Last week, I read a lot of the analysis following Prince William’s sudden statement on the Middle East conflict. I was once again reminded of how unnecessary this entire royal storyline was. It’s clear that William wanted his statement to act as a “preview” for his visit to the British Red Cross headquarters in London, but instead of just an apolitical focus on humanitarian efforts in Gaza (and letting the visit speak for itself), William arrogantly inserted himself into a sensitive sh-tstorm for no other reason than he wanted attention and he wanted to compete with Harry. Kensington Palace has done wall-to-wall damage control on William’s boneheaded move and they’re desperately trying to finesse the situation to make it sound like William is a bold, emotional and at times impulsive leader. Baked into this is a rewrite of the past five years, including William’s assault on his brother. I sh-t you not. Some highlights from Kate Mansey’s recent piece in the Times:
The 2019 assault on Harry: The future King William, however, has pinned his colours to the mast. In his autobiography, Spare, Prince Harry accused his brother of being aggressive, pushing him onto a dog bowl. It revealed an impulsive side to William, a temper perhaps inherited from his father and, if reports of the time are accurate, King George VI.
Impetuous Peg: When the Duke and Duchess of Sussex effectively accused the royal family of racism in their interview with Oprah Winfrey, William was furious. Understandably so. He snapped when a reporter shouted a question about the allegations during an engagement, responding: “We are very much not a racist family.” Again, he appeared impetuous when his godmother Lady Susan Hussey was revealed to have asked a black guest at Buckingham Palace where she was “really” from? Keen not to be drawn into the debacle, particularly as he was about to board a plane to the US for his Earthshot awards, William gave instructions to an aide to address the claims. Speaking with the prince’s authority, a Palace spokesman said the actions were “unacceptable”, adding: “Racism has no place in our society.”
Why speak out about the Middle East now? William and Kate are understood to watch the television news together and William is said to get updates from Sky News on his phone. Like many people, and perhaps particularly millennial parents of young children, as William is, he has been appalled by the latest atrocities in the Middle East. The images of maimed children are unending. Aides say that, like his mother before him, he feels the burden of using his platform as a royal to make a difference.
It’s all part of the plan, you guys: Yet there’s also something more seismic happening here. Sources say it is part of a plan for William who, with no time to lose, is manoeuvring from being the well-meaning Duke of Cambridge, who champions mental health causes, to someone altogether more serious. Someone people around the world can recognise as a legitimate king-in-waiting. He has only been Prince of Wales for 18 months and is now the heir to a 75-year-old monarch with cancer.
A presidential office: One look at William’s office — for it is much more of a professional office than a royal court — shows that his outlook is much more presidential. He is in the process of hiring a chief executive and has confirmed the appointment of Lieutenant Colonel Tom White, the Queen’s former equerry, as Kate’s private secretary.
He’s still being “launched” as a global statesman: Action in the face of horror is clearly William’s forte, if the past week is anything to go by. So what does this new office hope to achieve as it launches Prince William as a global statesman? Aides say there are two prongs to William’s ambitions: legacy and impact. With regards to the latter, Kate and William seem to have it in spades. Together they seem to have an alchemy of magisterial glamour. Legacy is something a little harder to grasp: it’s impossible to tell if you’re doing a good job until you’re looking back from a future vantage point.
In the reeds: “He’s in the reeds,” a Palace source says. “And by that I mean he is across his briefs. He has done his homework and he’s thought about it.” The message is clear that his Middle East intervention was a tactical and deliberate attempt to continue to establish him as a king-in-waiting on the world stage.
“He is across his briefs. He has done his homework and he’s thought about it.” No, he hasn’t. The president of BAFTA was too lazy to even read summaries of the nominated films, which led to a sleazy gaffe. He couldn’t even talk about the Russian invasion of Ukraine without sounding uneducated and out-of-touch. He regularly throws temper tantrums and hissy fits when something doesn’t go his way. He has a short temper. He violently attacked his brother and threw Harry to the ground. While William IS impulsive, that’s not the bigger problem – the bigger problems are that he’s lazy, mean, short-sighted, arrogant and violently stupid.
Photos courtesy of Avalon Red, Cover Images.