Scottish Daily Mail

How VERY cosy, Ma’am!

The Queen’s grandson has won the contract to stage her 90th birthday party. Sheer business savvy? No, he’s got THREE clients – and two are granny and his mum!

- by Ruth Sunderland and Rebecca English

CLAD in jeans, a striped shirt and a high-visibility vest, the man driving a JCB forklift truck around Horse Guards Parade near Buckingham Palace could have been just another workman preparing the site for a big event.

Far from it. The person behind the wheel was Peter Phillips, grandson of the Queen, mucking in during preparatio­ns for the 2014 London leg of the Longines Global Champions Tour show-jumping event, which his firm organises each year.

Cynics could be forgiven for wondering whether Mr Phillips — his mother, Princess Anne, turned down a title on his and sister Zara’s behalf — was stage-managing his image as a no-nonsense operator.

He has, to his credit, tried hard to win his spurs as a businessma­n on his own merits, rather than basking in his royal status, and so successful has he been at keeping out of the limelight that he and his wife, Autumn, are among the least recognised members of the Royal Family.

But now, all that may be about to change — for the 38-year- old is to play a key role i n the Queen’s official 90th birthday celebratio­ns this summer.

Controvers­ially, it was revealed earlier this month that charity workers would be charged £ 150 a ticket to attend the jamboree in The Mall on June 12, which is being organised by Phillips’ firm.

The contract to run the Patron’s Lunch — one of the biggest street parties Britain has ever seen — is a commercial coup that Peter Phillips is convinced he achieved independen­tly of his family connection­s.

But could he really have snapped up such a high-profile deal — one which will place a huge feather in the cap of his Australian paymasters — if it were not for his lineage?

THE Queen did not want to celebrate becoming the longest- r ei gning monarch in British history last year, as her own achievemen­t inevitably highlighte­d the deaths of her ancestors, so more emphasis is being put on this year’s festivitie­s.

However, there seems a contradict­ion in holding a lunch to mark the good causes supported by the Queen — Peter’s specific idea — and then charging charity workers for the privilege of going.

And although Phillips insists his ‘ bid’ to organise the lunch was submitted to Buckingham Palace ‘through the normal channels’, his business credential­s don’t appear to extend far from his close family.

The controvers­y has rekindled memories of his previous scrapes over money, including the sale to Hello! magazine of coverage of his 2008 wedding f or a rumoured £500,000, and the years he spent as a protégé of disgraced banker Fred Goodwin, the former Royal Bank of Scotland supremo.

Since leaving RBS in 2012, Phillips has been London director of leading Australian sports management company SEL UK Ltd.

SEL in Australia was set up in 1997 by British entreprene­ur J a mes Erskine. The parent company boasts an impressive list of clients, including former Aussie cricketer Shane Warne and recent England World Cup rugby player Sam Burgess.

Erskine’s relationsh­ip with Peter and Zara was based on friendship with their father, Captain Mark Phillips. ‘Mark and Princess Anne sent their children to work with me in Australia during their gap years,’ Erskine has said, ‘ and when Zara decided she’d take riding seriously, I was asked to manage her.’

In its nearly four years of operation under the stewardshi­p of Peter Phillips, SEL’s British arm — whose address, appropriat­ely, is Buckingham Palace Road in London — has yet to gain the same clout.

It claims on its website only three cli ents, i ncluding t his year’s Patron’s lunch and the Gatcombe Festival of British Eventing — which takes place on, er, Princess Anne’s Gloucester­shire estate.

In other words, two out of his three customers are his mother and his grandmothe­r. The third is the Longines event.

Surprising­ly, f or an outfi t entrusted with organising an event of such national and internatio­nal importance as the Queen’s 90th birthday celebratio­ns, SEL UK’s latest accounts to June 2014 show net assets of just £14,537 — although it does, of course, have the backing of the Australian operation.

AnoT-FoR- PRoFIT event, the royal street party is supported by a host of high- profile sponsors, including drinks giant Diageo, which is providing Pimm’s, Boots and Marks & Spencer, which is supplying the hamper lunch.

This raises an obvious question: with so many multi-billion-pound FTSE 100 firms involved, why are guests being charged?

A spokesman for the Patron’s Lunch said that while the partners’ backing is generous, it doesn’t cover all the costs, which are ‘significan­t’. According to Phillips, SEL is being paid a set fee — although the exact amount remains secret. But the real benefit to his Australian employers is undoubtedl­y the priceless global publicity and kudos.

Which is perhaps why the financial arrangemen­ts for the 90th birthday celebratio­n have created a certain amount of disquiet.

‘The feeling is that this hasn’t been handled terribly well, and they (Peter and his firm) have got a lot of ground to make up if it is going to be a success,’ said one royal source.

For their part, Peter and Autumn, 37, who live on the Gatcombe estate with their daughters Savannah, five, and Isla, three, have wisely kept low profiles following the ructions over the sale of the rights to their wedding (along with photos of their royal guests). Many of Peter’s relatives felt let down at the time.

The episode encapsulat­ed many of the problems facing fringe royals such as Peter Phillips. on the one hand, they are often rebuked if they fail to build an independen­t career. on the other, they run the risk of being accused of taking advantage of their royal connection­s.

‘They are between a rock and a hard place,’ said one former board member of RBS. Aged just 27 when he was hired by RBS in 2005, he ran the sponsorshi­p of the Williams Formula 1 team, which saw the bank’s logo plastered over racing cars in the years leading up to the financial crisis.

Many say he was cynically used as an unwitting pawn i n Fred Goodwin’s quest to ingratiate himself with the Royal Family.

‘Peter was hired purely in order for Fred to worm his way in further with the Royals,’ we were told.

Ian Fraser, author of the bestsellin­g book Shredded, which chronicles the downfall of RBS, says: ‘ Fred’s relationsh­ip with royalty was very interestin­g.

‘Goodwin became chairman of the Prince’s Trust and turned it around. The Queen was delighted he had transforme­d the fortunes of her son Charles’s charity, and so he was at that time very popular with the Royal Family.’

BEFoRE his squalid downfall, while still at the height of his powers, the banking boss lavished up to £200 million of investors’ funds a year on sponsoring trophy events. Peter’s sister Zara was appointed one of the bank’s ‘ ambassador­s’ and is said to have been paid £90,000 a year for wearing the bank’s logo at sporting events.

‘The corporate sports sponsorshi­p and hospitalit­y was mind-boggling at its peak,’ says a former board member. ‘I don’t blame Peter Phillips. He was a young guy, he wouldn’t know it was wrong.’

other former colleagues describe Phillips as unassuming, hardworkin­g and ‘absolutely charming’.

While the fact remains that he can hardly claim to be a towering figure in the world of commerce, business contacts say that, more recently, it was the organisati­onal skill he’s displayed at SEL which won him the Queen’s street party contract.

no doubt Peter Phillips deserves respect for trying to make his way in the world and earn his own living.

Whether his firm deserves to win such a prestigiou­s contract as the Queen’s 90th birthday lunch ahead of all rivals is another question altogether.

 ?? Picture: REX/SHUTTERSTO­CK ?? Well connected: Peter and Zara with the Queen at Royal Ascot
Picture: REX/SHUTTERSTO­CK Well connected: Peter and Zara with the Queen at Royal Ascot

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