William's non attendance to important events

[Spectre8]

Since there is a flurry of discussion on another thread its probably best to create a thread for it to take place here and not derail another one.

So William is not attending a number of important events the recent one being the VJ day..lots of you think he should have after all he is the future King and if he can't make time for these things then it begs the question what is the point of them?

So discuss away...what should he turning up to, what is his actual role if he starts to not do these types of things...

Charles waited a very long time to become king. How do you know that he isn't doing his very best to act like one while he can? How do you know that William hasn't been told to step back and let Charles shine?

BTW, are the Welsh or the Cornish upset that William didn't attend VJ ceremonies in their country or county?

Catherine’s done several very high profile engagements so she is very much back to work. But in any case, isn’t it a good thing that an example is set of taking time to recover properly? Isn’t that what we’d want for anybody recovering from serious illness?

Why is William allowing his elderly father, who is going through cancer treatment, to work so much while he is off to the football and hiding?

Because he's workshy and always has been.

Thank you for your kind thoughts. I do think William could have done something without Kate though. Just my opinion.

My point exactly

5 solo engagements. A total of 32 across the year. Most of which have been garden parties or the tennis.

I think the conversation to be had is what is the best way for the monarch to work as head of state, and what gives the most value to our nation on both a macro and micro level.

Comparing the engagement numbers from the court circular is meaningless as a PP said you can rack up 10-15 engagements in one day by spending 20 minutes at a time shaking hands and moving on.

The macro level is the meat and bones of the head of state needs.

Representing the UK on the international stage at events such as the Pope’s funeral, United Nation events etc.

Being sent by the government on foreign tours for soft diplomacy etc

Hosting foreign leaders in the UK for the same reason.

The UK parliament constitutional duties.

Representing the nation at times of national crisis or emergency. Or national pride like the Olympics etc

Head of the Church of England / Head of the Armed forces etc

Remembrance Day / Commonwealth celebrations.

There’s no reason to believe William won’t fulfill all those duties - he’s been filling in for both his grandmother and father with many of these duties for several years.

For the micro level duties is where I think he might try something different, and partly because we are in a different world now with social media and the internet.

At the micro level it’s meeting with citizens across the four nations, highlighting their successes, show casing the best of the UK, talking to people and getting their opinions and current feelings about their lives and feeding that information up the chain or using the monarch’s convening power to bring elements from government, business and non profits to help tackle a problem.

Do we want to monarch to simply wrack up the numbers and the travel expenses for hundreds of ribbon cuttings or could enegagements be organized to maximize both meet and greets with other tangible help for different parts of the country.

BTW, are the Welsh or the Cornish upset that William didn't attend VJ ceremonies in their country or county?

Do you honestly honestly think they could have voiced any upset?

Also maybe it’s just me, but if my father and spouse were both suffering from cancer I’d want my public engagements to be focused on raising as much awareness and understanding as possible. Encouraging early testing, supporting charities for children of those with cancer, using my name for good. But maybe that’s just me

With a quill….. 🪶

Who says he is hiding? It’s summer holiday—they go away every year during the school break. He isn’t doing anything different than he always does. He has been there for his wife and children over the last year and a half.

We have no idea what’s happening behind the scenes, and we don’t know Catherine’s long-term prognosis. Maybe after a tough time, they decided to enjoy some family time. Or perhaps they know something about Charles’s health—Harry has hinted he doesn’t know how long his father has to live.

It’s possible they decided together with the King that Charles will do as much as he wants to do, while they focus on spending more time with their children, because when they become king and queen, everything will change for them.

The main point is: we simply don’t know all the facts.

The other point is Williams has never worked as hard as other members of the family.

There has always been lots of rumours that Charles doesn't like the attention Kate and William get compared to him and Camilla - maybe he has locked them up on a yacht over the summer so they don't get the headlines?

Honestly, this is all very entertaining and I do enjoy reading everyone's views. Maybe that is the purpose they serve, we get to debate them as a distraction from other more serious matters.

I just hope that, when William becomes Monarch, it will not just become Royal by social media and carefully constructed footage extolling nature and the seasons.
It has to be much much more than that, if we are continuing with a Monarch.

The list of duties you have written, @wordler is great. But it’s all predicated on the accident of birth luck we had in getting an Elizabeth ll and not an Andrew. (And god knows about Edward Vlll and his favouring of Hitler.)

We have no idea what we have with William, but we certainly won’t be able to vote him out if he proves useless or corrupt or just simply lazy.

Fair enough if that's the core of the duties of the Hos (and that's fine) we don't need so many of them, and they don't need so many houses and staff. They at most need 4 people- 2 couples. The Monarch and the heir and spouses. The rest of them go off- no titles, no Royal duties apart from turning up to family occasions if invited. Two homes and a core staff each and no preferential treatment at all. In other words behave like Monarchies in more modern and less archaic and class ridden countries.

Thank you @Spectre8 for this thread. Comedy gold. The staunch and loyal 'high horse defenders' are really scrabbling, throwing in Harry and even the Kremlin.
Bottom line William is lazy and cannot be arsed. There are many parents who would love to be able to take time out to parent like he has done but don't have that luxury.
Using cancer to excuse Kate is despicable and an insult to all cancer sufferers. If she is still suffering side effects then she shouldn't pick the more glamorous events to appear in public. It's not a good look especially to the many who are struggling to survive, hold a family and home together while having cancer treatments.

Sadly I think we know the answer to that.

I do believe there was a time when our royal family was one to be proud of.

I also believe that the 90s and 00s hysteria about them has inflated their egos - especially William and Kate. Add in the way everyone fawned over their children in their early years, and you have an upcoming monarch who wishes to make social media statements and go to the football.

As William and Kate have been absent from things, I think it’s unfortunately quite possible that Kate is more poorly than we are being told. Of course it’s possible that he is just lazy or using Kate’s illness as an excuse as some posters have said, but if they’re wrong, they might end up feeling very bad and stupid, as we’ve seen on here previously. Whether Kate is recovering well or whether she is more poorly than we know, I do think it’s understandable that after what they have been through, that he would be more reluctant to leave a family holiday for work things than he might have been before Kates cancer diagnosis. She might not be around in a year or two, spending quality time as a family is the priority.

This would stand up if they had been massively active before the diagnosis. But they just weren’t.

I think they are also coming to the end of being 'Not Harry and Meghan'. As people lose interest in H & M and we get further and further away from TLQ and Philip they will cease to be any kind of lightening rod for dissatisfaction with the RF. The spotlight will then be on them.

Quite - they’ve always been out-worked by the elderly members of the family - predating Kate’s health issues. If they didn’t have such a reputation for only turning out for Wimbledon etc (and despite having access to childcare the average Brit could only dream of, using having a family as an excuse not to work) then I imagine the response to them scaling back would be very different.

The kind was at the VJ day events so I can't see the problem with that. What are all the other things he's missed as they might be different.

I think the hype started to die down before then, but you’re right that is also a factor.

Before the pandemic they really were very on it - their clothing choices would sell out, etc etc. then the cost of living got worse, we had the pandemic and they would talk about managing homeschooling (with a staff of 70+, a nanny, a huge country estate and a private school running a comprehensive education program l). I think that was when the inequality really became obvious. Of course at the time we still had the queen, but I don’t think people were as enamoured with the rest of them.

Exactly.

They had Kate’s mum move in, a night nurse, and a nanny from 8 months old. That nanny has stayed and the night nurse was hired for each baby after. That’s not the same as most people and I think that’s very difficult to relate to.