Matt McCarten: Royal road show seems like publicity stunt

Prince William, here with PM John Key, was the centre of attention. Photo / Getty Images

Does anyone else find the fawning over Prince William and his girlfriend Kate Middleton nauseating?

Normally I'd say cheesy. But this week I found it so tacky that some English kid was now the centre of attention of the Christchurch earthquake, rather than the dead.

I also can't get over the sense that Friday's memorial service for the victims - before some bodies have been recovered - was just some giant cynical publicity stunt that conveniently promotes the British Royal family. Are our dead just a photo backdrop opportunity for the British press to promote him as his mother's replacement and as a sales drawcard for their tabloids? I feel we are being manipulated.

Am I too cynical to believe some huckster at Buckingham Palace saw our twin disasters of Christchurch and Pike River as a good opportunity for their newly engaged prince and his ever-adoring fiancee to be seen in the mould of saintly Princess Di? Why do I automatically assume that the spin doctors in John Key's office were more involved in organising the tour by our newest celebrity royal than our foreign affairs department?

Watching the drivel reported by our serious news outlets just makes me cringe. For goodness sake, it's not really news, is it? Surely it's more public relations. The breathless stories of locals adoringly telling us how this God-like prince is so normal and caring really makes me feel unwell.

It's called milking emotion for whatever it's worth. Will we never get over our inferiority complex when it comes to the royals? If teenagers can get over their teen idol crushes, why can't we?

I accept I'm a bit over-the-top criticising having the Prince at Friday's memorial. But that's because it seemed a bit insensitive to have an English future monarch (well Germanic actually with a bit of Greek added) as our Government's centre of attention on St Patrick's Day. You know - the Republic of Ireland's national day? The Irish martyrs who died fighting the Brits for an independent Irish Republic as far away from the English as they could get will be spinning in their graves.

Many of our country's founders were forced to flee to New Zealand from Ireland after the English nobility had run them off their lands, leaving those who didn't immigrate to starve to death in their thousands.

So having the future head of the British ruling class that instigated and benefited from these atrocities now popping over on a glamour tour to "comfort" many of the descendants of those victims on their national day just makes me queasy. Of course, I am a rabid opponent of a foreign monarchy being our head of state and I will be transparent and say my dad is Irish.

The Prince and his extended family are pretty irrelevant. We seem to only keep our British royals around because we can't be bothered changing our system of governance.

So if they're irrelevant, why get worked up? I'm probably more concerned by the deliberate manipulation of our political and media spinners to promote Prince William for their political and commercial ends.

Media moguls have been waiting for years to find the appropriate excuse to replace Princess Di with her son to sell their gossip rags. They have had a perfect opportunity with the Prince's engagement to now promote him as a worthy successor to his mother, who we all now know as the People's Princess - a name penned by former British Prime Minister Tony Blair's speechwriter.

The victims of both Pike River and Christchurch become the perfect supporting cast for the Prince's rise into the hearts of our people.

The Prince is a worthy son indeed. On Friday we were all dutifully honoured to have such a celebrity mourner to share our pain. The victims' families were overshadowed by the Prince's presence and the Prime Minister and his Government humbly accepted their supporting roles in this epic.

Did I tell you there is an election in six months? We've been so busy reading about bonnie Prince William I'd clean forgot about it. I'm sure the Prime Minister never gave it a thought either.