Most weeks, Daily Mail columnist Amanda Platell busies herself with gloom-and-doom predictions about the Duke and Duchess of Sussex. Just last week, Platell’s column was devoted to predicting a “toxic end” for Harry and Meghan… because of their new Netflix contract, and because Meghan wasn’t issuing statements about Sentebale. Well, something really special has happened this week: in her new column, Platell summons all of her scorn, contempt and mockery for Prince William and Kate, all because they dared to announce that they need a third forever home, an emotional-support mansion on the Windsor estate. Platell has had enough! And it’s genuinely hilarious to watch how a lot of these people have been waiting to turn on Egg and the Wiglet. Some glorious highlights:
Control-freak Willy: News that the privacy-obsessed Prince William has found his ‘forever home’ in the isolated eight-bedroom Forest Lodge, where he says he will live even after becoming King, should raise red flags about what the heir might sacrifice to shield his family. What damage will William’s control-freak tendencies and stubborn insistence on privacy wreak when he takes the Crown? Could the Prince’s obsession with protecting his own family eventually do for the Monarchy?
Work-shy Willy: During [QEII’s] reign she carried out more than 21,000 engagements, even up to the days before her death. In comparison, last year William did 71, a puny figure against his 70-year-old aunt Princess Anne’s 474 (even after she was kicked in the head by a horse) and his father’s 372 despite ongoing treatment for cancer. It does not bode well.
Privacy-obsession: Of course, we realised his obsession with privacy and having a ‘normal a family life’ for his children was defined by his own deeply unhappy and dysfunctional childhood with warring parents, scarred by the death of his mother Princess Diana and wanting to protect his family from Royal duties for as long as possible….Yet with all due respect William, ‘privacy’ doesn’t come as part of the job description for the King of England. Which leaves us questioning: will Prince William put being a husband and father before King and country?
The privileges of the heir: As a Prince he already enjoys eye-watering privileges – including inheriting the Duchy of Cornwall estate worth almost £1 billion – from which he receives a whopping £23million-a-year ‘salary’. There will come a time – who knows how soon – when William has to man up for the role he was born into. Or not.
Platell’s prediction: I fear a future part-time King hiding away in Forest Lodge on the Windsor estate could result in an even greater collapse of support among his subjects. Which by the time he takes the Crown, the population could be largely made up of Gen Z of whom, according to a YouGov poll from last year, only 29 per cent believe the monarchy is ‘good for Britain’ and are more likely to want an elected head of state.
Forest Lodge is very isolated: There is something deeply unsettling about the fact the Waleses have chosen a comparatively modest home tucked away – a home which will require its own security staff as it falls outside Windsor Castle’s ‘ring of steel’ – accessible via a private road with one local saying: ‘It’s about as isolated as you can get.’ And William declaring, perhaps unwisely, that Forest Lodge is the home he and his family will live in ‘forever’ also raises worrying questions about what kind of Monarch he will be – in the age of a voracious social media world which cries out for more than the occasional snaps of the Royal brood or a tender video of Kate hugging a tree.
William & Kate don’t even want to host official events at their forever-home: It is clear there will be no official audiences invited to Forest Lodge, unlike King Charles and Camilla’s London home Clarence House which is regularly used to host events for the great and the good, pictures of which are beamed worldwide.
Underwhelming charity work: But will he and Kate’s so far underwhelming charitable work – his Earthshot Prize offshoot which encourages youngsters to devise ways to save the world or Kate’s Centre for Early Childhood – both woke, worthy and frankly forgettable – cut the mustard? Kate’s passion for children’s early learning hardly compares with Diana walking through landmines to save children’s lives in war-torn African countries. William’s Earthshot Prize is also but a shadow of his father’s The King’s Trust that has helped more than a million young people into employment and businesses.
The work-from-home king: As for how our future King fathoms he could reconcile his own demands for privacy while being the head of one of the last thriving royal dynasties in the world, it’s not clear….One thing’s for sure, Prince William has a huge decision to make in the forthcoming years he spends hidden away in Forest Lodge before he ascends to the Crown. Can he step up to the job he was born into and secure the future of the Monarchy? Given his current form I, like so many devout monarchists, have serious doubts. After decades of King William, I fear the Royal family will be just like all other minor European royals: insignificant, unremarkable, occasionally appearing on the inside pages of Hello! magazine – and pure vanilla.
It’s just body blow after body blow. These people have been keeping William and Kate’s secrets for too long and every so often, it all starts to come pouring out. My favorite parts: where Platell mocks W&K’s underwhelming charities; pointing out that these two 40-somethings are incapable and unwilling to play host to events at their home; the phrase “a tender video of Kate hugging a tree.” There was a moment last year, in the depths of the Kate Missington saga, where I thought that these people might end up spilling all about what was really happening behind the scenes, but they mostly held strong. It’s notable that the same energy has returned over Will and Kate’s move to a new home. My conspiracy is that the two events are connected, as I’ve said before – I think the move to Forest Lodge is part of the deal “worked out” between all parties last year. After everything that went down last year, Kate will only do a handful of events a year and she’s getting a much grander separation home.
Photos courtesy of Cover Images.
