THE TIMES: Where is Kate? The royal family attracts more speculation by the day

[TallerSally]

On today's front page, the Times' Kate Mansey reports on the contrasting approaches taken by KP and BP's comms teams in their handling of the extraordinary situation the RF's currently in. It kicks off with the current host of the US's Daily Show (formerly hosted by the formidable Jon Stewart) asking some questions:

"While the King hosted friends and met world leaders, the Palace’s reluctance to comment on the Princess of Wales’s condition has created a rising sense of panic
One of America’s most popular TV comedy programmes was asking the question that had captured the nation. It was not about the Super Tuesday primary contests ahead of the US elections, or the State of the Union address, which elicited an exaggerated yawn from the presenter.

Instead, The Daily Show’s Ronny Chieng turned to look straight into the camera to ask: “Where is Kate Middleton? Where are you, Kate?”

There was no rush to provide reassurance this week from the Prince of Wales, who appeared to begin his working week on Friday with a visit to the Oval cricket ground for his Earthshot environmental campaign. Aides said that William had been busy all week, just not in a way that was visible to the public.

The King was doing the opposite. Away from public duties on doctors’ orders while he undergoes cancer treatment, the monarch had been expected to take this week as scheduled time off. Despite being told to “slow down” by the Queen, who took her own advice and flew to sunnier climes for a few days of relaxation, the King was ramping up.

He was photographed meeting world leaders and ambassadors from his living room at Buckingham Palace. Away from the cameras, he hosted friends who rallied round for afternoon tea and dinner dates. He insisted on the “more public” option of travelling between Buckingham Palace and his more comfortable private quarters at Clarence House in the State Bentley, so that he could “be seen”. Quite what the Queen made of it all from her sun lounger is anyone’s guess, but there are those in the palace who have an idea."

A tongue-in-cheek piece, but raises some interesting questions: have KP messed up the comms around Kate? and William? What is really going on with them? Why is the Royal family-funding public kept in the dark for so long, when usually not a couple of days go by without us having some nicely staged photo of some kind from Kensington Palace?

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/where-is-kate-prince-william-king-charles-cancer-khktpx9bm

Do people really think that a statement would stop all the online frenzy? Then it would be "how do we know it's really Kate?", "why only a statement and not a video message?"

Any statement would be picked apart and new theories would then emerge.

She's probably absolutely dreading Easter. Can you imagine how her appearance and every interaction with William will be analysed and pulled apart?

Yes the RF have an obligation to the public but at the core of it is a human being who has obviously been through some major health issue and I am sure that her recovery is not being helped by constant speculation and, frankly, some quite nasty conspiracy theories.

I know it is human nature to speculate but with the advent of social media it seems to go way beyond that.

It's hard to square "well enough to do the school run with grandma in a Chelsea tractor" with "too ill to attend an official event three months from now so don't even try MOD".

Cherryana. Exactly. No matter how carefully planned and no matter how skilled the surgical team, not everyone makes a straightforward recovery from any surgery. There are sometimes complications and sometimes recovery takes a lot longer than expected.

A second, more innocuous image showed Kate in her role as the Colonel of the Irish Guards on a Ministry of Defence website. The palace brought in the big guns to shoot it down. The Army’s offence? Not the picture per se, but the mere fact that the Army had the temerity to suggest that Kate would be attending a troop review on June 8

Apparently did wonders for ticket sales, though. Cynical, moi?

And it's not a 'troop review.' It's Trooping the Colour aka Sovereign's Birthday Parade. This was really the Times calling it that, was it? how are the mighty fallen.

What is MOD. Initials are getting out of hand. Is it Ministry of Defence. In any case it wasn't even Kate in the CT.

I know...incredible to think that people shouldn't be allowed to voice this opinion, and that we should all keep quiet so that people can continue with their gossip and speculation uninterrupted.

The thing with the trooping event is being blown out of proportion as well.

KP and BP always announce the royals attendance nearer the time - as the BbC say here .

A simple error updating something too soon, and taking it down again, which normally would barely be noticed is now being seen as massively significant when it’s likely not.

Can I say the repeated personal remarks to the OP are against the T & C's of the site, a literal discussion forum. Believe it or not, MNHQ want people here discussing things. It's not anyone else's place to tell posters to go away and find something else to do today.

well, we don't actually know for sure that was her, its paparazzi claims isn't it?

