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!

@Serenster

I know that you state that you are a legal professional- I don’t know if you are a solicitor or a barrister - but regardless of that, surely you’d be first to point out that a police officer’s first duty is to uphold the law
An NDA does not supercede that duty .

What is a trade envoy any way?

Did nobody think Oh Andrew is unmarried I wonder how he passes the time?

Yup.

A few years ago it was accusations of infidelity and DV.

Now it is failure to comment on the mental health of a woman he never met.

No. It’s focussing on men’s mental health at a time when the news is full of the wholesale abuse of women and girls.

@Rhaidimiddim I remember how pleasant that poster was a couple of years ago. They certainly had no thought about a woman’s mental health then. Bit rich to be criticising other people

It is William-bashing.

ETA and it is very noticeable that it is almost exclusivle W getting targeted. No-one is complaining - "the King went to fashion week and Never Once tutted about the situation" or "Camilla met some upung people and failed to express her regret that so many young people get trafficked".

Thank you. Good point, well made.

I'm not bashing William. But by god he better shape up when he takes over because then I will be full of criticism if he doesn't do the right thing.
I am expecting a lot from him.

The interview was pre recorded on the 29th of January!

Me, too.

I think he knows the monarchy's hanging by a thread and he's gotta perform or else ever more people will be asking, "what's the point of having a monarch?".

(But I also think he's thinking " what's the point" too, and his long-term plan might be to engineer a strategic exit for his children.)

It is not 'debating semantics' to point out that you misquoted my post. The 'people' you refer to are not private citizens but the Head of State and those close to him, and we are completely justified in questioning their conduct. It is very revealing that your takeaway was to find this 'disgusting', in the context of the likely crimes against humanity referred to in my original post.

That’s not how it works. Protection Officers are bound by the Official Secrets Act, not contractual NDAs. They would need a specific release (such as a formal legal requirement) to disclose information learned in the course of their work, they can’t volunteer it.

And the gloss on NDAs - that they cannot be used to prevent disclosure of conduct that is or could be illegal - is a fairly new development. It came out of the MeToo movement from 2018 onwards, then there was a parliamentary enquiry into the misuse of NDAs in 2019, and guidance was issued to UK lawyers around the same time by their regulator cautioning against their misuse. It’s been codified in legislation since late last year. So no, this would not have been something any of Andrew’s protection officers considered prior to 2019.

So I think that William does care about the issue of mental health particularly around the issues of men’s mental health. It’s clearly very personal to him and you can see his sincerity when he talks to children who are grieving a parent, particularly those lost to suicide. I see the same in Harry. Their personal trauma and experience does allow them to connect to others on this issue - no amount of privilege cushions that kind of loss.

It’s an extremely unfortunate co-incidence that a mental health panel discussion recorded nearly three weeks ago, which will have been in the planning stages and scheduled for months by the broadcaster was on the same day as Andrew’s arrest.

But I disagree with the premise of the OP that it’s tone deaf or insensitive of William who had no control over the timing of either the broadcast or the arrest.

The arrest overshadowed the important message of the mental health panel and the mental health broadcast has potentially been triggering as insensitive by those affected by Epstein and Andrew.

Awful coincidence all round.

And all of this came to light after that? Right.

It couldn’t have been rescheduled? Right.

It may have escaped your notice that Fashion Week does not generally highlight men’s mental health.

I’m not sure what time the arrest happened and what time the Radio 1 panel broadcast dropped on the same day. But was probably too late to reschedule to another day.

This doesn’t make sense
All police officers are bound by the offical secrets act.
Are you implying that the police who protect the Windsors are different ?

Again the official secrets act does not mean ignoring law breaking .

Yeah, but I bet if it was W attending, he'd still have been criticised for "not addressing the Massive Elephant In The Room", where the Massive Elephant is something else. (Very young, pretty women being exploited, for example. )

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So can you clarify please. I thought you were talking about RPO officers knowing where Andrew went and who he socialised with. What specific acts are you thinking they should have been reporting?

There are plenty of young women being exploited at London Fashion Week…

Let’s look at the facts shall we?

William is not just an ordinary person or nephew. He is heir to the throne.

And as such, while he does not receive a "salary" from taxpayers, he generates personal income from the Duchy of Cornwall that rents to public bodies, eg the army and the NHS, while his security and some operational costs are publicly funded.

AMW is not just a random uncle. He was between 2001-2011 funded by the public purse to represent the UK as trade envoy.

Leaving aside anything that happened earlier to make this as fair as possible, William is 43 years old now, which means he was thirty-seven when the Emily Maitlis Newsnight interview with AMW aired.

This interview was so disastrous and it was so evident that AMW was lying, that could, or would, have been an excellent juncture at which Charles and William could have taken decisive action to remove AMW’s titles instead of waiting until 2025.

I wasn’t actually intending to explore questions of how much William knew about his uncle’s activities in this thread, I was making a different point altogether and have actually recommended that W takes over from his father if we can’t have an elected H of S, but so many people are trying to divert focus away from AMW that I thihk we should explore it now!

The late Queen died in Sept 2022. Charles paid off VG in February of that year. Are you seriously trying to argue that 39 year old William wasn’t aware of the Newsnight interview and wasn’t aware of the pay off and didn’t ask questions about it? It simply isn’t credible that he didn’t.

And you are also arguing that the heir to the throne doesn’t have any responsibility to report suspected criminal activities to the appropriate authorities?

What are you even talking about!
are you implying that William should have known when he recorded it that his uncle was going to be arrested!
and surely you are not so ignorant of media that you think that the host and owner of the podcast doesn’t have full control over when it’s broadcast!
or are you really just angry because it seems that this particular stick you are using to beat William with is in fact a non starter!

Do people really spend their time worrying if their divorced brother is dating. I don't, as far as I know he's been busy bringing up his child, doing his job, playing a sport he loves. Am I supposed to be checking if he's doing anything else?

I agreed, it simply isn't credible that he didn't know all this or ask questions.

But he wasn't.Top Dog, and neither was his dad. QE2 made the calls, and got it very wrong, as she did in making the Fat Knacker a trade envoy in tje first place.

W may well have argued against the course of action, and he may have reported the matter to the polis, if he had any evidence. Most likely he was consulted as a courtesy, then told what was going to happen.

What this lengthy recap has to do with W recording a convo about men's mental health two weeks before his uncle's arrest is beyond me.

Id always read the late Queen paid VG off. Was it Charles? When has that come out?