In case you were wondering, Prince William did not make it to the Queen’s annual pre-Christmas lunch at Buckingham Palace on Wednesday. He left his wife unattended for the event, which is how the Queen and Prince Philip dragged Kate kicking and screaming into taking over one of Philip’s military patronages. Why didn’t William show up for the Queen’s lunch? According to E! News, it was because he was attending a memorial service for his friend’s father. William was in Wiltshire for a memorial service with John Pelly, Guy Pelly’s father. Guy is close to both William and Harry, so it’s interesting to me that Harry decided to go to the Queen’s lunch and William went to the memorial.
Meanwhile, there’s a kerfuffle in the British press about William and what he has access to. It’s well-known that the Queen receives extensive government documents in her “red boxes.” I’ve read many times that the Queen also allowed her mother to read all of “red boxes,” but Prince Philip has never been allowed. Now, the BBC reports, the Queen has quietly allowed both Prince Charles and Prince William access to the red boxes.
The Duke of Cambridge occasionally receives copies of confidential cabinet documents, the BBC has learned. A Cabinet Office spokesman said that, as a future heir to the throne, it was “appropriate that he is regularly briefed on government business”. It was revealed on Tuesday that Prince Charles receives such material routinely – as does the Queen.
Campaign group Republic said there was “no good reason” why Prince William also received the information. Earlier this week, Republic received four chapters of the Cabinet Office’s “precedent book” – released after a three-year freedom of information battle. The book shows Prince Charles, the Queen, ministers and a handful of others get papers from cabinet and ministerial committees. Junior government ministers do not receive such access to the documents.
Of Prince William’s access, the group’s chief executive Graham Smith said: “There is no mention of this access in the documents released this week. It appears to be a free for all. We support Labour’s call for an inquiry, so we can know how much information is being handed to which royals.”
Following the initial discovery about Prince Charles’ access to the documents, Republic wrote to Prime Minister David Cameron calling on him to end the practice of sharing the documents with the Prince of Wales. Labour MP Paul Flynn called for a parliamentary inquiry and said the access made the prince the country’s “best-informed lobbyist”. Shadow energy and climate change minister Clive Lewis has also called for a parliamentary review.
From what I gather, the big fight is more about Charles’ access rather than William’s. Charles has a history of direct lobbying, William does not. But as an outside looking in on the UK’s monarchy, I can’t say the idea of Charles’ access bothers me at all. He’s the heir, his mother is culling her engagements, she’s passing more duties to her kids and grandkids and her crown is literally too heavy. What bugs me is that William is getting that kind of access. It’s like the Queen is really trying anything and everything to prepare William for his future role and he’s still faffing about in Norfolk, pretending to be “normal.”
Photos courtesy of WENN, Fame/Flynet.
Just said on Kate’s thread that I thought William’s absence and Harry’s attendance was weird. It reeks of William disrespecting his grandparents, but maybe he really really loves the Pellys. DIdn’t he skip his Peter’s wedding to go to a Pelly wedding?
He skipped Peter’s wedding to attend Jecca’s brother’s wedding.
Thanks, LAK. I knew he skipped a family thing for one of his friends.
I was confused by that. From the sound of it the memorial was in the afternoon, and I thought the lunch was dinner and took place at night. Perhaps one of our British buddies can correct me on those details and say that Wiltshire is too far away to get to both places in a day.
Wiltshire isn’t far. Lunch is lunch hrs. the light is confusing because we are in winter which means very short days. Right now, darkness comes at 3pmish so any photos of royals exiting in the darkness gives impression that lunch was/is really a dinner.
Oh, okay. Cuz the DM called it “dinner” a few times. Like, make up your mind, lol! It didn’t seem like these events were happening at the same time at all.
I’ve just brewed a lovely latte, and I’m going to sit down and open my packet of chocolate and salted caramel pretzels and wait for Sixer.
Me too.
Unless she’s still exploded from yesterday, in which case we need Doctor Who to go back in time to gently break this news to her so that she will gently percolate, but remain intact and come to us with her words of wisdom.
Personally, i’m still furious that the idiot prince receives these papers. i’m genuinely insulted because you know he doesn’t understand a word of it.
Har har.
I am apopleptic. To the extent that I really cannot formulate a rational post! I will return with some pearls of vituperation when I am calmer!
First thoughts: you do realise that some members of the FREAKIN’ CABINET don’t have eyes on some of these papers?
I really believe that the Heir and Heir’s children should be obligated to go to University and study something like International Relations/Politics, Political Science, Economics, etc if they’re going to read such papers and actually make decisions/advise people.
William’s university degree is such a joke.
