On July 29th, a Welsh-born man attacked little girls at a Southport dance class. He stabbed several children and three little girls died from their wounds. While King Charles offered condolences from afar, he preferred to play Highland Games while England descended into white nationalist riots and a hate-crime spree spread across the country. He still hadn’t met personally with the Southport families all of these weeks later, but Charles wants credit for announcing that he will meet the families. He literally just began the Balmoral leg of his summer vacation (previously, he had been vacationing at Castle Mey).
The King will meet children who survived the Southport attack, in which three young girls were killed, on Tuesday. The monarch will visit the Merseyside town to express support for all those affected by the stabbings, which happened on July 29.
He will hold a private meeting with some of those who were at the Taylor Swift-themed dance workshop at which the three children were killed and 10 others seriously injured, as well as their families and others involved in the response.
He will then spend around an hour with members of the Southport community outside the town hall before meeting representatives from Merseyside’s emergency services and local community groups at Southport Community Fire Station.
The King will also meet the bereaved families in London on Wednesday. Bebe King, six, Elsie Dot Stancombe, seven, and Alice Dasilva Aguiar, nine, were stabbed to death at the Hart Space Community Centre. Among those who witnessed the attack and escaped was Bebe’s elder sister, Genie, nine.
Did the prime minister order Charles to fly down for this meeting? Charles literally just did the big welcome ceremony at Balmoral on Monday. I suspect he’ll be back in Balmoral by the end of Wednesday.
Here’s the kicker: Taylor Swift is completing her five-night Eras Tour leg at Wembley, and she already met with the Southport families. The little girls were taking part in a Taylor Swift-themed dance class, and Taylor had already reached out to the families and she invited them to her Wembley concerts. She spent time with the families backstage and gave the survivors some special attention. Taylor Swift did more for the families than King Charles, and Taylor did it faster.
Taylor hosted and met with the affected Southport families at the Eras Tour last week in London 🤍 #TSTheErasTourLondon pic.twitter.com/5evOJV95W1
— Taylor Swift Updates (@SwiftNYC) August 19, 2024
Photos courtesy of Cover Images.
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- King Charles III inspects the Balaklava Company, 5th Battalion, The Royal Regiment of Scotland, at the gates of Balmoral, as he takes up summer residence at the castle Featuring: King Charles III Where: Balmoral, United Kingdom When: 19 Aug 2024 Credit: PA Images/INSTARimages **NORTH AMERICA RIGHTS ONLY**
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- King Charles III inspects the Balaklava Company, 5th Battalion, The Royal Regiment of Scotland, at the gates of Balmoral, as he takes up summer residence at the castle Featuring: King Charles III Where: Balmoral, United Kingdom When: 19 Aug 2024 Credit: PA Images/INSTARimages **NORTH AMERICA RIGHTS ONLY**
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- King Charles III meets Shetland pony Cpl Cruachan IV (mascot of the Royal Regiment of Scotland) during an inspection of Balaklava Company, 5th Battalion, The Royal Regiment of Scotland, at the gates of Balmoral, as he takes up summer residence at the castle Featuring: King Charles III Where: Balmoral, United Kingdom When: 19 Aug 2024 Credit: PA Images/INSTARimages **NORTH AMERICA RIGHTS ONLY**
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- King Charles III inspects the Balaklava Company, 5th Battalion, The Royal Regiment of Scotland, at the gates of Balmoral, as he takes up summer residence at the castle Featuring: King Charles III Where: Balmoral, United Kingdom When: 19 Aug 2024 Credit: PA Images/INSTARimages **NORTH AMERICA RIGHTS ONLY**
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- King Charles III inspects the Balaklava Company, 5th Battalion, The Royal Regiment of Scotland, at the gates of Balmoral, as he takes up summer residence at the castle Featuring: King Charles III Where: Balmoral, United Kingdom When: 19 Aug 2024 Credit: PA Images/INSTARimages **NORTH AMERICA RIGHTS ONLY**
Well TS knows a thing or two about PR.
The Firm and their yesmen incompetence is a matter of fact.
I am no expert, but Taylor seems to get it right most often – she treats her staff well from what I hear, and she meets so many young people who for various reasons need some extra love and support. It feels so genuine, I hope it is and not just PR. Every step of the tour she is donating to food banks… not small amounts but really significant amounts.
She’s donating to food banks while Cluck rolls up promising empty refrigerators, and Can’t & Won’t have never turned up to a food bank with so much as a tin of SPAM or a bag of sausage rolls.
As far as the BRF’s stated mission of being a “guiding light to all the people in the realm” and “being a source of comfort”, they really do fail on all fronts. Every time the “working royals” and their feckwitted courtiers drop the ball like this, it just points up how much not a single one of them is worth the money the public is spending on their upkeep.
Meanwhile the “celebrities”, like Taylor Swift, and H&M whom they’ve decided to class as celebrities with their “they’re not like us! they’re not working royals!” nonsense, are out there actually connecting with people and getting it done.
I do hope Charles will be able to muddle through this great inconvenience to his summer holiday. (Said in a mocking English accent.)
It’s certainly too much of an inconvenience for Camilla.
Yes how magnanimous of him to spare a bit of time from his vacation to do what he should have done weeks ago. Sounds like he was forced to do this for PR for himself.
So instead of visiting before his holidays – just after the tragedy happened, perhaps? – at great taxpayer expense, he choppered down to Southport for a look at some flowers and promptly choppered back up to Scotland. Maybe it’s the Ghillies’ Ball tonight, can’t miss that!
