When Diana entered the royal family she was not expected to become an international diplomat overnight.  But when Sophie became a royal bride she was already a business woman of some stature.  The Palace is now (belatedly) pondering the implications of business relationships for its newer members, but Sophie’s choice was less to do with royal connections than with good business practice.

When you are a corporate ambassador you try to present your company in its best light.  If your business is Public Relations, you have to demonstrate to a potential client your skills in perception, communication and discretion.  The client has to trust that you will understand his needs, develop a strategy for communicating his message, and be discrete about any other aspects of his business that he does not want to become public knowledge.  If the chairman of a PR firm does not conduct a business meeting in this way the potential client is unlikely to ask for terms of engagement.

The public have demonstrated over a long period that they want to reduce the number of royal family members on the civil list.  And they want the monarchy to modernise.  This necessarily means that many minor royals will need to work.  Perhaps guidelines would help, but when you are an ambassador for two organisations what you need more than anything else is common sense.  If this is lacking you should not be an ambassador in the first place.  In betraying royal and political confidences to a complete stranger Sophie's world was exposed as having poor business skills and a total lack of common sense.  It should not be a matter of protocol for the Palace; it should be a disciplinary matter for her business partner.

Of course, if all that Sophie stands accused of is lack of common sense, she is in good company.  Her awful judgment pales into insignificance when compared with the politicians who devised, and who for years have refused to dismantle, the Common Agricultural Policy; or the government ministers and officials who have contradicted themselves daily with ever more inane pronouncements on foot & mouth; or the Prime Minister whose stated belief is that foreign tourists will be persuaded by the date of a general election to ignore the images of burning animals that have been broadcast round the world; or the US President’s belief that sending a spy plane manned with specialist code-breakers to eavesdrop on one of your trading partners entitles you to the high moral ground when you get caught; or the regime in Beijing who insist on an apology from a trading partner whilst denying access to the evidence as to how the accident occurred.  

Royal sense?  Political sense?  Bureaucratic sense?  It seems that common sense is aptly named.  Perhaps it is only available to the common man.