The thing is, though, they’re NOT going to advise people. The idea is that the head of government keeps the head of state informed about what’s going on as a) a courtesy and b) so that they can be polite and knowledgeable at state dinners and the like. The problem is that WE, THE PEOPLE, have to take it on trust that the head of state’s progeny and progeny-of-progeny won’t use advance notice of government policy to advance their own, or their friends’ business or financial interests.
*plops down in a corner with my laptop near you*
I have to finish writing a cover letter and updating my resume before tomorrow but I am not missing this!
Ok. I am calmer. Someone made me laugh out loud. Ex-ambassador Craig Murray has a post on this in which he said William has the “private political opinions you would expect from an extremely rich and not very bright person educated at St Andrews University”.
One of the commenters said, “You mean opinions such as ‘cull the chavs’?”
Teehee.
HAHAHAHAHA
That made my day. not surprised by Tim Nice but dim or should that be Tim arrogant and dim yah
this is my favourite comment….
“The idea that William, with his modest intellectual gifts, has anything to offer on weighty matters, makes a laughing stock of our (un)constitutional process.”
Murray’s blog is always fun! You just have to filter out the tin foil hat comments and the furious ones in the ongoing war between some pro-Israel and pro-Palestine people, but otherwise there is some true wit and wisdom in there.
Thanks for bringing this blog to my attention. I’ve bookmarked it.
Oh, damn…that’s too funny.
I don’t think there will be a monarchy for William to inherit. He doesn’t want the job only the perks of a royal.
Yup.
In the second pic Prince william has the constipated haughty charles look. Just sayin.
Ha – we shouldn’t fret – I bet even if he was given the papers he wouldn’t bother his arse reading them….
I just don’t agree with monarchy. Besides that, a lot of british friends love the queen but hate William. I would like to know if the people in Great Britain and from the Common Walth that use this site agree with it. My friens say that he doesn’t have the tools or the will to do this job properly.
He has the tools. Will lacks the will.
So are they trying entice William to take his position more seriously by feeding his ego and giving him a sense of how important his role is? If so, don’t they realize that these characteristics are what makes him weak and immature and could be used to manipulate him by those more clever and unscrupulous?
After all, if even now he can’t seem to grasp the basic knowledge that his and his family’s future is based upon him completely fulfilling the duties his position requires, would he understand fully the importance of his duty to safeguard the secrecy of these documents no matter how much others play on his weaknesses?
I think they should have waited until William showed more maturity and inner strength. Right now, he’s operating on doing things only when it pleases him and on what he can get from it. Though I doubt anything from these documents that deal with domestic issues will affect me, but the internationally relevant ones might. So hopefully nothing he sees has anything to do with international politics, especially those involving terrorism, and hopefully he won’t be tempted by some sweet-talking, ego-stroking person who might make him feel good about himself if he leaks something.
The cabinet office justified their position by saying that he is a senior royal who is going to be head of state therefore he deserves to have these papers.
@ LAK
Odd that the Cabinet Office didn’t mention his name in its ‘precedent book’ if it was so ‘keen’ and ‘energized’ for him to do his senior royal work.
That’s so weak, isn’t it? Until he actually steps up to the plate of the hard slog royal work of charming ambassadors and Johnny Foreigner heads of state and royalty, he has no need to have sight of any of this stuff whatsoever. None at all. I mean, he’s not going to turn up to Action on Addiction or whatever to find that the trustees have big concerns about arms sales to Saudi Arabia or whether or not Turkey should join the EU or how The Forehead of Doom’s renegotiations are going, is he? FFS. Or even FFFingS.
Lest we forget #whateverworkmeans!!!
Sixer: let’s make it simple. As his degree is in Geography, we’ll start him off by asking him to point to Turkey on a map.
That should keep him occupied for awhile.
Yesterday Florc speculated that he might be receiving cliff note versions, but given his comments on subjects he is supposedly passionate and knowledgeable, I think he is too dim for Cliff notes.
“Cabinet Memoranda for Dummies”?
I remember Condoleeza Rice saying that because GWB doesn’t like to read, she had to make a 30-minute DVD explaining the catastrophe caused by Hurricane Katrina in order for him to be informed before he flew down there.
Maybe in exchange for abridged audio versions of the documents on CDs, Uncle Gary can get some of his shady croonies to make them for William, at a cost of course.
I don’t think you should mention bright ideas like that in public, Anne. Before we know it, they’ll come true!
@ Sixer LOL!
I doubt he reads them… or let’s say he reads just a few and that’s it. He is known to be an intellectual lightweight. His people write his speeches and gives him Info papers about his charities. I doubt he studies something on his on.
That first picture of William waving like a dork…he reminds me so much of Jared of Subway/pedophile fame. Creeps me out every time I see it.