How come William chose to ignore the massive elephant in the room and no one challenged him on it?

[Roadtripwithpretzels]

Prince William spoke about the very important subject of mh yesterday on Radio One and while it’s a subject that should be highlighted, does no one else think that his credibility on this issue has now been damaged by the AMW case?

He may not have been personally responsible for the alleged cover up, and he may well loathe Uncle Andrew, but he is still a central player in the institution that helped to pay off and cover up the voices of AMW’s alleged victims? Virginia Giuffre took her own life fhs! He can’t just ignore it!

To me this interview came across as incredibly unintelligent and insensitive in current circumstances. And proof that William himself just doesn’t “get it”.

Why on earth did he not say that in the light of current circumstances and out of respect for victims; the interview couldn’t go ahead?

Or why did his new ex crisis manager PR person not advise this?

And why was he allowed to sit there by the BBC and not address this?

And what about the mh of the Palace staff who have suffered because of AMW’s boorish and inappropriate behaviour for years? The nanny who allegedly left because of AMW being inappropriate and the policeman whose arm was hurt by AMW’s speeding at Windsor? The maids who were screamed at? What about the mental health of the police protection offices who quite recently were, according to Lownie, reminded about their NDAs and the safety of their pensions if they spoke out?

I don’t think it’s good enough any longer for a senior member of the RF to sit there and say yet again in a rather generic way “we all need to talk about our mental health” while ignoring what their own institution has covered up for years and is still allegedly trying to suppress?

And the BBC should hold some accountability about this too!

That is a fair point.

But there was the other option not to do the interview at all.

Oh please. That post is not even worthy of a response.

This is a situation which the UN considers may meet the threshold for constituting crimes against humanity, given the scale and severity of the atrocities against women and girls. And a senior member of the RF is potentially heavily implicated in those crimes, and his family members (including past, present and future Heads of State) potentially implicated in covering up for and protecting him.

Given these circumstances, it is almost unbearably crass for William to take part in a radio interview which centres - of all things - understanding his own mental health issues and calling for 'male role models' without any reference to the current context. Not that male mental health isn't important, of course it is - but did neither he nor any of those advising him not realise that the timing was all wrong and looked tone deaf, and get that interview pulled?

It may be some kind of attempt by him to distance himself from the uproar enveloping his family, but he can't; he is at the centre and beneficiary of the RF. I acknowledge that other family members involving his father are out being visible, carrying out engagements and braving the heckling. Not William though; he is off on (yet another) holiday following his arduous trip to Saudi Arabia.

When the going gets tough the not-so-tough get going....on holiday.

The melodrama! 🤣 We are not living in Iran, where expressing a view publicly would indeed be brave.

I agree with the majority of this post wildfellhall

I hold Charles a bit more accountable than you as I think it is believed that he had taken hold of the reins in Feb 2022 when the pay off was made to VG, and the late Queen died in September of the same year.

Of course we are not entitled to know who was doing precisely what, when, which is a situation which wouldn’t arise if we had an elected Head of State.

However, I do sympathise with Charles on a human level. He hadn’t wanted AMW to be appointed TE in the first place. He predicted what would happen. His mother landed him with an appalling problem. He should have done more earlier but he then became ill. The legacy of his rein will be defined by how he acts now. And I agree that an honourable thing to do now would be to abdicate, Leaving William clear, in the absence of an elected Head of S, to hopefully instigate root and branch change.

I think most of us can agree after this scandal, that the RF can no longer be trusted to police themselves. The first thing William should do is have the monarchy submit to outside scrutiny by MPs, and a newly formed committee of retired judges, forensic accountants and a revolving “jury” of ordinary members of the public who have experience of public service eg nurses, firefighters, carers, doctors, youth workers who can both scrutinise and advise.

@Serenster

Mock all you like

Readers can draw their own conclusions

That's a bit of a daft idea .. William can't talk about mental health because of Virginia's suffering. It's not even a logical idea. Eg A person cannot talk about nutrition because someone else is fat. A person cannot talk about mental health because they haven't experienced it. Blah blah 🙄

Yes, exactly this! You have expressed it all much better than I did Futurehappiness.
Agree on every point and with the visibility issue!

I think you are deliberately twisting the argument a little berthasbloomers

No one has suggested that W should have gone on a radio programme to talk about his uncle and VG!

But William and his advisors should have been aware and savvy enough to know that, two weeks ago, or whenever it was recorded, in the light of this current AMW scandal, and the emerging Epstein emails, was not the right time to record an interview about mh, when VG’s plight is at the forefront of everyone’s minds.

And I agree that an honourable thing to do now would be to abdicate, Leaving William clear, in the absence of an elected Head of S, to hopefully instigate root and branch change.

