Updates on the Princess of Wales

Parent Cafe
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No, that’s very true, it doesn’t mean that.

Not details, not about the wife of the (presumably imminent) head of state, who does have a lot more power and wealth than people like to pretend, and the mother of the future head of state.

But whatever the future head of state releases had better not be a verifiable lie, or a picture so manipulated that news agencies feel forced to put out a kill notice. PW needs to get better at this.

They do, actually, have a choice not to do it. His brother got out. His wife opted in. He could abdicate if he found it intolerable. (Though if the person ending up with the position were to be Andrew…heaven help the UK.)

I’m a civil servant. If I were caught issuing a deliberate lie to the public or to parliament I may be fired and prosecuted. My immediate supervisor during my first government job was once in the unenviable position to be accused of that. A large part of my job as a government liar (OMG edited to say what a wonderful autocorrect. Lawyer! I’m a lawyer!) was making sure that whenever our minister boss didn’t want to say something, whatever he did say could not be construed as a deliberate lie.

I’m sure KP could afford somebody much better at this than me. It’s a matter of respect for the plebs.

It was fascinating watching this complete trainwreck of a PR disaster when KP kept saying it wasn’t cancer and she was fine, fine, fine.

Now I feel extremely sorry for this young mother and wife, forced to take the blame for the image, forced to sit in that bench to make that statement alone. Frankly, just as I feel that it is not her, but her H who is in the position where true statements are expected, i feel that it was his job to make that statement. She might have added thanks for the concern and well wishes, but would not have needed to do more than that.

It’s should be all on him and his staff.

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The question was “Who in the United States, besides a current President, would the press be clamoring about if not seen for a week?” It wasn’t a question about whether or not they had a duty to share.

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I feel horrible for anyone in this situation. I didn’t want to post anything critical until the shock wore off (and maybe it is still too early), but I also wonder why she was sitting alone. I am surprised he wasn’t with her and the message wasn’t more of a “we’re going to get through this together.”

I also wondered if she was wearing a wig. If so, that might explain some (not all) of the editing in the photo.

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Case in point: there’s an article today In one of the Australian tabloids criticizing William for not appearing with Kate in the video. Apparently she can’t speak without a big strong man next to her. :roll_eyes:

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Right now there are criticism no matter how this situation was handled.

It’s ridiculous and honestly it’s given rise to yet another conspiracy theory.

Of which I am so so tired of.

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That’s not what the article says and isn’t what I was saying. I’m not criticizing him for not sitting next to her. I didn’t say that she needed anyone big, strong or male to sit next to her. He could be tiny, weak and of any gender. He is her partner, presumably for better or worse, and I was surprised that they chose to have her sit alone.

For one thing, William could have appeared on the bench, and it would not have undermined her strength and her independence or the incredible resilience she projected during what must be a traumatic and extremely difficult time.

That is, having William there too would not have detracted from her message or made her look like some sort of weakling who desperately needed her husband to keep her upright.

Imagine, Kate could have delivered her very same message, which she reportedly wrote herself, while her husband of nearly 13 years was by her side wearing his well-worn furrowed brow, radiating loving succour and husbandly devotion.

The message this image would have conveyed to the world would have been tremendously meaningful – that this is Kate’s fight, but William is backing her up every inch of the way.

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Yes, if it had something to do with your job. If you ‘issued’ a picture of your family I don’t think anyone would care if you photo shopped your daughter’s broken arm out of the picture or melded a bunch of photos to make one Mother’s day photo. Even if you looked like hell from an illness and photo shopped in a better picture of yourself, I don’t think you’d be fired or prosecuted because it has nothing to do with your job.

Same here. Mother’s Day photo had nothing to do with their jobs.

William and Catherine have an agreement with the press for Catherine to release photos of the children every once in a while and the press will leave the children alone when they go to school or are playing in a park or doing casual things. Maybe it was time to release one of those photos. Backfired.

