Dan Wootton’s Daily Mail column this week is about the Queen pulling out of her two-day Northern Ireland trip at the last minute. Wootton says much the same as everyone else, that the poor 95-year-old Queen has been doing too much, especially following Prince Philip’s death, and that she’s overworked by her own choice. Which I actually agree with – I think the Queen is setting her own schedule and choosing to do as much as possible. Then Wootton’s piece takes a turn: he begins arguing that as of this moment, Prince Charles, Prince William and the Duchess of Cambridge need to be stepping up in a big way to help the Queen. The thing is, Wootton comes dangerously close to pointing out Will and Kate’s historic laziness.
Many of the day-to-day engagements must start to be taken on by Prince Charles and Prince William, the key figures in a future slimmed down monarchy. The Queen’s time and energy could and should be reserved for the national and international events that really matter – and the passion projects, like horseracing, that keep her heart happy and mind engaged.
Given the Queen is the centrepiece of the government’s plan to schmoose world leaders at the Cop26 summit in Glasgow, which opens at the end of the month, the entire focus should be ensuring she is on great form for that event. To use a footballing analogy, it’s the equivalent of your ageing star player being rested in a series of friendlies before the World Cup.
For what it’s worth, I speak to royal sources with an insight into the Queen’s life on a weekly basis and they all insist she remains on fighting form. One told me: ‘There was a genuine concern after the Duke of Edinburgh’s death that she could be deeply impacted and that it would take a toll on her physically, but that hasn’t been the case. If anything, it seems to have made her even more determined to continue her great work and connect with her public.’
And, they insist, Prince Charles and William are prepared to step up – and are already doing so… when they’re allowed! The source explained: ‘The Prince of Wales in particular is taking on as much as he possibly can and you’ve seen over the past five years how the Duke of Cambridge acknowledges his role has changed. Their overwhelming priority is now to support the Queen.’
However, the Queen, it seems, is also making up for lost time, after being forced to spend many months effectively shielded from the people at the height of the pandemic. Another royal source added: ‘Being out and about with the public is the lifeblood for the Queen so she has very much enjoyed being able to do that again after the frustration at being somewhat contained at Windsor Castle.’
“…You’ve seen over the past five years how the Duke of Cambridge acknowledges his role has changed…” It’s taken William five years to simply acknowledge that “his role has changed”? Not to actually step up and work on daily bread-and-butter royal engagements, obviously. But in late 2016 – curious timing – suddenly William began to slowly acknowledge that he couldn’t f–k off to Norfolk every week? I don’t even believe it. It’s also odd to me that given the Queen’s last-minute cancellation of the Northern Ireland trip, no one was sent in her place. I assume that Charles already has a packed schedule (I don’t doubt that), but William and Kate weren’t doing anything yesterday. I doubt they have anything scheduled for today. They could have packed some bags in an hour and fulfilled most of the Queen’s NI itinerary. Why didn’t they?
Photos courtesy of Avalon Red, Backgrid.
I mean maybe they purposely weren’t sent to NI bc it’s known they’re such lightweights and would say something tremendously stupid.
Maybe if William would focus on his works in the UK and stop focusing on America and a certain Family in Montecito he could help the Queen and frankly do his J O B
Just made the same comment basically. Can they stay in England and stop being try hards? I thought they wanted to be apolitical and bland?
It may sound weird but I actually want them to go to America. How else would they show themselves to be the lightweights and the navel-gazers that they are? If they are too stupid to not focus on building their brand in the UK and winning the people in the Commonwealth over, who are we to stop them. Never interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake.
Oh hell @ Elizabeth Regina, it’s not possible for me to keep my trap shut for the next 40 years, yet alone today!! I’m screwed!!! Given the history of W, and his lazy, plastic and unbearable wife, I won’t make it through the rest of today!! But I love your take on interrupting the enemy!! I am certain this this enemy can’t think past his nose, or that awful tooth of his…
Honestly I’m from NI and I dont blame the queen for pulling out of that event. The Irish president declined his invite as he felt the event was too politicised, so it would have been awkward as hell for the queen. Some political parties turned down the invite as it was so divisive, and some that accepted did so under duress and got roundly criticised by their voters for going. It was a total shitshow that nobody wanted to be associated with, I was waiting to see how the queen would get out of it ever since Michael D Higgins declined to go.
