and hence infidelity (with\nrespect to perceived promises made to or alliances formed with other nation\nstates) by monarchs or governments of the UK<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In an interview\nstuffed with quotable lines, it was among the most resonant: the invisible\ncontract\u201d, as the Duke of Sussex called it, that has bound the royal family and\nreporters together for years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In this telling, it is\nnot that the royals enjoy their media duties, or view them as a responsibility,\nbut that the only way to survive the press is to strike a deal with it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There\u2019s a reason that\nthese tabloids have holiday parties at the palace,\u201d Meghan said. They\u2019re\nhosted by the palace, the tabloids are. You know, there is a construct that\u2019s\nat play there.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If the royal family\u2019s\ndislike for the press was in any doubt, perhaps the most memorable confirmation\ncame in Prince Charles\u2019s remarks to his sons, caught by an unnoticed\nmicrophone<\/a>, during a photoshoot\nin Klosters, Switzerland, on a skiing holiday in 2005.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I hate doing this.\nBloody people,\u201d he said through visibly gritted teeth, before focusing on the\nBBC\u2019s Nicholas Witchell. I can\u2019t bear that man anyway. He\u2019s so awful, he\nreally is. I hate these people.\u201d They sat for the photos all the same.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"The<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The Prince of Wales with his\nsons during the Klosters photoshoot in 2005 where he made comments on his views\nof the press.
\nPhotograph: Arno\nBalzarini\/AP<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now that Harry and\nMeghan have so explicitly identified that contract, it is hard to see them, at\nleast, ever having a way back into it. But a seasoned royal communications\noperative says they have a point \u2013 and the deal still exists for the rest of\nthe family.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

They compared the\nrelationship to that endured by politicians who seek positive headlines. This\nis the same battle every prime minister has. There is a quid pro quo\nrelationship \u2013 there\u2019s a reason senior officials try to build relationships\nwith editors. It\u2019s about negotiating for favourable coverage.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It isn\u2019t explicit\nstuff,\u201d the former Buckingham Palace senior official argued. But often in\ntimes of a rough period of coverage, there\u2019d be meetings arranged and you might\nfind, for example, that an editor has a pet project that\u2019s important to them on\na personal basis.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In a week that claims\nof media racism became a central part of the debate over the treatment of Harry\nand Meghan, Marcus Ryder, a visiting professor in media diversity at Birmingham\nCity University, argued that a mixed-race woman\u2019s arrival in the family fatally\ndisrupted that cosy \u2013 if compromised \u2013 relationship.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The whole point of a\nculture like this is that it survives on the basis of unwritten rules,\u201d he\nsaid. And so when somebody comes into that culture from outside, it forces you\nto address those rules, or even make them explicit, and in doing so reexamine\nthem. It\u2019s often the person from the margins who might make us reassess\nsomething like this.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The final nature of\nthat rupture was further reinforced when it emerged that the couple had\ncomplained to Ofcom about Piers Morgan\u2019s discussion on\nGood Morning Britain<\/a> of\ntheir interview, having already complained to ITV. It came as Associated\nNewspapers, the publisher of the Daily Mail, wrote to the US broadcaster Viacom\nCBS over what it said was the indefensible\u201d use of images during Oprah\nWinfrey\u2019s interview with the Sussexes that had been doctored or presented as\nheadlines when they were not\u201d to suggest racist coverage.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What Piers Morgan\u2019s exit tells us about the future of impartial\nbroadcasting in the UK<\/a>Jane Martinson<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jane Martinson<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Jane<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Read\nmore<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n
What Piers Morgan\u2019s exit tells us about the future of impartial broadcas…<\/a> The presenter is unlikely to be jobless for long with Andrew Neil and Rupert Murdoch launching US-style news cha…<\/a> <\/td><\/tr><\/tbody><\/table>\n\n\n\n

While Harry and Meghan did not comment further themselves, they made\ntheir view on whether the media has a diversity problem even clearer on Friday\nwhen they made a launch donation to a new charity, the PressPad Charitable\nFoundation, which exists to improve socio-economic diversity within the media\u201d\n\u2013 and announced Ryder as a trustee.<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Three former royal reporters declined to comment on whether the old\nrelationship was based on quid pro quos. But Priyanka Raval, an early-career\njournalist at the Bristol Cable \u2013 one of the outlets to withdraw from\nconsideration for the Society of Editors\u2019 Press Awards after it released a\nstatement saying that there was no racism in the British media \u2013 said that as a\njournalist of colour she had long been sceptical of the mix of national\nnewspapers and the monarchy. It\u2019s the old establishment and the biased\nestablishment, it\u2019s a toxic combination,\u201d she said. Meghan came in with naive\nfresh eyes and she might have accidentally disrupted this whole way of being.\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Raval said she was proud of the Bristol Cable, which is run as a\ncooperative, for taking a principled stance\u201d on the subject and suggested that\nthe crumbling of the previous consensus on coverage of the royals and racism\nalike should be used to make way for something better.<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I really disagree with the insinuation that we have to close ranks,\u201d she\nsaid. We\u2019re doing journalism in a completely different way.\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Gamini Seneviratne \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 That is a term that historians of colonization are familiar with as a descriptive of the duplicity, treachery and the breach of treaties that marked England\u2019s relations with the peoples it sought to colonize \/ loot particularly in the 19th century. \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 What this note addresses are the manifestations of trickery and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-112707","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-forum"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/112707","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=112707"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/112707\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=112707"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=112707"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=112707"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}