I bet the press won’t be getting photos for a while.

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I doubt most in the US knew who Allen was/is. This would have been a 10 second sound bite if he had notified the White House before going into the hospital on Dec 30th. He thought he could go in over a holiday weekend, get out of the hospital and work from home for a few days and no one would know. And we wouldn’t have, and wouldn’t have cared.

If he’d notified the White House, appointed his undersecretary, and been out of work for a week, I really don’t think anyone would have cared or learned about it, including the press. No clamoring. The press didn’t care about his illness, just his screw up in not notifying the WH.

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It would have been nice to see William sitting next to her (and no, it doesn’t have anything to do with him being a “big, strong man” or her not being able to speak for herself). As @lkg4answers said above, he is her partner - and given all of the marriage & affair rumors that continue to swirl, William sitting next to her (he wouldn’t even have to be holding her hand or anything horrible like that) would have solidified his support and allegiance to his wife. That was a big public announcement for her to have to make, sitting alone.

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When I saw the video it didn’t dawn on me that William could have been sitting next to her.
Having now read the back-and-forth, I think his presence would have provided an element of support, the “we are a team” approach.
My guess is he offered/wanted to sit with her but it was Kate’s call.

I think with this entire cluster of the last month, Kate may have little faith in the guidance of her staff, William’s staff, or certainly anyone from BP. Hopefully, Carole has her Mama Bear instincts up and is helping Kate as much as she can.

Also, I read somewhere that Kate, William and the children will not be doing the Easter walk with the family. I just had this horrible vision of someone yelling at George about Kate’s condition.

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Re: William sitting next to her. I hope the answer is that it was their/her call how to present the information. And that her decision with his support (or i guess not - but mostly hoping it was her decision) to sit on that bench in her casual clothing (I’m GLAD she didn’t feel the need to throw on some royal suit!) and present the info on her own.

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Read that again, but slowly. :wink:

Then explain to me what part of his “job” isn’t about family, including his having this “job” in the first place, who his predecessor is, who his successor will be and what his wife has to do with the latter.

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I’m sure this isn’t directed at my post because I didn’t write this either. Right?

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I was correct that the video would not quiet the conspiracy theories. Speculation on social media is rampant that the video is an AI creation. I think for the rest of her life, there will be people insisting that she died in 2023 and that any further photos or videos are fake or using a look alike. Everything she does going forward will be questioned, analyzed relentlessly, and disputed.

I can’t help but think that any woman who signs up willingly to be part of the Royal Family through marriage is either incredibly brave or hopelessly naive. It seems like an awful existance.

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It’s not directed at anyone here. It’s directed at the jackals “reporting” in the media.

I have to assume (and I know what happens when you assume) that Kate made the decision on how to communicate the message. And she likely received some advice that she took or discarded. But at the end of the day, she decided.

In the grand scheme of what she needs to do for herself and her family, these types of articles don’t help. But hopefully, she’s also not spending time reading them.

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Well it seems like she is shouldering ALL the responsibility for the message debacle. Photo scandal, non-disclosure, and now sitting on a bench having to explain it all by herself. No she is her own person, but having her husband with her shows solidarity. Imo

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Commented before reading your last post.

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Correct. And aren’t they all about optics? That’s what sort of surprises me, that he wasn’t sitting next to her. It would be interesting to know the reason why. You just know it was discussed and rehashed

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But most professional PR firms would be fired or at least chastised for releasing to the press a photo that violated the rules of the major press agencies. Those who were supposed to be serving Catherine’s PR needs did a major disservice to her by not reviewing the photo before being officially released by the Palace. She should have been told “This photo can’t be released without raising questions and creating controversy . Unless you would be comfortable releasing the original ( and she did not want to we know now) forget this.” And then to let her shoulder the blame was shameful.

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I am surprised by the number of posters who believe that Kate has limited or no agency of her own-that she is basically a pawn at the mercy of the firm.

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