William & Kate’s New Approach

[Thunderbird7]

I was listening to a podcast recently which outlined the differences between William and Kate’s approach vs the traditional approach to being working members of the royal family.

William and Kate are trying to do bigger, more involved projects like Shaping Us and Earthshot. While I think they are both great projects William and Kate are VERY involved, maybe too involved. Obviously the traditional royal approach is getting out there and maybe making less of a personal impact but being seen by as many people as possible, being generalists, and patronising change makers rather than making change themselves.

I have to admit I kind of prefer the old style of monarchy more. I think the point of monarchy is to be seen, not in a superficial way, but in a way that enables subjects to be & do their best.

Plus William and Kate are more involved in their kids’ lives than traditionally royals are which I don’t begrudge them for, I think it’s great, but it does mean they have less time & the two things are compounding each other to make them less visible?

What are your thoughts on the 2 styles? What do you prefer?

I’ll also add a poll, why not.

(I am generally interested in the question so please don’t make jibes about anyone being workshy or bring up Harry, Meghan and Andrew… there are other threads!)

You're about 40 years out of date. Most people are British citizens, not subjects.

Excellent post

I always thought Kate could have done an awareness campaign for hyperemesis

Great post. Totally agree

She is! Anne is old-old school. Before W&K the debate was whether it was better for royals to patronise charities that already exist (QE2 & Anne-style) or set up your own charity/foundation and be the figurehead (a la D of E/Charles). I think Anne shows the benefits of being a generalist. She’s not personally the change maker but she has so much experience and connections to share.

I do think I’d Kate had gone with a sport focus it would be politically neutral enough for her to actually make change. I agree that early years hasn’t achieved much and won’t actually achieve much simply because it’s party political. She can’t be seen to support the pledges of one party or criticise the choices another has made in power, so she can’t do more than turn up now and then, wearing something lovely. which is fine and “old style” of royal approach, however you need to do that regularly.

tbh i think they are doing as little as possible as often as they can.

I think there are apolitical things she could do within the space like mum & baby groups, MH support for parents, etc

I think it is simply too soon to gauge whether Earthshot or the Early Years focus are having any effect. The Prince's Trust and the D of E schemes have been running for decades and, according to the documentary on the King that was shown on Boxing Day, the Trust at least took years to get off the ground properly.

One advantage of royal interest is that it draws attention to the subject and another is that they can work on much longer timescales than politicians usually do. Time will tell what impact their focus has

A sidenote, I really hope that the focus both the Queen and the Duchess of Edinburgh have on violence against women gets more press.

@MrsLeonFarrell out of interest how long would you think is reasonable to give it to assess their impact?

That's a brilliant idea. I remember there was some ignortcomments about her being in hospital with a bit of morning sickness but it's a horrible condition.

I think there's a fundamental difference between things like the Prince's Trust and the DoE award scheme and what William and Kate are trying to do.

The former organisations are more about actual doing of things - e.g. awards grants to underprivileged youth, mentoring etc.

William and Kate's stuff is all about "awareness raising" - much less tangible. Even if you accept that they really want to raise awareness for these causes (and cynically I think it's more about raising publicity for themselves..) it's always going to be less tangible which makes it a poorer choice IMO

I don’t agree with that re Earthshot - their thing is they give grants to small companies with environmental solutions to scale them up.

Shaping Us… less clear what that’s about other than awareness raising!

I don't know a lot about Earthshot but isn't it more one annual glitzy award ceremony with a very small number of awards rather than ongoing work?

I do have more time for it than Kate's early years stuff though

5 - 10 years seems fair because they are such big areas to tackle. I can see why people are cynical about either making a significant impact but I'm waiting to see. I remember hearing Princess Anne saying that she didn't even make a speech for Save the Children until she'd been connected with the area for 5 years and that she learns more each year. I would rather it take time and make lasting impact than be done quickly and achieve little long term. Time will tell.

Their foundation was registered in 2009 so it's been going over 10 years already, no?

No it’s ongoing work - very interesting actually (to me anyway!). Rather than the usual environmental message which can be quite negative and about life getting worse (we should all live in caves and never travel anywhere etc) it’s a lot more positive. It’s about finding technological solutions that will enable us to live just as comfortably as we do now but in a sustainable way that doesn’t harm the planet. Their main event is the award show where small businesses submit their ideas (there was one girl in India who invented, I think it was a solar powered ironing bike, something like that!, one was cleaning the coral reefs, one was a city that reduced food waste) and Earthshot gives the winners a grant to scale it up. They do other things too - another big thing is putting innovators like that in contact with businesses that can help them scale up. It’s really interesting & a good idea.

Ah that does sound good - I hadn't heard that side of it

The Royal Foundation, yes, these particularly focuses, no.

Well that's the truth mate, we are subjects, we are subjegated. To call us anything else sugar coats it and doesn't make it not the truth.

I'm not sure. I'm glad they spend time with the children. But they have an objective to keep the Royal Family alive. And the Kate Early Years campaign as many pp's said is so vague it's meaningless.

To be honest I'd rather they just have some actual view points lets face it prince Andrew can bu subject of some serious allegations and he is still there! They will still be royal family who can dethrone them? Who can turf them out so to speak.

So hey may aswell have some actual views

IMO there is no reason for them to be doing so few engagements - yes they have children, but all the kids are in school and they also have a nanny, numerous other members of staff, Carole and Michael who live under an hour away and love spending time with the grandchildren...charities rely on things like the royals turning up for publicity, and royals show that they're invested in people by getting out and about and meeting them. There is very little evidence that William and especially Kate are actually personally doing much behind the scenes and, as people have said, no obvious impact of the early years scheme.

Kate carried out 123 engagements in 2023 (sometimes an engagement can be as little as 1-2 hours although obviously requires prep) and William carried out 172. Even if we're being generous and counting an engagement as a whole day, that's only 33% of the year and 47% of the year respectively. This is far, far smaller than what an elderly Charles did as Prince of Wales.

Meanwhile, the cost of Kate's wardrobe in 2023 was (very roughly, as so many pieces are bespoke etc) estimated at £162,000, with many new pieces that are very similar or almost identical to stuff she already owns...

I understand the intent behind the 'big projects' but Kate has never been a massively driven person IMO and I can't help but think they are somewhat of a smokescreen. Earthshot at least seems to be having some impact.

I've said many times on here... absolutely fine that K&M want to be hands on parents so let's assume they always want one parent at home. In that case, they should both be working the equivalent of part time, adding up to one full time working parent.

They are so far from that, it's untrue. At least 14 weeks a year school hols so both of them with the children full time (unless some Monarchy thing calls them away). Their trips out to a foodbank is the equivalent of a couple of hours, rarely a full day.

William 4 engagements during December, literally nothing in January (according to the Court Circular)
Kate .. the Carol concert in December and an evening reception in December. Nothing in January. Oh, she 'held a meeting' in December too. I imagine the person that has to write this guff is scratching their head trying to make it look good.

What in the name of all that is holy, are they doing?
I know there will be cries of behind the scenes work... they have scores of staff to do the donkey work.

im not keen on PW and the earth shot thing. but that is because he flies to much.
its a shame they don't do more, when PW surprised a charity person (pulling a horse person) it was lovely. it shows how mush it can mean to people.
it must be hard to follow the princes trust/DOE as they are so successful.
maybe one day earth shot will be. but at the moment it isn't something big in most people eyes.
I don't have small children so don't really think about the early years stuff.