Do the Royal Family just think we are really really stupid?

[Bex5490]

Just that really. From Harry’s car chase to Prince Andrew being at a Pizza Express kid’s party.

And now we’re supposed to believe that the country’s biggest PR machine in the middle of a media storm just let Prince William take a casual Mothers Day pic on his iPhone, let the missus edit it and then post it to the world?

😒

@HutontheBeach thanks for the compliment but sadly not! I wasn’t aware the queen mother had had 2 forms of cancer. So I take your point , however that then suggests she was better at hiding these things?

Either way it’s a pr disaster since the queen died.

William looks awful in the photos today, as does Camilla. They both look exhausted, strained and stressed.

The Queen truly lived and stuck by "never complain, never explain". Which worked for her and for the era she began her reign and set her standards in.

The newer royals are trying to be more open and relatable and figuring out that balance with privacy and dignity. I think it worked well for Charles' press release on his cancer, he told his subjects the truth but reassured and offered stability and a clear intent for the future. Kensington Palaces PR on all this Will and Kate stuff over the last few weeks has been an utter balls up, hard to know how they got it so wrong despite these type of disclosures being relatively new for the royals.

@SummaLuvin
Totally agree

Well it really isn't considering the amount of posters on here that don't even tell the school for example about their kids Autism/ADHD/Anxiety diagnosis, as its private information and their own information to tell yada yada yada.

The woman is entitled to SOME privacy.

They said she'd be out of action until after Easter at least, she needs to be left the fuck alone.

Oh for the days when the Palace announced that the late Queen would be taking some time off.... and then a few months' later they announced that she'd had a baby. That really is how it was done in the 1960s! Greater openness has it's downsides and social media is really to blame for the current mess.

MattaofFact on Tiktok summarised it very well saying they seem like a family intent on projecting the image of perfection at all costs, instead of whatever the actual truth is. There were many opportunities to provide nuanced updates that didn't have to be either telling the entire public to fuck off and ignoring them for 2 months, or releasing a Photoshopped picture of all the children and Kate beaming like she stepped out of a Tatler cover.

The most intriguing theory so far (Allyn Aston on Tiktok) is that the photo was taken around the same time as the baby bank visit below in November 2023. Kate, Charlotte and George are wearing virtually the same outfits and Louis has the same checkered shirt under a different sweater. Tiktok speculation is that the colours of some items of clothing were Photoshopped to make them appear different. If this was the case, there is absolutely no chance Kate did it herself because changing colours and shadows is extremely difficult to do.

There are further odd details like Charlotte's rope friendship bracelet which is not an accessory that can easily be put on/off or worn for 4 months straight:
https://katemiddletonstyle.org/casual-outfit-baby-bank-wales-kids/

If you look at the extreme closeup image another user posted here for an unrelated reason, you can spot a few threads poking out under the sleeve:
https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/chat/5025789-kates-photo-appears-manipulated?page=28

Of course, it's possible they really did wear the same clothes for the photo at a much later time. My gut feeling is that the photo was edited by a professional based on a briefing by KP, and now Kate is taking the fall for it because that's the only way out whilst still maintaining public sympathy. A lot of the editing actually seems more sophisticated than people realise. But the obvious mistake that gave it away was Charlotte's sleeve which occurred through pure oversight. Based on my own workflow, I think the correct part of the sleeve was actually on a separate layer, over the released image (imagine it like a sticker, where the edges are blended perfectly). By total mistake, the layer visibility was toggled so the correct imagery was hidden, revealing the faulty area below. Hiding visibility is just one accidental click away and may not have been picked up in the final release because they were focusing on the more challenging, edited areas of the image.

The photo was not edited by a person. When you take a multi shot photo, the software can select a best version for you, which helps to make sure everyone is smiling, eyes open. Kids move around a lot. That's why yhe sleeve is weird - you are seeing the sleeve, and what is behind the sleeve, as her arm has moved between shots. The editing software is clumsy at dealing with it but you have to look close to notice.

This is such a non story - funny though.

I agree with you SummaLuvin.

The problem for the younger royals is that they're caught in a weird space of privacy and openness.
I don't see why they needed to deviate from the late Queen's approach to personal matters to be honest. There's a lot of high profile people who keep their private lives private and present their public selves in their working capacity.

It's all smoke and mirrors though because as long as people are focused on details of the royals' private lives as gossip, they're conveniently not looking too hard or much at the finances and how the interests of the RF are protected.

So you don’t believe the statement released by KM admitting she edited the photo then.
I don’t either, but I’m presuming for very different reasons.

@LolaSmiles the lack of public interest in rf finances is an interesting point. The question is how long will that last? I think Kp have taken a very high handed approach over km illness, probably led by pw wanting privacy.
The problem is they are publicly funded so people feel entitled to know what’s going on with them.

