Private Eye on William

[ItsTheSeasonOfTheStick]

I found this quite entertaining

What I don't understand is why people on MN want the RF to do things that are actually the jobs of their elected officials. There are also lots of wealthy people in the UK who can donate to charity. Are these people not capable of acting like Michael Bloomberg or Melinda Gates or McKenzie Scott and just writing a check? Even the US robber barons for the love of God?

It's no longer the middle ages. If you want William to strip titles, change legislation, give alms to the poor and worthy, and hold some kind of holiday court where he washes the feet of aged pensioners then drop the constitutional monarchy idea.

Give him some actual power, or accept that his hands are tied and he has to work behind the scenes. You can't have both.

It was set up to fail all along I think.

They don’t want that either @BemusedAmerican! They don’t understand how constitutional monarchy works and they just want to bitch about it!

I agree, I am all for an open discussion in the merits or not of a monarchy and the way forward when William becomes King but when it’s just a bitch fest about their new house and sniping they don’t do their own packaging I loose interest.

I think what many people want is for them not to coin money in from schools and public buildings and ferry routes in Liverpool and god knows what else. It’ll besmirch their reputation, whatever else they change. Rather like taking action over Andrew only after the latest revelation. The whole country knew he was a liar, so they surely must surely also.

They have to charge market rent to public bodies, it’s been discussed on threads on here in depth many times.

Sure. All landlords do, don’t they 😄

Excellent post.

Is it? That’s nice.

It was set up to fail all along I think.

By who & why?

You can Google just as easily as I can.

Of course he does. Just not one where he has to hire his house out to Netflix to pay for the roof repairs, or one where his kids have to get a job.

No more ghoulish than 'The King is dead. Long live the king'.

Did you not read Nostradamus' entry about the new King, who wouldn't be king for long. However it also mentions apparently the heir is not the expected one. Cue all the conspiracy theorists.....

Charles with his recent cancer etc, I suspect his health is worse than is being made out but as hes waited so long he will soldier on so to speak

Agree.

How do people think republican societies manage to have thriving charity sectors?

The weird "Brian" thing is preventing me from taking this blurb seriously.

What if Charles has inherited the recessive "Lizard Queen" gene and outlives everybody?

I agree that posts about the PofW schlepping his own furniture are a bit ridiculous. The problem is that there are often posts justifying them NOT doing things for the same sort of reason. For example, there were plenty of people recently justifying the PofW not attending the recent women’s football final at Wembley because it was on a Saturday and she had to look after the children. Some of us find the “they’re just like us” narrative hard to take.

That’s just Private Eye’s “house style”. They’ve always given famous people nicknames. The Late Queen was Brenda. Charles has always been Brian. I think Prince Philip was Keith.

One thing that people missed from that interview was they asked him what he does at home. He said sleep. My jaw and my whole face really hit the floor. How "lucky " that as a 40 something man he scoots around the palaces and sleeps. The privilege of it. And the tone deafness to just throw that out. Especially in this economy when more than ever, people in the uk are working two jobs but still can't make ends meet. I appreciate he was born into it and some people will be rich and others poor but I just thought wow. How privileged and blind. How turdish. He sleeps

You can Google just as easily as I can.

What is the point of Mumsnet then? Google tells me that it was considered a failure but no one set it up... Thanks for your contribution I guess!

Very true. Save the lemurs, kill the pheasants and the stags! They’d still be fox hunting if they thought they could get away with it.

As a principle I don’t actually have much of an objection to the RF. I totally get the argument about the privilege and too many palaces and too much money spent on them, etc. But I guess on balance I’m swayed by the history and the shiny coaches. 😁.

But they have to be seen to be doing something to have that privilege in my view. I’m shocked by the earlier post that when he was asked what he does William said “sleep”. Wtf. Maybe it was a joke about how exhausted he was when he got home or something I don’t know. But why would he be exhausted, maybe there’s some context missing.

But overall William and Kate seem like a right pair of workshy no marks. Oh I know, cancer, blah, blah, blah. Ok but what about before her cancer diagnosis? What about him? Is it still a valid reason for her now? I can’t see either of them changing. I don’t care if people say some of their charity patronages are rubbish, I’m not saying they have to change the world. They just have to get out of bed in the morning and do something. I do think that the work ethic in the RF is getting more diluted with each generation. They’re hardly setting a good example to George!

The 'just like us' narrative is silly, in the same way as look the Queen used tupperware was. But i think it's a response to the strange demands of the public that they simultaneously do royal things whilst never ever living in a way that shows they are not like us.

They aren't like us, if you take 'us' to be ordinary members of the public. But in a large part this narrative is more often pushed by the press, not the palace. And then of course sets them up for some nasty comments which keeps the clicks coming.

Exactly.

Or maybe the politicians could actually do something instead of pushing it back to the palace?

I remember Prince Charles discussing his reign in the 1990s, almost 30 years before his mother died. People dying over the age of 70 isn't unusual, and the monarchy needs to project continuity. It isn't the same as eyeing up granny's silver before she's even dead.

But the Palace must push the “just like us” narrative too-otherwise we wouldn’t have so many videos of them in the stands at Aston Villa, or doing some shopping, or struggling to get a child into a car seat. Or making sandwiches for 5 minutes at a soup kitchen (that’s a generic suggestion-no idea whether there’s a real video of that, but there are loads of similar) They do it because it’s good PR-their fans find it charming and relatable. And softens people up for the “Well, they can’t attend any functions on X weekend, they’re moving house” “They can’t do any work in the school holidays, they’re both hands on parents”narrative.