I feel that the new Royal couple may have a similar problem. I might have got hold of the wrong end of the stick, but they seem to be playing down much of the glamour that is surely an essential part of the royal schtick. Kate Middleton is subtly selling the idea she will be nothing like her deceased mum-in-law to be (there’s a simpler way, Kate – don’t promote landmine charities!).

What is the point of royalty if there is no glamour? The Royal spin machine is much more professional that it was thirty years ago, but that very spin cycle seems to be rinsing out the parts that make royalty royal. They balance media relations with some tough, side of stage legal rottweilers and these snarling beasts control the minds of editorial ambition.

Of course, the world has moved on and super celebrity couples are thick on the ground. Posh and Becks, Brangelina – you know, the motley crew. Arguably the choice to carefully craft the brand narrative has been pretty clever. Perhaps they are being made to stand out by stepping back.

Make no mistake, however; it’s all about trade and commerce. Forget the tea towels, sick bags and bunting – by all accounts the House of Windsor is good for tourism. Isn’t that the reason to spend tax payers’ money? Doesn’t the world love all the pomp and circumstance? They flock to our shores, not for the bucolic vistas and awesome old cityscapes but for a glimpse of the monarchy – don’t they?

We are a nation cryogenically frozen in a period costume drama and don’t the foreign consumers just love it! This Friday the nation, and the world, will bask in fuzzy marshmallow sunshine as another brood mare is given the royal seal of approval. The event hype is moving at a fabulously controlled pace and the glamour machine is on hand for this event at least. There’s a firm hand on the media tiller – even Harry has been bolted down!

But after the state pageant do we want the future to be seamless and without flaws? I guess we are entering a new age, one without calamities. A perfect, photogenic couple; a prince with an ‘arm’s length’ media policy, controlled offerings and a statesman-like and focused approach, sans plummy vowels.

If this is it for the Royal gaffe, I will be very sad! I will mourn the era of Royal misfits and hapless bit part players, the era of It’s A Royal Knockout and its knock-on effects. Harry, Fergie, Andrew, Sophie, Edward, I beg you – please don’t disappear! Please make an effort and break out of your media shackles once in a while to give us all a laugh!

From now on, I suspect, any political instance of this law in action will be known as the ‘Brown Variant’, after unguarded remarks about a woman he had just spoken to on a walkabout were broadcast to the world. He condemned Gillian Duffy as a ‘bigot’ into a radio mic he didn’t realise was still live.

Unsurprisingly, the press have pounced. What is surprising is that this is the first serious gaffe on any side in a flawless, highly polished election campaign. Everything is marshalled and scrubbed until it has passed the hygiene test. All the leaders have been flawless until now – Brown is usually careful to have his own radio mic. Tellingly, he didn’t this time. Instinct suggests there was poor planning by Brown’s minders and that they ignored local intel.

In such circumstances, a walkabout was always going to have ‘disaster’ written all over it. Everyone makes mistakes, but in such a pristine, polished atmosphere, the first slip is always going to be big news.

Gordon Brown has been under enormous pressure – in football terms, he’s been on a nil nil draw with seconds to go, whilst the goalie is run up the field and set up to try and score a decisive corner in the dying seconds of the game, since the first leaders’ debate.

So is this gaffe an election-changing moment? Possibly, but possibly not in the way the right wing press may be hoping. Naturally, the Sun etc are throwing vast amounts of money (£50,000 has been mentioned) in Gillian Duffy’s direction in the hope that she’ll go for Brown’s jugular with them. But she is old school Labour – she may be furiously angry but she still may not want to risk destroying the party for the sake of an (admittedly rude) off the cuff, private comment that happened to be broadcast by mistake.

Mrs Duffy strikes me as a pretty ordinary woman, however, and these are straitened times – presented with enough cash, she may well take the filthy tabloid lucre. If she does, though, Gordon’s spinners will find they have a chink of light.

Another thing to bear in mind is that Brown has behaved impeccably since, taking the blame squarely on the chin and apologising. He’s done well by fronting up and remaining calm. And, once the dust has settled, this human side, this leader with edges in an election of soft, polished curves, might actually go over rather well. Certainly the media are fascinated – the 24/7 news cycle, desperate to cover every moment of the debacle, even shot endless minutes of Duffy’s front door as Brown went in to apologise.

However, by stoically doing the right thing – shouldering the blame, apologising and getting on with the campaign – Brown could give the populace just what they didn’t realise they’d wanted all along: a political campaign that isn’t polished to within an inch of its life and that has a genuine sense of danger and surprise. If only Brown had been braver and tackled bigotry in the wake of the comment.

There is, of course, one saving grace for Gordon, one place where he should be able to shine – the debate tomorrow night. It’ll make interesting viewing in the wake of this gaffe.

Clarence House’s PR, of course, spun the story in the slickest way imaginable, by swiftly leaking the story to all the papers, to take the sting out of the News of the World’s outraged exclusive – a textbook case of lessening the impact of Harry’s unthinking tongue. It’s disappointing, though, that the Fourth Estate’s reaction, which on the whole amounts to little more than a slap on the ankle, tacitly gives permission for such language to remain in use. Surely they should be far more critical?

It’s possible, of course, that the Royal PR machine behind the Princes is just a little too good, but I wonder, in these recessionary times, if it’s not as much about the media keeping Clarence House sweet so they don’t lose access to William and Harry, whose antics, wholesome or otherwise, help keep their circulation up. The way the story has played out certainly suggests that the media were happy to collude with the damage limitation, because of the inside track they were given at the News of the World’s expense.

It’s disappointing that Prince Harry is not the role model he’s been asked to be. But then Harry is something of a blast from the past – he’s the product of a privileged lifestyle that is prone to be blunt of speech, sometimes to the point of rudeness or petty racism, unthinking of the consequences or the people he insults. It is to be hoped that Prince Harry will learn what it means to set an example, will learn the art of diplomacy, but it is equally possible that he will mutate into his grandfather if left unchecked and become another just chip off the block of institutionalized racism at the heart of the establishment.

At a time when tension in the Middle East is running dangerously high and all sides are digging in and whooping up new reasons for continuing the violence, however, surely the revelation that the third person in line to the throne is perfectly happy to bandy about divisive language in the name of fun should have provoked a sterner dressing down from the press and public. 

Unfortunately, at the moment, it seems as if Prince Harry is dripping oil on the fire when he should be aiming it at troubled waters. Let’s hope Clarence House’s formidable PR team can point him in the right direction. I wait with interest to see what demonstration or stunt they will concoct in the near future to further limit the damage.