Scotland’s First Minister Nicola Sturgeon was not happy about the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge’s Keen Pandemic Tour. She really got the ball rolling with her somewhat terse criticism of how William and Kate should not have traveled into Scotland. Welsh public health officials followed suit, and there definitely seems to be an overwhelming sense of horror that the Tweedlekeens thought this tour was a good idea. I’ll say this as well: the tour still would have been problematic and tone-deaf even if W&K were staying masked the entire time, but the fact that they’re wandering around maskless during some of their stops is completely reprehensible.
As I’ve said a few times in these posts, I’m starting to believe that William and Kate are useful-idiot pawns being used to distract from an assortment of awful headlines in the UK, from Brexit to Prince Charles’ insane hate campaign against The Crown. I genuinely believe that the Tories sent the Keens out there to distract. But Boris Johnson doesn’t want to sign his name to this mess now. Maybe it’s even worse than he thought it would be! Maybe he didn’t even send them out.
Downing Street has dodged questions over whether or not the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge’s cross-Britain tour is compliant with Covid rules. The Prime Minister’s official spokesman repeatedly directed journalists towards the palace when questioned about William and Kate’s railway tour.
Asked if the Westminster government shared the Welsh and Scottish governments’ questioning of the royals’ trip, he replied: “That’s obviously a matter for the palace and I would point you towards them. But we have set out clearly the tiers and the advice around the current guidelines that we are asking the public to abide by.”
Pressed if the trip was compliant, he replied: “I’m pointing you towards the palace. It’s clearly a matter for them. I’m making the general point that we’ve set out the regionalised tier system that is now in place and the guidance that we are asking people to abide by.”
Asked if the palace sought any guidance from Downing Street before the trip, he replied: “As I say, it’s a matter for the palace.”
When it was pointed out they had issued statements when high profile celebrities such as Rita Ora broke the rules, he added: “As I say, it’s a matter for the palace. As I’ve set out, the more general point, we’ve set out the regionalised tiering approach and the guidelines that we are asking the public to follow.”
Asked if he was refusing to back the royals’ trip, he replied: “I’m pointing you towards the palace.”
Clearly, it’s NOT a matter solely for the palace? If this was a personal situation, a story about the Cambridge family alone, arguably it would just be a matter for the palace. Although I would argue that William and Kate want to be seen as the Future King and Future Queen so badly, they should start acting like it even when it comes to disclosing sh-t like William having coronavirus back in March. But back to Downing Street’s position… when it involves two dumbf–ks taking a taxpayer-funded Royal Train around the United Kingdom for a maskless super-spreader tour in violation of current lockdown regulations set forth by Downing Street, surely it’s a matter for Downing Street? Anyway, this is just a reminder that William and Kate wanted credit for thinking up this catastrophic tour all by themselves. I bet when they get home, suddenly it will be someone else’s fault, don’t you think? I can’t believe Meghan and Harry forced the Keens to do this awful pandemic tour!!
And after all that, suddenly Boris Johnson wants everyone to know that he’s keen.
UPDATE: No10 spokesman: ‘The PM is delighted to see the warm reception the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge have received on their hugely valuable train tour of England, Scotland and Wales." https://t.co/0ugyRNI7aM
— Chris Mason (@ChrisMasonBBC) December 8, 2020
Was BoJo making a jerking-off motion when he said that?
Photos courtesy of Avalon Red.
I can’t with William’s face. At all. I love alternative/metal music. And every time I see his face trying to make some sort of expression I’m viscerally reminded of “The Sound of Silence” cover by Disturbed (truly excellent, I recommend it to even non metal heads. hey, even Paul Simon liked it!). I digress. Before David Draiman goes into metal growl, he makes that scrunched up face (it serves a purpose there).
Oh man I LOVE that song. I’ll be singing it in my head for the rest of today!
Every time I see William’s scrunched up face that cover goes through my head. I also love that song so I guess William is finally good for something?
Just listened to it, it was great! I hadn’t heard of Disturbed before, but a good song is a good song & this has Paul Simon’s seal of approval. I refuse to connect Willy-Boy’s face to it though, just no.
An excellent recommendation @HeatherC. Just downloaded this amazing cover, thank you.
Well at least nobody is paying attention to The Crown…
So wait, this isn’t Netflix’s fault? Or Harry and Meghan’s?
Or to the UK crashing out of the EU with no deal at the end of this month.
can we re-start the #Abolishthemonarchy twitter campaign now?
Yes!
From what I can see, a trip of this scale would need a lot of planning and approval from No 10.
My guess is that No 10 were happy to sponsor the idea as a distraction to Brext, however when the blow-back came, No 10 attempted to distance themselves.
