Deborah Orr: A right royal muddle at the BBC

Poor old Jeremy Paxman. He must surely wonder whether it's ever worth opening his mouth in public. I'm sure the man has many interesting and positive things to say. But it's the stupid or the trivial or the wrong things that always seem to be seized upon in the service of the "news cycle", whether it's underpants, discrimination against middle-aged white men or Newsnight's forays into cyberspace.

But his latest pronouncement really does bear some consideration, because it tends to suggest that Paxman – who might be mistaken on a good day for the public service broadcaster par excellence – may not actually understand anything about public service broadcasting at all.

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• Paxman: BBC fawns over Royal family

On an edition of Radio 4's The Archive Hour, Paxman opined that the BBC "fawned" too much over the Royal family, and did not know whether to "report" or "celebrate" events. "They do not treat them in the way they would treat other members of the public," he said, "to which it might equally reply that they are not other members of the public." Yet the point about the Royal Family is that they are not "other members of the public" or even people at all, not when they are acting in their "Royal Family" context anyway.

They are, theoretically at least, mere ciphers, vessels, the living embodiment of a certain idea about Britain and about constitutional democracy. They exist in a formal setting to perform the public duties that are deemed to be within their remit.

Likewise, the BBC exists in part to broadcast those public duties, whenever that is required of them. The Royals are expected to be dutiful servants of the status quo, whenever such occasions come around, and so too is the national broadcaster. If this leads to boring and deferential programmes – and it does – then that's part of the point of the whole establishment set-up.

Elaborate deference at the BBC is the very best way of illustrating how anachronistic the relationship between the Royals and their subjects is slowly becoming. Paxman particularly mentioned the marriage of the Prince of Wales to Camilla Parker-Bowles as problematic. Yet the BBC had no choice but to treat their wedding as a joyous event supported and celebrated by all faithful subjects.

This may have been very far from the case, but by the time the BBC got involved, the constitutional wheeling and dealing had already been done, and the public service broadcaster was under an obligation to deliver the officially impartial news of its officially happy results. One may consider it all to be nonsense – I know I do – but if we are going to have to put up with the nonsense then it has at least to be carried out with some conviction.

Likewise, it was indeed wrong that Peter Sissons wore a maroon and not a black tie when reporting on the Queen Mother's funeral. Paxman described it as "a muddle". But he seems quite muddled himself. The BBC is part of the national pantomime of Royalty, and in the national pantomime we're all expected to grieve like mad when an old lady dies, and dress up in the appropriate garb.

I didn't grieve for the Queen Mother, and I've actually dreaded the death of the Queen for as long as I can remember, precisely because I can't bear the prospect of being as out of step with the "national mood" as I expect to be. But I accept that the "national mood" is part of a system that is democratically upheld, and that I'm just going to have huddle with some like-minded dissidents and lump it.

Anyway, other media, and the parts of the BBC which were not engaged in that direct and specific public service role, were at liberty to discuss, rail against, or satirise the heir's highly compromised second union as much as they wanted to. But the official line on the Royal Family is that we want them so much, and adore them so greatly, that fawning is quite natural. The real difficulty is that fawning is indulged in so much by the rest of the media. This was never greater than when the entire industry agreed that it would keep Prince Harry's deployment to Afghanistan secret, because the young chap did so want to go, and his presence would endanger his fellow soldiers, were it known to the enemy.

Here was a perfect example of a senior member of the Royal family rebelling against the constrictions that his unique position placed upon him, and discovering, happily, that the media would collude in allowing him to do so. What's more, they continued to collude after the story did break, and devoted time and space to publishing photographs that had been taken purely in the service of Royal public relations. Here was misplaced deference, far more troubling than any worries about "tone" at the BBC.

Prince Harry, in fact, was in the same position as executives at the BBC must sometimes feel they are in, hampered in his private ambitions and his private views by his duty as a member of a national institution. Unlike the BBC, he decided that the expression of his own opinions and desires was of paramount importance. He did not want his membership of the British Army to be part of the pantomime that his hereditary status deems it to be, so every power in every media outlet in the land agreed to script a different pantomime, just for him.

When people talk about respecting the Queen, but not thinking quite so much of the rest of her crew, what they really mean is that she has succeeded in subsuming her own personality in the service of the institution she inherited, while the others have not.

As far as we can see, the Queen has no problem with the limitations dictated by her role, and no feeling that she ought to have "a normal life" as well. It is clear that none of her children, or their children, is able to manage these difficult matters with quite such discipline.

For the Royals, if they are not more careful, there will come a point when the BBC's obligation to treat them as the gilded automatons that they ought to be, starts to look to the rest of the world like an absurd and incredible farce. Perhaps it is Paxman's recent conversion from Republican to Royalist that has set him worrying about such a future collapse. For some of us, it can't come quickly enough.

d.orr@independent.co.uk

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