Harry and Meghan have hired a new communications director, Sara Latham, 48
Public relations is not a job for the faint-hearted, but even seasoned practitioners of the spin-doctoring arts might hesitate to take on the Duke and Duchess of Sussex.
The royal couple are, after all, taking a step into the unknown as they and the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge divide their respective households.
And Harry and Meghan’s recent public utterances suggest they have a radically different vision of their future to the royal tradition.
Those who foresaw Meghan forging a more star-studded, international and high-profile role for her and her husband than merely opening libraries and handing out bravery awards may be starting to think they are right.
For the Sussexes have now recruited a high-powered and impeccably well-connected communications director who has worked not only for Bill and Hillary Clinton but also Tony Blair.
Like the Duchess, Sara Latham is an American who has acquired dual US-UK citizenship. She also enjoys a reputation as a wily political operator with deep roots in the Democrat and New Labour camps.
Ms Latham is an American with duel citizenship and has her roots in the Democrat party and New Labour. She has worked with Tony Blair,
She was brought in to help choreograph Bill Clinton’s re-election campaign in 1996, helped to sneak in Barack Obama’s proposed Cabinet nominations for secret interviews after his election in 2008, and helped prepare Hillary Clinton for the White House as part of what was described as her ‘covert operations team’.
There may have been an added attraction for what appears to have been a selection made by the duchess, rather than Prince Harry.
She hasn’t hidden her loathing of Donald Trump, describing him on US TV as ‘misogynistic’ and publicly supporting Mrs Clinton’s rival presidential campaign.
Appointing a PR chief with a long-standing link to the Clintons – who of course Mr Trump hates – may be seen as a snub to the president.
Sources say the couple met Miss Latham, 48, only this year and were immediately drawn to her ‘firm but fair approach’. It is possible they were introduced via the duchess’s Hollywood friend George Clooney, whose wife Amal attended Meghan’s recent – and lavish – ‘baby shower’ festivities in New York.
Clooney was involved in raising funds for the Hillary campaign.
A former colleague yesterday described Miss Latham as ‘very smart and very good at dealing with difficult characters’. She is, he added, ‘very diplomatically adept’ and ‘not in it for the money’.
It is estimated she is on a salary of £140,000 which is relatively modest for what she could be earning in the corporate sector. Miss Latham had recently rejoined the London PR firm, Freuds, as its managing partner.
Ms Latham was brought in to help choreograph Bill Clinton’s re-election campaign in 1996, helped to sneak in Barack Obama’s proposed Cabinet nominations for secret interviews after his election in 2008, and helped prepare Hillary Clinton for the White House as part of what was described as her ‘covert operations team’
Reporting to the Queen’s press secretary Donal McCabe, Miss Latham will start her new job in the spring; the couple’s baby is rumoured to be expected next month.
Miss Latham will no doubt be paid as much as the palace could afford but spinning for the Sussexes would be no job for an amateur.
She seems to have risen effortlessly through the political and corporate worlds in a career that has