Thanks for that insight into the event.
Thank you. Local perspectives help make this group and comment section great!
The phrase “when they’re allowed” jumped out at me-like somehow William is being prevented from stepping up. Eye roll.
Honestly, I think in certain, potentially politically charged situations, they are being kept away because they can’t handle it. But those bread and butter, just smile, feign interest and make some small talk type of activities, they are perfectly capable of handling. They need to step it up in those areas.
Can they stop doing PR through People magazine? Why are they courting Americans anyway? I don’t care about his thoughts about anything. He has no power over laws and policy in his country—her certainly doesn’t in mine. I’m not giving him a cookie for making speeches at brief public appearances in a country I don’t live in. Worry about the UK Will and Kate!
And their wardrobe restyling is super funny. They are so desperate that they’ve even changed their style. Still don’t like them.
New editor of People is from the UK. Of course he’s going to keep rolling with the PR stories for W&K that don’t sell and are easily seen through.
A letter from Meghan blew the Keen’s photo op cosplaying out of the water. Heck, even Archie’s tooth overshadowed the whole family. If they want to keep throwing good money after bad they can go ahead. They’ll just end up pissing off their Daily Fail readers, the tabloid press who want those exclusives and lots of intelligent Americans who won’t forget how they ran one of their own out of town.
Kate didn’t have any new green outfits to wear?
Comment of the day!
No one went to Northern Ireland because it’s not that important to them, not in an actual way that extends beyond propaganda.
If the keenbridges went in petty Betty place, they would just F it up and then NI would be screaming for independence.
Will and Kate need to drop the competition with Harry and Meghan, it’s only going to get them in trouble with the public
The numbers for William and kate don’t actually show any real change since 2016. William has always hovered around 150 to 200 engagements and Kate has only exceeded 150 once, with many meetings with Jason included in the numbers.
That Edward and Sophie double those numbers and they are not going to be future monarchs really shows how much the Cambridges are getting away with doing very little.
In the I newspaper today they have a bar chart of royal engagement s since 2015 annually Doolittle hovers under 50 mark, only once in 2017 she did 125. TQ did 340 in 2017 but usually does 200.
Both she and Kermit need to do twice and even trice as much to enable a 95 year old to have an afternoon nap!
That may be days worked not engagements. I don’t remember Kate being under 50 for engagements for multiple years. (I mean working 50 days a year isn’t that great either and frankly I think that’s a better way to look at it.) But I also don’t believe the queen has ever worked 340 days in a year so maybe it is engagements.
And in general, William and Kate’s numbers are PATHETIC especially when you see what they include. “phone call with Jason Knauf.” Really? That’s getting included as an engagement? its pretty sad from that angle – and pathetic.
Also, at this point, having so many convos with Jason Knauf, documented on the court circular might not be such a great thing.
Bar chart of royal engagements attended based on court circular only has one bumper year for Dolittle 2016-7 but most years have her listed between 45- 65 clearly maternity leave years??
Maybe a pie chart with colours and buttons could make her small number of select engagements look Bigger!
@LadyDigby lol, I’m laughing bc I have such a low opinion of Kate and you say “she only worked 50 engagements” and that’s too low for even me to believe, lol. When she performs worse than one of her critics would have said……
This is the second article I’m reading today in which the Wessexes don’t exist. What’s going on? They just disappeared.
They are so boring they are basically invisible.
So are the Keens and the fk, but specs they’re mentioned every time.
The Wessexes are not future monarchs.
Which is a pity because they are what is needed for those bread and butter events.
Say what you will about the Wessexes, but they know how to work a room.
