Catherine, The Princess Of Wales : The Biography

[StrawberriesandCreamTea]

Anyone reading this new book about Catherine?

I'll tell you what finally did it for me with the whole Harry/Meghan circus - Omid Scobie slipped out his shoddy manuscript in Holland, lied and lied and threw 2 hardworking women translators under the bus. Piers Morgan then tossed out the dross.

I saw a brave woman attend the Royal Albert Hall in the aftermath.

It is fascinating how the newspapers whitewashed Philip as gaffe prone throughout his adulthood and did not call him out as racist. His own unconscious biases were always to the fore. I find it hard to believe that he was not worse when away from the public and talking with his family as he was quite a forceful individual who spoke his mind. It’s only since his death that it has become more widely talked about including how his sisters married Nazis. The Queen’s Uncle was a Nazi sympathiser and that generation was captured on film giving the nazi salute. Considering the tensions that existed in the 1940s between the two competing nations, Britain and Germany, and what was believed about Wallis Simpson it may have been more than Edward’s love for her that led to his abdication.

https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2002/jun/29/research.monarchy#:~:text=It%20stated%3A%20%22It%20has%20been,British%20government%20that%20they%20refused

I saw a woman who did not understand her own part in what took place between the two households that led to bad feelings. Even the comment ‘recollections may vary’ which was the immediate response is now known to have been Catherine’s and it shows her inherent denial that what she said caused offence to Meghan. The fact that it was immediately in a press notice signed off by the Queen shows conversations did take place and Meghan did not lie. It also shows how quickly the institution acts when it wants to protect both its image and its primary principals. Harry and Meghan must have once again realised just how the institution will react regarding its own interests and public facing image. Hopefully, the letters passed between Charles and Meghan will have resolved matters and that hurt feelings are no longer an issue for either side.

No one denied conversations took place, but given that Meghan was not involved in those conversations, she may well have misunderstood or even invented some of the content 🤷‍♀️

@DreamyBird did you 'see' anything other than a picture painted by Omid Scobie, (a proven liar)?

Please point me to a independent source that unequivocably verifies that Catherine was the source of these comments or is a racist?

I think the dots have been connected and the trail of information is there from interviews, books, sources, publishers etc. It is generally accepted by all the experts now. If someone wants to believe otherwise is of course their right. ‘Opinions may vary’ but we all hold them.

Goodness what a lot of word salad.

To make an accusation of being a racist is very, very serious.

Growing up in the 1980s the fact that Philip’s sisters had strong Nazi connections was openly discussed in the papers (along with Princess Michael of Kent’s connections, who was much more prominent then), and lists of his clearly racist comments have been compiled for decades too. If anything, criticism of him waned somewhat as he aged.

The issue of Edward VIII’s Nazi sympathies has also been reported on for a long time, especially as new papers have been released or found and the picture became clearer. the abdication happened at a time when it was common for the aristocracy, including politicians, to openly admire Germany and its leadership, although his activities during the war caused serious concern (we now know).

I’ve seen nothing new since Philip’s death that wasn’t already long in the public domain.

I think the difference between the 1980s and now is the social media aspect. The audience in the 1980s was small, now information and views are spread everywhere on the internet. The social media threads, tweets etc were calling Philip out as a racist (when he died) not just being guilty of racist comments.

Meghan did not say anyone was racist. William, however, got very twitchy when asked by a journalist on the hoof whether the royal family was racist. He gave his response about not being a racist family. He believes that as does Harry and Meghan. Meghan herself called Catherine a good person.

But many more people read newspapers then. Most families had one every day. I certainly grew up thinking of him as racist. And my parents read the Express! (I imagine a section of the press of course would maintain to this day that he wasn’t racist.) Bearing in mind the context of the times too that excused a lot more of what we would now call racism.

It certainly wasn’t any sort of secret. A section of the UK has called him racist for a very long time.

I just went to check and it was in 1986 when he made his infamous comments in China, and they were strongly criticised at the time.

It's my understanding under UK law that one can't defame the dead - comments about Prince Philip - can say whatever. So, maybe this thread has been mis-titled?

I was so puzzled by those two segments of the Oprah Winfrey interview.

Meghan talked about the 'conversations', and then Henry came in and sat himself down and very much contradicted her it seemed to me. (To this day I have no idea if he had been listening to her or not, off-set, while she spoke with OW on her own.)

Oprah Winfrey did not follow up on this contradiction, and I did wonder how the Sussexes were able to brazen that one out - and of course I wondered too how the slip-up between the two of them occurred in the first place. It seemed bizarrely sloppy and careless in an otherwise well-planned interview.

Philip's sisters AFAIK had married before Naziism became so powerful.

I don't believe he was a racist as we would think of a racist being now. I also think it's a mistake to measure situations in the past against the standards of today.

The man would be over 100 if he was alive, and he grew up in very different times. Plus he was a Navy man, with the fruity language and bluntness to the point of rudeness. I don't think he would have seen his 'gaffes' as offensive when he made them, and having met many races right across the Commonwealth and the world, I don't believe there are any examples to my knowledge of him having discriminated against anyone because of racial bias?

