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

Didn't that used to be called blackmail? and wasn't the Hanbury story made up by Giles Coren?

Glad to hear you’re impervious to the harm inflicted by your jokes about racism, eating disorders and invasion of privacy.

How very sad for any poc or posters affected by the other issues reading these threads.

😂That was meant to be goady, but the typo is better!

🌱

Goodness who said that? I can’t be arsed to check back through the complete madness that’s been spouted on here but that would be very below the belt and certainly ‘not in the spirit’

The spirit is willing but the flesh is weak. @RockyandBullwinkle

I don’t want to repeat it 😢

if that’s what some posters want to resort to, maybe it’s not the board for me.

Can you imagine what the comments would be if this was about Meghan and not Kate? I do not envy either woman.

If anyone wants to see a real photoediting fail (and a deliberate deception in this case) Google "patriarch kirill breguet watch".

If the Kremlin get it wrong, poor old Kate Adobe photoshopping Charlotte's sleeve has no chance.

“....much of the hate is women completely spewing it to other women.”

“It’s a platform that has quite a bit of hate and rhetoric and incentives people to create pages where they can churn out very, very inciting comments and conspiracy theories that can have a tremendously negative effect on someone’s mental health, on their physical safety."

It wouldn't be worse - the hateful comments against Catherine have always been as toxic as anything said about Meghan.

I am quite fascinated at the ‘idea’ of William taking family snaps and Kate editing / uploading them to Instagram…

I struggle to take this seriously…

Absolutely.

I meant from the H&M supporters.

Well, I am sure they wouldn't have been happy if a post was made laughing at and trivialising what she's been through, and being goady about not caring.

I agree.

They have a huge team behind them, who obviously aren't very good at their jobs

I LOVE the idea of Kate just fiddling about on her phone, tinkering, sticking it on Insta without a by-your-leave from the PR staff then hopping onto stories hoping for some good memes and TikToks helpfully carried over (she hasn’t got to grips with TikTok, so just watches what’s been curated by others on Instagram). Whoops! What’s this kerfuffle with FOUR headlines on the Grauniad – Daily Fail levels of milking a story…? I’ll just clarify on insta then can I cadge a lift to my appointment while you’re on your way to your Westminster Abbey thing, babe? Private appointment, divorce lawyer and head transplant thing, nbd.

I’d say William is so stubborn and insistent on doing things his way that he may be bypassing them and it’s backfired.

His team weren’t told about Kate’s ‘planned’ surgery either hence the hurried statement after they had already scheduled her for upcoming dates.

There doesn’t seem to be any trust between them or between the palaces. It could be he doesn’t trust Camilla’s team not to go to the press. There is t any love lost there. I’d say it is a toxic work environment.

I think there's a lot of reactive fire fighting going on and it shows

Theres also the argument though that teams can only be as good as the principals allow them to be.

If W&K don’t take the advice there’s nowt the team can do except follow orders (or leave at some point)

Yes and that's what happened with Andrew. His Private Secretary urged him not to do THAT interview. He ignored the advice. Private Sec then resigned

His PPOs and other members of his team told him to stay at the Consulate when breaking up (haha) with Epstein. He ignored the advice and reportedly told them to go to fuck

So when posters insist members of the RF have to do something or other, or they don't, nah... they do what they want.
They're the Chief Executive, MD, Chief Financial officer and Chairman all rolled into one

In fairness, Kate has taken a lot of the press released shots of the kids in the past and been praised for doing so, both for ensuring an extra bit of normality for her children and the fact they've been quite good. That's why I don't feel it's implausible William did take this.

The absent wedding ring seems such an obvious thing to correct that seems more probable to me that they didn't think, because they weren't attempting a deception. I know this doesn't fit with all the death's door/divorce/prisoner in the Tower theories but there is no evidence for the more out there speculation, some of which is really unpleasant.

Sensible post, thank you. The press photographers are also pretty miffed that they don't get to take the photos of them as much anymore.

So when posters insist members of the RF have to do something or other, or they don't, nah

That’s a direct contradiction of everything Harry has said.