Do you think William and Kates tour was 'tone deaf'?

[oovetolove]

I'm interested to hear from people about this.

FWIW I think it's been an odd tour - almost an unnecessary flaunt of wealth and power.

I don't understand the point of the tour tbh and whilst I don't know if I'd consider it tone deaf as the papers suggest, it's definitely pointless and a reminder for me why the monarchy are becoming so outdated and more irrelevant, though I'm interested to hear others opinions on this.

@SpikyJugs

I understand why they felt it was their duty to visit - but yes the whole thing was totally tone deaf.

They could have used this as an opportunity to do things differently. They could still have visited, but could have refused the pomp and ceremony, the parading around standing in open topped land rovers dressed in their regalia, and flouncing around in expensive dresses.

They could have said 'you know what - we want to go and meet real people' and gone and talked, hung out with people, and got to understand them. Dressed casually with no ceremony.

Total PR failure and a missed opportunity on their parts. It shows me how out of touch they are with public opinion.

Someone upthread asked what has changed since Harry did a similar visit which was well received. I think Harry definitely has more of the 'man of the people' touch, and I honestly couldn't see him doing the stiff rigid parading around that WIlliam and Kate have done.

Huge Clanger of a PR fail and a missed opportunity to make themselves popular.

Agree with this.

Also on the all-white retinue another poster mentioned, a journalist pointed out that all the press corps and military personnel transporting them were white too (not that W&K could change this).

Yes. Completely ridiculous. With the war and how much British people are struggling right now...watching the 15 dressed of Kate Middleton gave me the rage.

@moonbedazzled It’s not really the same thing though is it- QE2 is HoS because of subjection/colonialism and all the unpleasantness that went with it. The royal family are imposed ,not elected, as say the Irish HoS . Monarchy developed for a reason but it now is an incredibly redundant concept, it’s maintains an unequal social, political and economic hierarchy all based on how well your ancestors were doing a thousand years ago. The optics of this tour was poor because times have changed. The problem with having had a great big empire is that it’s hard to escape the past , no matter where you go. The power of modern monarchy might be symbolic but it ‘s also symbolic of past infamy.( and this is a problem other European monarchies too)

Just leave this here...

vm.tiktok.com/ZMLHjVmxd/

A tone deaf cringefest for sure.
Why are we supposed to believe this is work?
A big extravagant jolly holiday is what it is, so let’s call it that. The pr job behind the scenes has been nauseating too.

Yup

yep.

It was embarrassing.

I do sometimes wonder if the press are sitting on a really big royal story and are waiting out of respect to the Queen.

The tour was a disaster. Officially it was to celebrate the Jubilee but unofficially it was to shore up support for the Monarchy. Good job W&K aren't on PRP!

The royal tours need a complete rethink. This tour was both ridiculous and bizarre on so many levels and exposed just how completely out of touch William and Kate are.

I've wittered on about this before but, contrary to public opinion, I don't think the Queen has done a good job during her reign. Yes she has been dutiful, traditional, conservative and stalwart but the job also requires vision and forward thinking. It's not just about preserving the status quo and being dragged kicking and screaming to pay more tax and reacting about twenty years too late to the public mood. It requires making realistic assessments about contemporary society and taking the initiative and adapting in order to survive. She should have taken the bull by the horns and modernised and slimmed down the institution drastically and sold off some of the properties, or turned them in to specialist hospitals for example, many years ago.

The monarchy in its current bloated form is completely anachronistic in the 21st century and some would argue completely superfluous to current requirements. By holding on to the reins for so long the Queen has put Charles in a virtually untenable situation and frankly recent events such as the Meghan & Harry disaster , the Prince Andrew interview, and this latest Carribbean tour are all symptoms of poor leadership.

0ther countries manage to operate with a very slimmed down, modest version of monarchy and that is the model we should be going for if we want it to continue. But I suspect that the monarchy will not now be able to adapt quickly enough to satisfy public opinion and disquiet and having failed to make radical changes, it will be responsible for hastening its own demise.

I do sometimes wonder if the press are sitting on a really big royal story and are waiting out of respect to the Queen.

That's interesting ToMockAKillingBird, care to expand?

According to the The Times today William and Kate were actually very well received on the ground - lots of crowds and they met and charmed a lot of people. The PR has been disastrous though - so the Range Rover open-top for example was seen as a colonial anachronistic mis-step was actually organised and insisted on by the Jamaican government. As always, unless you see things first hand, and you know the whole picture, you can’t always judge based on what is in the media. Whilst these countries are active paid up members of the commonwealth, how would it look if the RF actually didn’t visit them?

Exactly. I live in a Commonwealth country, and while there are always a few protesters many, many, people actually make the effort to get out and see the Royals because it is a big deal to them. Why do people living in the UK think they know it all

@frangiblepins88
I wouldn't want to speculate! I don't know, the Royals have an unofficial pact with the press but I think once the Queen departs it could be open season so to speak. I'm probably completely wrong though!

I’m British but live in the Bahamas and on the whole we haven’t had the bad press locally on the whole. The visits were planned by local government down to the nth degree and the pm and local press generally stated afterwards it was great news for tourism (other than the bizarre awful weather anyway!) I do wonder about the outfits however; other than the gala events the starkest contrast was here and even understanding the pomp and ceremony of Royal visits it just seems archaic and felt very out of touch.

I have a friend in the Caribbean. Royal visits are much anticipated and the there is lots of excitement. There are many who really respect the Queen. Things may change once the Queen is no longer monarch though.

I don't get a say, I'm Irish

Nor do I, I'm English.

I'm pretty sure Australia, Canada and many others in the Commonwealth will choose to leave once the Queen dies.
Understandable.
But having a Commonwealth link with various countries worldwide seems a better idea since Russia invaded Ukraine. We assumed invasions were a thing of the past but just shows anything can happen.
But even if they just remain as Uk royalty that's ok with me - there is so much division over our leaders eg Bojo. Quite agood idea to keep a bland head of state.

Yes the tours should be stopped. They are so dated and out of touch, tone deaf does not even cover it.
This tour particularly was an utter disaster at every level and did more damage to the RF then good.

They need to redesign the commonwealth to be a gathering of like minded nations that trade, support and benefit one another. It should be less about the RF and more serving the people of the nations connected to it. It could be a real force for good harnessed correctly.

Exactly. I live in a Commonwealth country, and while there are always a few protesters many, many, people actually make the effort to get out and see the Royals because it is a big deal to them. Why do people living in the UK think they know it all confused

This thread is ridiculous and a reflection of the shallowness of some poster who are so influenced by the media and social media. As usual the mout outraged cries of "colonialism", ironically, are form those who don't know how patronisingly Neo colonial they actually are themselves. Never mind.

@AnastasiaRomanov

I have a friend in the Caribbean. Royal visits are much anticipated and the there is lots of excitement. There are many who really respect the Queen. Things may change once the Queen is no longer monarch though.

This is such a generalising statement, it's just like in this country when a royal goes somewhere there is usually a crowd of useful idiots fawning over them, but most of the population couldn't care less.

Also 'the Caribbean' is made up of 16 different independent nations, so saying anything about the 'people of the Caribbean' is at ignorant as saying 'people from Africa' as if it is one homogenous mass. My grandparents are from a Caribbean country and they are not and have never been royalists.

I was once in a queue, hoping to see Meghan, when she was big news, and very welcomed in the UK. I suppose some would regard me as a "useful idiot".

I didn't feel that I was fawning or scraping, just looking.