I think this episode shows that rf won’t get away with telling nothing and expecting its subjects to suck it up. To make the monarchy relevant qe2 followed a deliberate policy of making her family relatable and exposed. It’s caused many casualties as who can really live such an exposed life? The irony, now that the younger royals try to claw back some privacy ,is that the public will not accept scraps of information. If they try and recluse more I think the public will start asking questions about finance. The old deference is disappearing.

As much as many of us hate the fact that we have a hereditary monarch as head of state, that’s the reality. They wield huge soft power, as well as not a small amount of political influence (which has been documented several times this decade alone, be it through Charles outrageous trying to push his his own agendas onto government ministers ,

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2015/may/13/prince-charles-black-spider-memos-lobbying-ministers-tony-blair

…or through their huge and growing property empire from which they rake in billions (to give just two examples)

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/ng-interactive/2023/apr/05/revealed-royals-took-more-than-1bn-income-from-controversial-estates-king-charles-queen-duchies-cornwall-lancaster

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/nov/24/royal-greed-king-charles-profiting-dead-disgusting

So while people getting worked up about a photoshopped picture might seem OTT, it’s inevitable and in fact right that such a high profile public Head of State and his family/heirs are of major national concern. They aren’t just random people who happen to have a public facing role. They are wielders of huge power, not elected by any body, and who often exploit such for their position for their own financial benefit and personal causes. As such it is on the public interest to know if there are strange and secretive goings on behind the scenes, unless they are entirely of a personal nature with no impact whatsoever on their (unearned) role as representing the nation etc.

I think that it was really stupid of them to release an edited photo. Many people had not given the whole thing much thought up until that point. After all she is entitled to medical privacy. However, releasing an edited photo makes them seem dishonest rather than just wanted to keep medical details private. If it was a genuine photo with only small details changed then why not just release an unedited version?

I think all will be clear in a couple of weeks though given that she was supposed to be working again from Easter.

Maybe after all this ridiculous scrutiny Will & Kate will just think ‘fuck it’ and put an end to the royal family when Charles passes away. They would still have a fortune and live very easy, privileged lives and could do so in peace without everyone behaving like they owe them complete access about every private matter because they are ‘public property’.

That would be amazing. But no ones seems to be able to give away wealth

So why not just release a non edited version?

Well they put out a statement to say she’d had surgery and was recovering at home . That should have been the end of it. Then the conspiracy theories start and then everyone loses their heads asking where is Kate ? I mean we know where she is!

I do feel sorry for the children being out through this - not merely dealing with their mother’s illness/issues, but having to deal with the frantic media/ huge public interest. But that is simply yet one more reason why this whole lavish hereditary “fairytale” monarchy should have no place in a modern civilised society. Life in a goldfish bowl which is ornately decorated with palaces and castles and ribbon cutting is still a goldfish bowl - it’s still highly abusive.

They are very rich but their fortune would go down quite quickly if they had to pay inheritance tax like everyone else in the UK.

Yeah, my first thought was that it was a multishot stitched together, or that it was three photos manually edited together because they couldn't get a shot where all of the kids were pulling a 'nice' face.

I’m a civil servant and completely intrigued by this. They would have a private office supporting them plus a dedicated comms team. For example a junior minister has around 4 people alone in their private office. The palace is run along very similar lines. And things needs to get signed off by a Senior Civil Servant. I really struggle to see them sitting at home alone uploading a picture to their website, doing a quick photoshop. Despite all the ‘normal’ protestations they have an huge amount of behind the scenes support. Also I thought that Catherine was an accomplished photographer? The whole thing is bizarre.

They'd also have to pay their own bills and raise money for their own repairs, as Harry has found out, presumably to his surprise. Their children will have to get jobs off their own bat. Hey wont be able tobtutn up tonthe Baftas or sporting events unkess they do something of note. That's clearly not appealing enough to them to get them to give it all up.

They'd have done better to stick to their original plan of saying nothing until there was either her return to duties to announce, or if they needed to issue a medical update.

The "where's Kate?" baying, and their habit of releasing a Mothers Day pic, plus plenty of other snaps with "best shot" and other editing passing unremarked in the past, all led to this mess.

They claim to believe their role is in the public good and it suits them very nicely indeed - King Charles net worth (his actual own private money/assets) is estimated at £2 BILLION. Equivalent to say winning Euromillions one hundred times. Not bad for somebody who, born into a normal family, would probably be in middle management somewhere (along with the rest of his family) earning perhaps 50k a year.

Of course the public doesn’t actually agree with the necessity of the royal family at all. Probably 1/3 actively oppose it, 1/3 support it, and 1/3 don’t really care but find it entertaining (although this third usually goes “soft support” in any poll conducted, as who doesn’t enjoy a bit of entertainment etc)

What does it matter, they released a photo so what if it is edited most photos are.

I they had released an unedited one they would be found wrong for doing that.