The Telegraph is promoting a new poll, and as someone who has always questioned the methodology of British polling, it’s fascinating. This is not one of those weird YouGov polls of “what Americans think of Prince Harry and Meghan.” This one was done by Ipsos, and they polled British people about what they think, in general terms, the Windsors should be focused on. At no point were people polled on specific royals, and it doesn’t look like anyone specified “Harry and Meghan left this island five years ago so obviously they’re not part of the ‘royals’ we’re talking about, right?” Apparently, British people want the Windsors to stop talking about themselves and their personal issues, and they want the Windsors to focus more on real issues. So why is the Telegraph’s header photo of Harry & Meghan again??
The Royal family should do fewer interviews about their personal lives and talk more about the “challenges facing the country”, a poll of the public has suggested. An Ipsos poll, conducted for The Telegraph, found that a quarter of British adults want the Royal family to drop media appearances about their personal lives, preferring more focus on charity work and current affairs.
Nine in 10 people want the monarchy to do more or “about the same” amount of talking about “social issues and challenges facing the country”; 43 per cent want more and another 33 per cent believe they already get it right. On the subject of promoting “charitable causes”, 43 per cent said the Royal family should do more, while 40 per cent thought it should continue to do “about the same”.
The result may be a surprise to some traditionalists, who have cautioned against the King and his family veering too far into current affairs in favour of concentrating on the volume of engagements and patronages in line with the late Queen and Prince Philip’s approach to working royalty. The survey was conducted by Ipsos UK online, questioning 1,089 British adults aged 18-75 between November 8 and 11.
Three-quarters of the general public would like to see members of the Royal family conduct more or the same number of interviews focused on their work. A quarter said they wanted the Royal family to do fewer interviews about their personal lives, compared with 21 per cent who wanted them to do more. Some 35 per cent said they were content with the amount they currently do.
The most high-profile recent personal interview was from the Duke and Duchess of Sussex, who spoke to Oprah Winfrey about why they left the working Royal family.
The Oprah interview was in 2021, and it was one of the most-watched interviews globally in many years. Harry & Meghan’s Netflix show was also an enormous success, as was Harry’s memoir. So… people actually are interested when Harry & Meghan speak or write about their personal lives and the numbers show that. What’s funny is that every time William or Kate open their mouths, people groan. In just the past three months, we’ve gotten a “short film” from Kate which was shot like a prescription-drug commercial, all to announce that she had completed chemotherapy and she was now “cancer-free.” People in the British media absolutely HATED it. In recent months, William has done a naval-gazing two-part documentary in which he centered himself in the issue of homelessness. He then went to South Africa where he gave several personal interviews about his life, all of which were poorly received back home. Seems to me that the British people were actually talking about William and Kate’s laziness and their narcissism more than the family who moved away five years ago.
Photos courtesy of Cover Images, Kensington Palace.