That's nothing new. It's always been in the public domain.

I actually agree with the idea that Philip was a product of his time and class, and probably harboured no malice. However he said things he shouldn’t have, often causing offence, and those things often involved racial or national stereotypes that anyone representing the UK internationally should have avoided.

But I wanted to push back at the idea that somehow the media never described him as racist until after his death. That’s just untrue. There was a period in his old age when his history was discussed in less hostile tones, probably as a result of his age and the fact that he had stopped making such high profile comments, but throughout the 80s and 90s there was frequent press commentary on him that clearly described him as a racist.

Absolutely! I really don't think he ever had any malicious intent - I think he just opened his mouth before he put his brain in gear!

I read Ingrid Seward's biography of Prince Philip, and he achieved so much in his life! He had such a difficult upbringing, moved from pillar to post. I would have loved to have met him.

There is zero evidence that anything racist was said by Catherine or anyone else.

Meghan said during the Oprah interview (when it was just the two of them speaking) that they (H&M) were being told that Archie would not get a title, would not get security and that “in tandem” there were “conversations and concerns” about the colour of his skin. She did not characterise this as racist, but told Oprah that’s what she could infer from it. This is the statement the press ran with as evidence of racism (and for which H&M later picked up a Ripple of Hope award from the Robert F Kennedy Foundation).

We know Meghan lied about the title and security parts of that statement. Archie had titles at birth. He was not entitled to be a prince because of the letters patent and his not being the grandson of the reigning monarch. So the “racism” claim was tacked into a lie.

When Harry entered the interview with Oprah, not only did he come across as completely blindsided by her asking him about the conversations about Archie’s skin colour, he also made it clear it’s not something he wanted to talk about, and that it was a conversation - singular - that occurred when he and Meghan were not even married, and she was not present. No further detail of the content of that conversation was ever provided. Not in the Netflix doc. Not in Spare. This apparently hugely consequential conversation was not so much as mentioned in either of H&M’s most important projects leaking details about the RF.

They nevertheless allowed the press to run with the racism narrative (and collect their award), but did take the opportunity to brief Gail King (Oprah’s bestie) that neither the Wueen or Prince Philip were involved. Harry did not take the opportunity to further clarify the conversation until Harry’s press tour for Spare and interview with Tom Bradby, where he said there was no racism, just unconscious bias, and the racism charge was all the going of the press. Again, no further details were given by Harry of the exact content of that conversation, and to this day we do not know what it was about.

Harry as a reliable witness on other people’s “unconscious bias”. I don’t think so. In his Spare interview with Stephen Colbert, he spoke of his fear that Meghan’s genes (presumably her African American ones from her mother, rather than her blond/blue eyed European ones from her father) would out muscle his ginger genes (his use of the word ginger) and expressed his relief that didn’t happen. How about Meghan? In the Netflix doc, we have her and Harry talking about their children’s looks. Archie is described as looking like Meghan (and presumably Doria) in the most dismissive of statements. Whereas Meghan waxes lyrical about Lily’s “blue, blue, blue” eyes like Diana’s. Now, if you were from Meghan’s African American family, how would that make you feel?

So where does Catherine come in? Omid Scobie’s Dutch publication of Endgame, a “mistake” that could only have come from him but which he repeatedly denied until it became ridiculous to do so. And what is that content? Leaked paraphrasing of a letter sent from Meghan to Charles, the content of which can only have come from one source into Scobie’s hands, Meghan. And who does it refer to? The “Princess of Wales”. Who at the time of the alleged conversation occurring all that time ago before H&M’s wedding was Camilla, albeit a title not used by her. Catherine was not the POW at that time and was never named in Endgame as being the person in question.

Whatever dot joining exercise has been done leaves no discernible picture of anything bearing semblance to a credible accusation. All the dots are concentrated messily around Meghan and the narrative she wanted the world to believe. And frankly, she does not have a track record for truth, any more than Scobie.

Harry and Meghan have both spoken about their distress that untrue stories about them were not corrected by the palace and yet they allowed the "royal racist" story to run and run. It wasn't addressed in Spare at all. It was only when Harry was asked about it by Tom Bradby that he made an effort to reframe it as unconscious bias rather than racism.

Pretty convenient for Harry that he can spin his own past racism as unconscious bias and then piously lecture his family about being the same and incredibly hypocritical, given how much time he's spent complaining about being misrepresented in the media.

So Prince Philip is a racist, but Harry's racist slurs are just 'unconscious bias'?

I'm sorry, but no, it doesn't work like that.

Sorry, I didn’t see this last night. I’m still not quite sure, but are you saying that claiming this came from the Queen is a protective measure because if it had been said to come from KP it would have meant the royal family was not protecting itself from accusations of racism? How does that work?

the trail of information is there from interviews, books, sources, publishers etc..

In other words “a lot of people have made this accusation now, despite having no direct knowledge of what happened, and so although all these accounts are speculative I’m choosing to believe it because I want to…”.

Malicious gossip repeated does not become verified just because it’s prevalent!

That was the particular conversation that Oprah addressed and it had clearly stuck in his mind. He shut it down after giving what his reaction was at the time.