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

I would be very, very surprised if they have separated. Is she really going to put in 20 years then walk when she's on the verge of being Queen? I highly doubt it.

She had already.

Still not good enough.

But Catherine is apparently never subject to press or public harassment. 🤔

Please let's not amalgamate things, shall we?

What are we amalgamating?

A central theme of this thread is the starkly different ways the KP and comms teams have handled illnesses of their principals, and the clearly arrogant and disdainful way KP have been going about comms about both Kate and William, the future king and queen.

That's because PoW's attitude to the press is different from the King's. It's long been known that he is guarded with privacy, protective of Kate and holds a lingering antagonism to the media.

The RF hire and pay professionals to handle their PR. Handling crises is their job.

Clearly, some are more competent at it than others...

They comms staff can't go against their principals, and at KP the principals clearly want a no comment approach. It's that simple.

Surely then once we say she has no constitutional role ( which none of them apart from The King do) and they are seen to be making little difference them being here or not, it's not a giant leap to ask what they are for.

I don't think they are for anything - they do open stuff and help the charity sector and occasional stand in ambassador type deal- media like it. I think they do it so RF remains popular with public and because they started it it's now an expected part of royal life.

I haven't kept up on how we fund them - I know civil lists went at some point - but current King is on record as want a slim down system - so perhaps we will go down Spanish route in future.

When William pulled out of the Greek funeral memorial, my thought was that he took an at - home covid test before a large gathering filled with elderly, immune compromised people, and tested positive. He then called his relatives, who told him to stay away until he had more accurate test results so that he wouldn't create a superspreader event. He left Windsor, got a more accurate test, and tested negative. KP kept it quiet so that people wouldn't blow up the situation.

I myself always take a test before heading out to a family gathering as I have older relatives with compromised immune systems. The people at that service are definitely more elderly than mine. William wouldn't have wanted to sicken or kill his elderly relatives.

@RhubarbGingerJam

The civil list provided a degree of scrutiny as increases had to be debated by parliament . The ‘royals’ had a determined campaign for years to get rid of the civil list and finally succeeded under a Tory Chancellor ( Osborne I believe .)

The new system costs more , is heavily redacted ( we don’t know how much security costs for example) and increases are done on a nod and a wink - no parliamentary debate required.

Charles had a successful PR campaign trumpeting a ‘slimmed down ‘ monarchy .

The quiet bit they didn’t say was that this slimmed down version wouldn’t cost a penny less. Same millions ( 350 milion a year) just spread among fewer people .

I dont think theres much point in them either tbh. I'm angry with myself for getting caught up in this circus and can't stop 🙃 but my kids and even my younger colleagues couldn't care less about them and wouldnt be able to pick Prince Edward out of a lineup. But if Charles wanted a slimmed down Monarchy, why hasn't he done it? Why not let the younger Wales kids go and do their own thing? If he's doing that, he needs to announce it while they are children and not cut them loose at 16 with no GCSES because they thought they were going to be opening care homes for the rest of their lives. Not that it would make any difference, they could probably walk into any job they liked, but at least they'd have some respect from their peers.

@TallerSally I agree - whatever is going on in private should remain private if so desired. What's more interesting really (to me anyway!) is the professional contrast. I don't buy any "they're people too" angle, really (about the comms professionals). If I was doing their job, I would do it very badly. I have an area of expertise, and this is not it. I would say the wrong thing, respond too slowly to some things, jump the gun on others. Miss opportunities right left and centre. But the comms teams at BP and KP are very highly trained and experienced professionals with one job.

Harry and Meghan were perhaps a little harder to work for, but apart from the Rose Hanbury aspect (understatement of the year!) it seems like Kate and William have been fairly straightforward to work for, and haven't made their comms people's lives any harder than they needed to? Or maybe they have just been VERY good at their jobs until now and KP has been a hotbed of cocaine-driven x-rated drama this entire time and we've heard not a word. 😂

Anyway. They've dropped the ball v badly this time.

I guess by May or June we'll have a return to duties (can't say I envy her) or a divorce announcement. I can't imagine a divorce being very desirable, no matter how bad the situation is though - the fall out would obviously be appalling, and will all fall onto her shoulders. Unenviable either way.

@BemusedAmerican

William is an ignoraramus who was filmed laughing about Covid - while drs nurses and patients were already dying in numbers .

He then caught Covid and there was a scandal that his comms had not been honest about it

Once Covid was spreading fast the ‘royals’ showed their uselessness and hid in their palaces while ordinary people carried society on their backs ( delivery drivers , hosp staff)

But if Charles wanted a slimmed down Monarchy, why hasn't he done it?

No clue -especially as there seems to be a lot in media about not enough people especially with two ill at minute- make you wonder where that comes from.