Now it seems they’re back on the record backing W&K. So odd on all counts.
Someone at the Palace lost their shit at Boris at the prospect of Will and Kate being thrown under the bus. Lol.
If there hadn’t been criticism, Will and Kate would have rushed to take credit. This is the royals and the Tories working together.
How did they not expect blow back? They were getting blow back before the train ever left the station.
I think they thought people would be charmed by Kate’s wardrobe or interacting with kids or whatever. I honestly don’t know. They do remind me of the Trumps in this sense – surrounded by total “yes men” (or women) so they don’t even consider that there might be blowback.
Politics at its most craven.
Oh lord what a cluster! Somebody dropped
the ball and now they’re all pointing fingers at each other. Can’t wait to see how the palace spins it!
I’m just imagining all of the furious phone calls going back and forth between Kensington Palace and Downing Street😂
This is interesting because the main defense from the Cambridge stans for this trip is that they were asked by the government and so didn’t have a choice, they had to do it. This makes it clear that at the very least, they were NOT asked by the government. Or if they were, Boris is washing his hands of it at this point.
The follow up just tells me that someone from some royal palace called Downing Street and was pissed. I do feel like the line “hugely valuable train tour” is definitely snarky though lol.
Lol, there is no train tour that is “hugely valuable.” Ever.
it’s either snark or copy and paste from a KP statement. unironically hyperbolic language is def their thing.
Probably from KP; they only have ‘hugely’ and ‘massively’ in their repertoire.
I am loving the schadenfreude here. Billy wanted to seem important but as with everything else covid, he’s just an arrogant idiot. None of what they do is essential work and they should have done this tour six months from now.
You can bet many will ignore whatever rules the UK does have in place because if Billy and Cathy can chuckle over marshmallows and have that count as “work” then a lot of people can justify what they do as work as well.
I’m wondering why it’s a palace matter if taxpayers are footing the bill. If it’s just a royal train tour vacation, then W&K can take the heat on their own, but if the gov’t co-signed this and gave their blessing, they need to say so.
Totally, much was made of this tour being Cain and Unable idea and now its a train wreck its all Boris’s fault. I think Boris has bigger fish to fry than these 2 dimwits.
Am now intrigued as to how the Cams and their press buddies will play this forward – its clear that they are NOT popular so I wonder how long that the press start turning on them, now that the politicians have.
Or he needs these dimwits to distract from his failures.
Great comment digital unicorn.
“its clear that they are NOT popular so I wonder how long that the press start turning on them, now that the politicians have.”
Soon I hope, these two provide no results or benefits minus the cute kids.
I mean, they’re all awful of course. But BoJo just threw FFK Wills under the bus and I’m here for it!!
I figured a blame game between the government and the royals would start.
Whoever’s idea it was, it doesn’t matter really. Admit it wasn’t the best idea and apologise.
Well, well, well, at least Kate, during the visit to Wales, color-coordinated with the bus she’s being thrown under by Boris.
Hahahahahahahaha…this is hilarious. Thanks for the laugh..
She loves a theme!
“Hugely Valuable”?????
AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!! 😂
Dear God England (I’m leaving Wales and Scotland out of it), grow up. Abolish this nonsense.
this was a truly awful idea, and it’s hard to fathom that several people looked at the risks involved (to both PR and health), and thought *this* is how we should end the year. is it finally time for the cambridges to be humbled?
Nope won’t happen. This pandemic express tour will pad their numbers and their stans will crow that they are the hardest working royals ever with a straight face.
The press wanted photos with Sandringham and other events cancelled. Govt probably did want a brexit distraction and the crown wanted a distraction from er the crown. I wonder if the firm (with the rota’s leaning) suggested some type of tour & number 10 were like sure why not. It seems hastily organised.
There was a lot of backlash to this & the government has had its own problems with advisors not complying with lockdown rules so probably sought to distance themselves because of that until the palace put in a call. Now it’s a little political football for Boris Johnson to put Scotland and Wales in place.
Very messy and to be honest has taken away from who they’ve visited etc
I think as well they, the Cambridges, wanted to jump on the vaccine roll out – just like they jump on everything else to get some easy PR. This time its blown up big time in their faces.
Big Willy is going to be ‘incandescent’ over the backlash and dragging.
That’s a great summation of all the motives! Seems like everyone thought there would be something in it for them but then it blew up in their faces.
This is clearly Boris Johnson using the Cambridges as a distraction for his Brexit mess, then throwing them under the bus through Downing Street after the backlash.
These heirheads have no idea how to connect to the real world. Both William and Charles!
W&K made this whole train tour look like two adolescents snatching their granny’s rolls royce for a PR joyride.
Heirheads is the perfect insult for this pair.