With any hope at all their daughter saw the push they were prepping her for and was aware enough to say- “hell no, I don’t want this, back this shit up”. And she’s talked them into being less thirsty for all of theirs sake.
Didn’t they announce a family member will accompany the queen on all of her engagements? Why didn’t whoever was tapped for the NI trip still go?
Good point. Who was supposed to accompany her, I wonder.
William may acknowledge that his role has changed, but it’s pretty apparent that he has not.
“It’s also odd to me that given the Queen’s last-minute cancellation of the Northern Ireland trip, no one was sent in her place.”
Based on what I read I read in The Guardian today, the reason for cancellation of the Northern Ireland trip was political.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/oct/21/ireland-britain-armagh-service-partition
Great article, thanks for posting. I think you’ll find this one equally interesting: https://www.newstatesman.com/politics/2019/02/how-britains-dark-history-with-ireland-haunts-brexit
Thank you both for these articles. I didn’t realize this event was part of the queen’s visit, or maybe I read it briefly, but didn’t realize the significance.
Yeah the church service was the reason for the trip, it was a pure awkward mess though so she did well to stay the hell out of being associated with it.
While I don’t doubt there were political reasons for not attending, what I do find interesting is that a royal communication was sent specifically referencing that the Queen needed rest and that’s why she wasn’t going. Another other reason might have saved face but raising her health actually made it a bigger story.
I thought as much, regarding the political tension. It makes the most sense to me, under the circumstances.
@ BayTampaBay and @ Jaded, thank you both for the articles. They were both extremely informative!
As for the rest of those in line, I look forward to the continued downward spiral of the powers to be in Britain, The Monarchy and their lack of reverence in the future. It seems that they are on the path of cutting off their noses to spite their faces.
Her Public.
Not The Public.
Her Public.
*stares* Okay.
Am here for all your pointed anti-monarchy remarks @Tiffany!
William and Kate’s exclusive photos with People came out yesterday. There’s no way they could have made the short trip in a private jet to Northern Ireland. They wanted the focus to be on those photos.
Geez, that’s a horrifying reason but actually believable too.
@Jais I laughed out loud at this comment because it’s so ridiculously true. They’re such idiots that no matter what they do, it will reflect poorly on them. They’re like Dumb and Dumber.
They probably count TEXTS with Jason as “meetings” which = engagements. Such nonsense. No wonder Meghan was shocked to see BTS at KP.
Charles has a packed schedule ‘for a royal’. His former press secretary, Mark Bolland, once said,
‘The Windsors are very good at working three days a week, five months of the year and making it look as if they work hard.’
Well when you can do multiple ‘events’ in one day and have them all counted separately that sounds absolutely right. Plus people meeting you in your home counting as an ‘event’. Yikes. More light on this please.
That is a great quote and the sad thing is that William and Kate aren’t even good at that, lol.
My god all these people have to do is show up somewhere, shake some hands, cut some ribbons, make small talk, etc. That’s not a JOB. And they can’t even do that!
I can imagine wee Willy staring a list of engagements and tossing the list to the side in disgust and saying he is “bored with this line of work”, with his nostrils flared. He wants to seem more important, but I can totally see that they have pulled him in after his Scottish debacle. He’s such a putz. Good luck monarchy. It’s going to be his only legacy that he is on path to self destruct the family business.
This is exactly their problem. They want the adoration, the popularity, power and money that comes with their ranking within the family. They just can’t bring themselves to work for it. H&M are the embodiment of “do something you love and you’ll never work a day in your life” and they are loving every moment of their ‘service’. They are dedicated and consistent, the polar opposite of the Keens.
What is the WORK I keep hearing about? she goes from places to places but what does she actually DO? she does not influence any policy, she does not make any decision, so what’s HER JOB? same question for the rest! this is a charade as I have said before it is none of my business….we have enough problems over here with the GOP nonsense but I can’t imagine having a hereditary head of state, someone you can’t get rid of, no thanks!
William is not important enough to take the Queen’s place. He is not even the heir. He should also be doing far more bread and butter engagements and be out and about instead of all this “projects”