Prince William's Documentary

[Viviennemary]

I have recorded this to watch later. It's quite long 90 minutes. We don't often see William speaking on the TV so it will be good to see how he and Kate come across. It's on at 9 pm. Hope it's interesting. Anyone else planning to watch it.

The RF have to pitch their causes carefully as the principle that the RF don’t get involved in politics has served the Queen well. So, mental health and climate change/conservation are areas where they can make a difference. Likewise, Kate supports the importance of early years intervention but doesn’t get involved in child poverty, even though the two are linked. It’s a very fine line to manoeuvre and I’m sure the RF take good advice to get it right (as much as possible). Like many things, what is possible to be involved in has evolved over the years - and much credit must be given to Diana for championing AIDS and land minds, and now Camilla for domestic violence against women and Sophie for preventing sexual violence against women in conflict and war.

Good points Wufti 👍

I thought it was a good programme and I enjoyed it.

William came across as being interested, wanting to learn, encourage viewers to learn and support and to pass on this information to the next generation.

The projects highlighted were superb and extremely well represented, particularly by the UK school children. It’s important to raise awareness for the small things like insects or discarded litter as well as big game poaching and trophy hunting, or destroying the habitats of endangered species. I thought that message came across well.

Perhaps William’s putting in some work now in readiness for taking over his Father’s position at www.wwf.org.uk/who-we-are/our-president-hrh-prince-charles
I think Prince Philip May have taken the same role previously.

For some reason it is not available on my virgin catch up which is super annoying, so I could only watch a short clip on YouTube, but I thought it came across rather well - and I am a full on republican.

I think it shows how apparent it is that William has a long held interest and has spent lots of time working on this.

I’m not a fan of William’s but I think he comes across well on this.

Its easy to dismiss the Royals as band-wagoning when they get involved with causes. However their status and celebrity means that anything they are involved with, will automatically receive more attention from people and the press. They know this and it's why they do stuff like this documentary - it improves coverage and support for those charities and causes.

What occurred to me, watching the clip, was that it is very easy to dismiss them because of their privilege, and I don't deny that their privilege is real, and grossly unfair (again - I'm a full on republican, would vote for dissolution of the monarchy if there was a vote tomorrow), but... what he is saying, and the focus of the documentary, is right. Climate change affects everyone everywhere - and will only affect every single person on Earth more and more as time goes on. Using their privilege to amplify this message is a positive thing to do. And it benefits children living in poverty as much as it does rhinos in Africa. Because at the end of the day we all share one planet, and arguing about who has a larger slice while dismissing the message that all the slices will shrink is self defeating and pointless.

Obviously arguing about the distribution of slices is a totally valid thing to do separately - I would not disagree with anyone arguing for the benefits of a more equal society, redistribution of wealth. But that is whataboutery if you use it to dismiss valid points and awareness raising about climate change.

...children living in poverty in the UK as much as...

I thought it was quite good. I feel really sad for young DCs who might witness popular species dying out.
His voice is a bit droll, he reminded me of Ben Fogle a bit, could do to vary his tone a bit.