26th September 2022
You may recall this blog had a positive post about the broadcasting of the Accession Council:
That detailed post even featured in the House of Commons briefing on the accession of the King:
The broadcasting of the full Accession Council was a boon for the public understanding of the constitution of the United Kingdom, I said.
I even ventured that that further Privy Council meetings could now be televised.
This could be done easily, it seemed to me, as such broadcasts would be in the gift of the King.
Oh what a fool I was.
Of course this welcome shift to transparency would not last.
As reported by the Guardian:
(Highlighting added.)
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It was too good to be true.
The new King is still the same old Prince of Wales who insisted that his notes to ministers be outside the scope of the Freedom of Information Act.
Prince Hal has not become Henry V.
This is not a bright new morning of royal openness, but a resumption of the tight controls of information that we are used to.
This is such a shame.
The crown had an opportunity to throw obscure parts of our constitution into public gaze, to balance the usual focus on Westminster and Downing Street, to reveal the hidden wiring.
The King had an opportunity to use his control of what can be broadcast to show his engagement with process and practice.
And now, the cloak is too pulled over again.
Oh well, it was good while it lasted.
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Great post as always. I understand the impulse to keep parts of the funeral under wraps – for all its significance, it’s still a funeral.
But the accession council is pure politics, a public event. The whole thing should be in the public domain. As you say, very disappointing.
Will the permitted excerpt include Penny Mordaunt mangling ” pursuivant”? If so, I can die happy.
Cherchez la plume (pas forcément celle de ma tante)?
I wish I could say I’m even a little bit surprised.
Can’t have the commoners thinking they now actually matter enough that they might get to see something of what their betters get up to behind closed doors, after all…
Now I better understand how some ‘ innocents’ get slaughtered.
It’s also important to understand the role(s) especially the judicial ( life/death) roles the Privy Council can undertake.
Key to the privy council is that advice to the reigning monarch is kept confidential. Many, not all discussions are held on ‘privy council ‘ terms.
The key word, as the name on the tin implies, is that only those attending are ‘privy’ to the conversation & discussions held.
Transparency can only go so far in public & private – thinking here of board meetings, school governors meetings, cabinet meetings, COBRA meetings – it’s the nature of things.
No-one not even the Napoleonic codex can legislate for every legal or judicial eventuality.
We’re clearly getting better at openness on some constitutional matters – some things will remain closed. Bit like going to the Dr really.
I don’t subscribe to the argument because something has always been a certain way, it has to stay that way.
I agree.
Transparency and openess are dynamic attributes. My point is that it’s very difficult to obviate certain privacy & confidential issues.
“Privy counsellors have to take an oath – or make an affirmation – when being admitted to the privy council. A section of the oath requires the taker to keep “secret matters committed” to them. This has led to a convention developing where privy counsellors receive confidential briefings on “privy council terms”, usually on matters of national security….”
“Transparency can only go so far in public & private – thinking here of board meetings, school governors meetings, cabinet meetings, COBRA meetings – it’s the nature of things.”
But that’s a false equivalency – the Accession Council performance was initially broadcast for all to see, and limits put on access to it retrospectively.
From DAG original post: “I even ventured that that further Privy Council meetings could now be televised.
This could be done easily, it seemed to me, as such broadcasts would be in the gift of the King.”
I agree it is/was silly to limit access retrospectively – but DAG went further with his suggestions that future Privy Council meetings could now be televised.
Given the oath of office of a PC & depending on the sensitivity of the subject matters being discussed, the likelihood of filming of the complete session is ,in my view, low.
Maybe the opening/closing sessions of the regular monthly PC meeting could be televised – I struggle to see the benefit of watching 5 or 6 people standing up ( as is customary) talking to the King to be of great interest.
It’s almost like due to the monarchy being a feudal, anti-democratic institution it cannot afford to let in daylight upon magic
Indeed. Deeply disappointing. The only thing that will really survive as a record of this event will be the social media videos of the incidents with the pens. Not a good outcome for anyone.
Censorship is always a bad look. In the past we wouldn’t have been aware it had taken place. With the wall to wall coverage, we saw and commented on everything. Pen related tantrums, tears that were shed, etc. The cat is out of the bag and there’s no use pretending some things didn’t happen. Video will be posted online whatever the Palace says.
Limiting the total length of video recording remaining accessible and expecting a veto over individual clips is going too far. If this is how Charles intends to continue the monarchy’s popularity will decline and he might well end up being the last King of Scotland, as well as England, Wales, and Northern Ireland.
Half of me is wondering whether there will be an official memorial film issued by the palace for purchasing next year sometime.
This seems to be nothing more sinister than a copyright lawyer at work. It says, don’t bother the palace with requests to show any clip up to 12 minutes long otherwise we’ll be inundated. But anything longer goes through the usual channels. But why 12 minutes, which isn’t a nice rounded number like 10 minutes or a quarter of an hour.
but why has the Palace got copyright on events broadcast by national and international media anyway. They shouldn’t be censoring, restricting or otherwise hindering rebroadcast.
It doesn’t imply censoring or hindering rebroadcasting. Many organisations assert their copyright, but freely allow any reasonable requests. So far, I haven’t heard any evidence of unreasonable behaviour. Just because something is possible, does not mean to say it is actually happening.
You haven’t heard anything because the whole thing is still available on services like iplayer. No broadcaster has had to ask for anything yet. This is about what happens later, when broadcasters want to show footage of the accession council, the funeral and anything else related to events during that period.
And it’s on YouTube in full. So the cat’s out of the bag. Copies are being made by those who imagine that the Palace will be so concerned as to pursue copyright claims on social media channels. But we miss the main point of the blog, in that a code of transparency is needed to make sure constitutional matters are free of copyright and other restrictions, while privy matters remain private.
Agreed.
Surely the important thing is that it was broadcast?
Interminably.
Viewing events from abroad it is sometimes difficult to separate recent events from Monty Python sketches.
This morning French TV viewers have been shown footage of the late Queen walking her corgies .
I guess the broadcast of his peevish commands regarding pens didn’t go down well!