Great kinging, Charles, well done…
His Aberfan
Yes and no. I think back in the days of the Aberfan tragedy the royal family were totally out of touch and what was asked of the Queen just seemed anathema to her. ( Not saying that is right just saying that was the way things were). But now… really did Charles not learn anything from Diana? Be there for your people, be prepared to give them a hug…. Let them know first hand that you care. He just comes over as totally heartless, and don’t get me started on Camilla and Willi.
It’s embarrassing, pathetic and out of touch. This situation perfectly illustrates what the royal family really thinks about the people they are supposed to be ruling over.
The king could learn a lot from Taylor Swift about good PR. He couldn’t learn the most important thing though…the ability to care, to react quickly, to try to find a way to help alleviate these famiilies’ pain. He had a perfect opportunity to demonstrate his concern to his countrymen and he blew it. Better get on back to Balmoral.
Giddy, the best person to learn to care for other people was Diana. But he got jealous instead…
Yea it seems sort of strange him doing this, after arriving at balmoral as opposed to before. I wonder if he’s going to be doing the whole big family thing while he’s there ? Or has he finally thrown the towel in on the farcical grandfather to a nation blended family thing he was pushing?
So, what’s his job then? If he has to be dragged kicking and screaming to do this, the simplest thing possible, without any personal expense… then wtf is the point of him? I wish I could hug those precious babies, I’m so sad for their families and certainly had them in my heart when I went to her concert last week.
I’m in two minds on this one. Because honestly, what can he offer the families? Maybe they didn’t want to meet him earlier, it’s such a horrible situation its possible meeting King Charles wasnt going to help at that time?
Also suspect the government could have asked him to stay away while they deal with the riots.
Meeting Taylor is different because obviously they are all fans and it would really help the survivors and their families.
I’m not making excuses for him here, I think he should have spoken up much sooner! I bet a lot of the racist rioters are pro monarchy so he actually could have helped by asking them to stop?
Given that he offered his own grieving sons nothing, I can’t imagine he would be much use to bereaved families.
Unstrung Pearl, I agree with you, I don’t think that the families would want to be bothered with the King in the first aftershock of what happened to their children, not sure that they will even want him now. Nothing is going to console them.
But he made no public statements, either. Sure, don’t impose your presence on grieving families, but not saying anything when all this is going on? Nothing in the immediate aftermath? What’s a monarch for, again?
And on a completely different note: that pony is wondering where the flowers are. That nice lady always used to bring flowers for it to munch on.
The Monarchy is like a fair weather friend- only there for the good times, can’t be bothered to show up for the bad ones.
I see it more like a giant, creaky old ship. It takes forever to get it to move and then you have to worry about it springing a leak or having pieces fall off. And all the while, it’s slowly sinking, sinking, sinking…
Misogyny is being added to the government’s list of extremism and that can’t come too soon. CIII, Cam and the BRF’s treatment of Diana and Meghan make them as ill equipped to address misogyny and abuse of women as racism.
Taylor showing up and no one in the monarchy bothering was a very bad look, and going now after waiting so long isn’t any better.
Particularly after William made such a big deal about dancing at one of her earlier shows and bringing his children to meet her.
So he’s not going to visit the mosque that the white nationalists terrorized and attempted to destroy as well? And what prompted him to break his vacation to do this now? Was it Taylor Swift or Harry and Meghan being in Colombia? The briefings against Harry last week didn’t work.
Both Charles and his heir have access to helicopters whenever and wherever they want – both of them could have easily spared a few minutes to at least give some condolences to the families of the victims. William recently went to a Taylor concert with his children, remember? He even got a photo with the singer to post and talked about how his kids are massive fans. My point is that both of these men should have at least spoken up by now, vacation or not.
Is this situation similar to the one where courtiers had to persuade Queen Elizabeth to visit after the mining tragedy? The Windsors are not good at offering comfort. They’re not good for speaking up for justice. They can’t bring people together, and help create community- how can they when Charles can’t even keep his family from feuding and by participating in the feuding himself. He’s a cruel father and and indifferent grandfather and before that a cruel husband. They don’t seem to even represent Britain well abroad (looking at you Camilla). So what is the purpose of the royal family for existing in this late century?
The Queen and the mining tragedy immediately came to my mind as well. Perhaps the RF really do believe ‘better late than never’, because reading the mood of the country doesn’t seem to faze them at all.
The late Queen said that she didn’t want to go at first because her presence would interfere with the rescue operation, she was probably right, in those days of deference everyone would have been expected to stop work while she was there.
IMO, this is too little too late. Where was King Snubby when the white supremists were going after poc? Why didn’t he say ANYTHING about that–and he still hasn’t. I have no idea if the families would want to see him.
The Tories, brf and bm have created UK they wanted. The Tories then walked away. Does anyone here really think the brf or bm is going to do anything substantively to help? I hope the people keep voting to put people in office who will address the poverty and racism.
Sympathy tours aren’t really Charles’ thing. He’s just going through the motions – he doesn’t strike me as very empathetic based on Spare.
I just saw on the news that Taylor Swift had some of the survivors of the attack at her concert. So, Charles is meeting with the families AFTER Taylor Swift? Good look there, king.
It’s about time he turned up in Southport. However, from seeing the pictures from yesterday, he looks quite ill. Perhaps, his heir should have gone in his place and much earlier? I think we all know the answer that would have been given if such a request had been made.