Yes, ministry of defence. Who was it in the tractor then?! I thought the royals had confirmed it was her, that's why they've blocked publishing the photo in uk papers? #TooConfusedToCry

There's never been any serious suggestion the marriage was in trouble. And if there was there's no motivation for hiding it, just get on with it,

I think it's quite obvious why nothing more has been said. It's something they didn't want to discuss with the kids in detail at that time. We know it's not cancer. Personally I suspect it was an unexpected pregnancy that turned out to be ectopic. If medical management was tried with a view to surgery later if that didn't work, that would make describing the surgery as planned absolutely to the letter accurate. An experience of that sort could well take 3 months to recover especially if the tube ruptured. It could even be a twin pregnancy - she is in her forties and tall, both factors for increased chance of multiple births. If there was still a surviving pregnancy that would explain everything that's happened since and especially William's strained demeanour. It wouldn't surprise me to know she was actually in a different hospital altogether, that's the only bit of the conspiracy theories that I think might have some grounds. If that is the reason they would want to keep it private until the pregnancy was secure and they shared it with their kids. Given that her admission to hospital with HG was invaded by media intrusion they might well have felt justified in deceit there. Media sits outside the clinic whilst the family visit her at Frimley Park,

Tractor???? , I didn't look closely but is there another unauthorised picture?

To be fair to them I have seen the two troopings before the main birthday parade referred to as troop review in the media so as to make clear they don’t mean the main birthday parade one.

The one Kate has sold lots of tickets for is the week before the main event

If you think anyone has broken talk guidelines, report them and let MNHQ decide.

I haven't noticed many personal attacks on this thread, just valid criticisms of the OP's stance and of the positions taken by some of the other posters. This is all part of the discussion.

*One of America’s most popular TV comedy programmes was asking the question that had captured the nation. It was not about the Super Tuesday primary contests ahead of the US elections, or the State of the Union address, which elicited an exaggerated yawn from the presenter.

Instead, The Daily Show’s Ronny Chieng turned to look straight into the camera to ask: “Where is Kate Middleton? Where are you, Kate?”*

Talk about grasping at straws to construct an article. Who cares what some US TV presenter thinks? they've an election upcoming where the choice is someone who doesn't know where he is half the time and a sociopath. Shouldn't they be worrying about that?

Who wrote this, the work experience intern?

Haha! William has been 'busy all week, just not in a way that is visible to the public'....story of the royals lives, eh? As for Charles, 'ramping up' his 'work' apparently amounts to letting himself be photographed, while travelling from one palace to another, in his Bentley. Phew! So plucky aren't they?

There has been.

But it's still not enough apparently.

*To be fair to them I have seen the two troopings before the main birthday parade referred to as troop review in the media so as to make clear they don’t mean the main birthday parade one.

The one Kate has sold lots of tickets for is the week before the main event*

Oh right, happy to be corrected in that case. I didn't even know there were two parades.

There’s actually three. One two weeks before and one the week before, then the big one that’s on TV.

They’re all officially called Trooping the Colour so gets a bit confusing when talking about them.

People can buy tickets for all three and they don’t usually announce which senior royals will all be in attendance at the first two until late on.

Who cares what some US TV presenter thinks? they've an election upcoming where the choice is someone who doesn't know where he is half the time and a sociopath. Shouldn't they be worrying about that?
Well said.

If you think those comments breach the talk guidelines you're at liberty to report them. You haven't commented on the remarks directed at posters who don't think we're entitled to further information.

That’s all very plausible. Except wouldn’t Kate have been feeling very sick at Xmas? She looked fine on Xmas day.

I don’t think she’s very charismatic at all though. Seems nice enough and takes a good photo but that’s about it. She does her early years passion project and that’s all fine. I really can’t understand how people feel so invested in her - it’s getting hard to ignore the furore over somebody actually quite boring (sorry Kate).

Imagine if she has got cancer or something similarly serious and people are are gossiping about her thrashing out a divorce.

I wish people would just leave her alone

Haha! William has been 'busy all week, just not in a way that is visible to the public'....story of the royals lives, eh? As for Charles, 'ramping up' his 'work' apparently amounts to letting himself be photographed, while travelling from one palace to another, in his Bentley. Phew! So plucky aren't they?

don’t forget the Queen currently recovering in the sunshine from the trauma of <checks notes> walking about a bit. 🙄