I'm a republican but why on earth should Charles abdicate?

William has said himself that he will be making conservative changes, so more of a light prune than root and branch change.

I disagree.
He was quite correct to have gone ahead with this chat about MH. It would have been important to him, important to the people who were there and to the people listening. As someone who has experience in the area of MH, I’m very glad he didn’t cancel.

Mental health should not be used as a stick to beat someone with.

You see I don't think it is VG that is at the forefront of everyone's minds. I think she and others are secondary to the desire to have someone brought to justice for this. Andrew may be a dirty dog but he is one of a cast of many. As for the charges Andrew is facing it , it's not going to be about VG is it?

The problem with your proposal is that we already have a system that is supposed to police the Royal family. We don't have an absolute monarchy, we have a constitutional monarchy in which parliament is supposed to be sovereign. A large proportion of Royal finances, the Crown Estate and the Duchy of Lancaster, and to some extent Cornwall, are overseen by people outside the Royal family and use of finances by royals is governed by rules.

So whilst I agree that we need reform, i don't think that it should be limited to those in the family. A few questions I would like to see answered:
Why are so many individuals shuffled between government and monarchy as advisers?
Why are nearly all those advisers from public schools?
Why can't we clarify who owns what and clarify the tangled royal and royal adjacent finances? It's understandable for things to get complicated over the centuries but we now need transparency.
Why does the Speaker stop MPs asking legitimate, relevant questions about the crown?
Why is everyone in the establishment behaving as if we have an absolute monarch?

What does William do about mental health other than talk about it?

Does he put money towards the ordinary person accessing it? I know there's Heads Together that is co-ordinated by the Royal Foundation, but seems to be bankrolled by others.

From what I can make out from HT website Catherine has spoken at an online school assembly about the importance of being kind, and William has met some footballers.

To me, the general populace has no problems with knowledge about mental health being important - they have problems accessing the services that can help them.

NOT MPs.

Exactly @MrsLeonFarrell. The system described by @Roadtripwithpretzels is exactly what should be happening and what Parliament is designed to be. They have decided we still live in an absolute Monarchy and the press have decided they can't be bothered to do their job either so we have somehow ended up with a situation where we have to call for a system designed in 1660 to be implemented!

You don’t think that MPs should be able to discuss matters pertaining to the RF in Parliament?

It’s the Erskine May guidelines that got us in to this position in the first place!

All the while, Ruritania was allowed to thrive behind a wall of smoke and mirrors and our democratic representatives were unable to speak out!

MPs are our elected representatives. It's the literal point of a Parliamentary democracy with a Constitutional Monarch at its head. The shame is that they are self serving and too subservient to The Crown. Probably because they are desperate for favours and gongs.

I’m more than happy for him to just turn up at a radio studio and discuss MH in public both from a personal point of view and more generally, it helps to keep it at the forefront. Male suicide rates in this country are shocking so I was pleased he focussed on this area in particular.

There is every chance that someone may just have tuned in to that and felt heard.

‘the best way to prevent suicide is to talk about it’.

I’m not expecting him (or any other wealthy person who speaks on the subject) to bank roll MH services, that is not his role, that belongs to the government.

But we do live supposedly in one of the most established democracies in the world, a country who's Bill of Rights was the founding principle of many, many other democracies the world over, yet in the 21st Century Republicans were being detained for 'ruining peoples day' by expressing an opinion ( and in some cases, where they may be about to write something on a piece of paper which potentially could have spoilt someone's day) and where people have no choice but to directly shout questions because their MPs are cowards.

He could pay some tax towards the state provision of services. Yes, he says he 'pays tax at the highest rate' but for all we know he could be paying himself a 'salary' of £80k and paying tax on that, despite being a billionaire. Until he is more transparent about his finances he is no better than 'do as I say so I don't have to'
His secrecy around his own finances and his unwillingness to walk the walk on the Duchy of Cornwall means he loses credibility. Talking about his ' mental health' when he was a pilot, when others can't just decide they don't want to do difficult things anymore so they go and live in various palaces, and don't have access to the very best MH services makes him completely out of touch and frankly irrelevant.

"implicated in covering up for and protecting him". This is a huge reach and we know nothing of the sort.

Libellious statements like this really need to be curtailed because there is no proof of any kind of cover up or protection under the current monarch.

How can they not have known? Now I get it that they don't live in a 3 bed semi but they knew all about Andrew and did nothing.

There is absolutely no evidence about what "they" knew. Every day on mumsnet there are stories of families shocked by something a relative has done. Why expect the Royal family to be omniscient?

Why didn't the families of other men involved with Epstein do something? Why didn't families of women targeted by Epstein do something? Why did the men involved with Epstein be involved?

Why are the RF being the only people targeted here (with the exception of Mandelson)?