There was even massive speculation PH - who just gave an interview saying USA was home- was speculated to be asked back to help out in some media quarters.

You think it would be time to look at what they are doing that all these people are apparently considered to be needed.

Why not let the younger Wales kids go and do their own thing? If he's doing that, he needs to announce it while they are children and not cut them loose at 16 with no GCSES because they thought they were going to be opening care homes for the rest of their lives

William, Kate, Edward have degrees, Lady Louise is studying for a degree and IIRC the York girls have degrees. They have parents who clearly value education, so why would you assume that the Wales children would be 'cut loose at 16 with no GCSEs' if their father wanted them to do their own thing?

They're receiving an education that makes university inevitable and even if the WERE cut loose at 16 why would you assume that they wouldn't have the intelligence to make their own ways?

And KC has a slimmed down monarchy. It's so slimmed down ATM the Gloucesters are being drafted in. The last thing he'll be doing is telling the DGC to push off at 16 and be a plumber or something.

^ this 💯

Yep, not sure if you tagged the right person. As you’re just reiterating what I’ve posted

Very unlikely given where we are. This is not 2021. Even if this was the case they would have said that as it's less ominous than 'personal reasons'

Didn't he though? Harry went into the army before he was yanked out, and William went to university. I'm sure if Harry had insisted on staying in the army, he could have (maybe he didn't know he could have insisted at the time), and William did the air ambulance - maybe if they'd all known what the consequences of a serious rift would be (no Harry at all) they'd have "let" william stay working until Charles' death, if he had asked.

I can well imagine the Wales kids going to uni and having relatively normal careers/lives.

In my opinion, which counts for nothing, I think that, judging from the paparazzi photograph, she has been taking steroids, is looking puffy round the face, and would rather not be seen like that in public. So she’s staying out of sight until the side effects have subsided.

... which raises the question of public accountability, doesn't it?

In a world where we don't need a monarchy anymore for protection (or for anything, really), where in essence they are an expensive nice-to-have, yet we continue to pay dearly for them from the public purse and exempt them from billions in inheritance tax, they do have to have some purpose other than ticking constitutional boxes.

That purpose is acting as the nation's figure-head family. As QE2 understood, they have a duty towards the public, the widely-quoted "we have to be seen to be believed" and stuff.

So, when they suddenly disappear from view with close to zero explanation, then their PR folks at KP arrogantly admonish the public with "WE SAID NO COMMENT!!! (eedjats!)" then it's no surprise people are starting to ask questions....

My HR department told us not to tell our coworkers if we tested positive and not to discuss why people were out for weeks.

I also saw a real shit in views about covid from the start of March 2020 to a few weeks later in everyone's attitude toward the disease.

Well that's the nature of the beast @TallerSally

It's not really government and it's not truly telenovela, either. They're half people, half institutions. So there's emotion in the mix, not a comms team that acts commercially.

If we don't like it - and I'm not a huge fan - we need to discuss a sensible way to stand down the monarchy.

Hounding an individual woman while she's ill and cooking up frankly barking conspiracies, well it's not a rational response to disliking the system.

It's been really poorly handled. That's why there are some people who feel like something isn't right. A one line, direct statement from her is all it would need to quell most of the speculation, but here hasn't even been that. I hope she's okay.

Because of the unusual situation of two senior Royals being ill at the same time, it's been glaringly obvious that the comms teams of BP and KP have very different approaches, and it's easy to compare and contrast. I think BP are older, wiser and more experienced and led by the King with the more outward facing and open approach. KP seems the opposite and all over the place. Snippy and defensive in tone.

Obviously we're not meant to know exactly what's going on with the health of either the King or Kate, which is fair enough. Charles has also decided to make himself visible maybe to reassure people? I absolutely would not want or expect Kate to be seen until she is absolutely ready for the inevitable scrutiny. However do you really think it's just about Kate? I ask this because straight away William announced that he was not doing engagements for a month - and while he has since changed his mind, he seems to be doing the absolute bare minimum. I think there is a serious issue or issues apart from Kate's health going on at present. In my opinion it's just as much about William as Kate. He seems under serious strain. Hopefully things will get back to normal by the summer.

Who are all these people in a panic? I'm not. She's recovering from major surgery. That is all. Are they supposed to wheel her out on the balcony every day or what?

"Why can't you believe what I tell you to?!"

"No" is a complete sentence, as we say on MN.

Well, I find that strange. We were told Kate had abdominal surgery and would be off until Easter. I personally don't believe in conspiracies, so I am taking that information as correct

I can say that is correct . Not sure how soon after Easter she will be back though. Although it is definitely her right to keep her surgery/recovery private, it has certainly made the whole situation needlessly rife for speculation.

heheh