Their PR is so basic it’s almost like they don’t have people working for them.
How is travelling around the Kingdom modeling everything not to do in the fight against Covid “highly valuable”?
Quite the spin, isn’t it. It’s all about them and padding their end-of-year numbers. All to appear like work, when it’s not work at all. It’s bullshit.
Mustn’t be political! Except when we want the freakin prime minister to defend our event? They are so deep with the Tory party.
“Tweedlekeens” just made my morning better. Thank you.
William and Kate are as out of touch as the Queen and Charles. At least this tour confirms it.
My take on Boris’s tweet is that it was “hugely valuable” to him. Boris got a break from Brexit and someone else to take some heat. I don’t think Kate and William have the motivation to crank out a 3 day domestic tour right before the holidays without being told to. They’re keen to be keen not keen to be in the trenches. All together the tour shouldn’t have happened, but if it was going to, they should have at least been using the royal train to haul vaccines to the first distribution centers or PPE supplies to the NHS.
The is very messy lmaoo. This was definitely a joint effort between the govt and KP but now the govt wants to distance themselves since there’s a lot of blowback. they definitely got a pissed of call from KP and backtracked. This tells me they all know it’s not being received well at all.
It just makes me even more glad for Meghan and Harry to be away from that toxic place–I’m not saying the Uk is toxic in itself, but the RF is a toxic environment, and in the midst of the Brexit chaos, anyone who’s an outsider could be an easy target for the frustration and fear many are feeling right now. The media is upset most of all about the loss of Meghan as a scapegoat. Just think of all the artciles they could be writing right now about her 100 quintillion dollar wardrobe and how she sassed the queen and bitchslapped Kate. The royal reporters are probably crying into their drinks every night over “what could have been.”
Bill and Cathy are trumpy, no?
The entire family is Trumpy. Look at the Queen protecting Andrew.
Lol, imagine William doing a baby voice whisper about his father and his granny.
I’m officially calling this “The Train Wreck Tour”. I’m glad they are getting dragged for this, even on ITV news last night dragged this tour, and ITV are on the KP payroll too. Maybe the British media are p*ssed that the Keens didn’t get the details on Meghan’s miscarriage, cos usually the BM would just gloss the backlash.
Camilla T did say the Keens came up with the tour themselves. Let’s see them try and change that narrative.
There’s been something brewing behind the scenes for a while now regarding the Cambridge’s media relations. It’s been going on a while, but not disclosing his covid diagnosis was the straw that broke the camel’s back. Simply put, the 10-year post wedding glow is gone and the gloves are off.
Right-wing press, right-wing government, right-wing royals all using each other.
But Boris is the UK Trump. He threw the Queen under the bus. He has no loyalty to any of them. Being a Tory doesn’t mean he’s going to act like Cameron.
Oh, Cameron was so far up their ass*s.
No 10’s bandaid statement using “hugely” is clearly coming from the palace. Again, this tour infuriates me and yes, I’m incandescent. As someone who works in PR, I have to weigh every single social media post against the impact of the pandemic and the suffering it has caused, globally. I cannot believe anyone in a position to advise these ignorant, privileged idiots greenlighted this failure. I am glad there is a backlash and I hope it keeps growing. I can normally keep a sense of humor but not in this case.
The queen can’t get the COVID jab on TV cause it’s too political, but WK can trot out the PM to defend them?
The COVID express tour was ill-conceived, ill-timed, and ill-executed. If their tour was suppose to life spirits, then what’s stopping other people from traveling to do the same? If the keens can do it, the keeners might think that it’s fine for them to visit families and friends, cause that will lift spirits too. They aren’t modeling good behavior at all.
They’re not the public y’all, they are Royals and they can do whatever they want whenever they want. This has petty E2 all over it – using the old train (“The peasants always complaining we don’t use these things well this is the perfect time to use it now isn’t it?!”) the ultimate flex of power in 2020 is traveling During the pandemic, of course they need to outflex people like the kartrashians and drumpfs
Oh goodness, I know I’m stating the obvious, but William did not age well. He looks my age or older and I’ve got about 15 years on him. And it’s not just aging, he looks like a throwback to all the old stereotypical fictional depictions of daft pompous old kings, with their sneering haughty faces and odd facial proportions. All that’s missing is a powdered wig.
I can’t imagine there’s truth to the gardening rumors anymore. If you presided over a fabulous estate and could have your pick of lovers, would you want to kiss THAT?
He lost every bit of attractiveness he got from Diana. It’s a shame because for a time he did manage to take after her.
I think it’s the personality asserting itself over the features. It’s a shame. If he would have worked through his childhood issues like Harry did, I think we’d be looking at a more attractive person inside and out. But that’s work and he doesn’t like to do any.