Earlier this week, Sky News’ royal reporter Rhiannon Mills revealed that Prince William allowed her insider access for a week, and she shadowed him around a handful of events and wrote a dutifully pro-royal article about it. If you looked close enough, there was some shade in her piece, like the mention of William being “work-shy” and his love of outdated corporate jargon like “social impact.” Well, as it turns out, Mills wasn’t the only one getting special access to William. He also invited the Telegraph’s Hannah Furness to trail along as he made some visits to various farms owned by the Duchy of Cornwall. The Telegraph posted their big exclusive: “Prince William: ‘I want to bring about real change’; In a world exclusive, the Prince says he’s leading the Duchy of Cornwall with a simple goal – improving people’s lives.” I mean… he’s been exposed as a slumlord who traps seniors in cold & moldy rentals AND he bilks taxpayers for millions of pounds annually. So this damage-control is months late. Some highlights:
The duchy itself: Vast, complex, and spanning 128,494 acres of land across 20 counties, the Duchy takes in both rural and urban life, and the priorities under its 25th Duke – William – range from ending homelessness to restoring rivers. He wants to use it as another “branch of his philanthropy”, he tells me: existing for “social impact” rather than as an old-style financial resource to be drawn from.
How often does Slumlord William visit? The Prince tries to visit part of the Duchy once every four to six weeks, working his way through its farms and offices to meet families and staff, shake hands and quiz them on what he can do to help. His visits are usually private, rarely making the Court Circular and kept quiet by loyal locals who are used to royal comings and goings. Today, in the middle of May, Kensington Palace has granted a rare exception, giving permission for The Telegraph to join the Prince on what has become known as a “Duchy day” for the first time since he took it over.
How he plans to transform the Duchy: He is, unmistakably, a man on a mission: to reform his Duchy so it is fit for 2025 and beyond; a “positive force for good” that will actively “make people’s lives better”. “We’re not the traditional landowner,” he tells me. “We want to be more than that….There is so much good we can do.”
Taking stock: Since Prince William stepped into the role of Duke of Cornwall, he has embarked on a careful but wholesale stocktake of what is working and what is not. He wants to “dig deeply” to get a “true feel for what the Duchy is doing”, he tells me now, “trying to just go through with a fine-tooth comb”. “The Duchy has been a positive force for good, but we can do so much more. I think the key thing is, it’s about not losing the important community and historical links of the Duchy. But it’s also about making sure we’re building on and enhancing, modernising the Duchy… We’re going to modernise it without losing its key spirit of community.”
The Duchy is an extension of his foundation: “I see the Duchy as an extension of the work we do with the Royal Foundation,” says William. While the Foundation, the main charitable vehicle of the Prince and Princess of Wales, has worked traditionally in urban areas, on topics including homelessness, mental health and child development, the Duchy can extend it to the countryside. “I see it as a branch of my philanthropy,” William says. “There’s so much good we can do in the rural world. I see it [the Duchy] as another arm to the work that I want to do, which is being a positive force for good.” He adds, “I think the Duchy have got way more levels and gears they can go through to be able to be a bigger force in the community.”
The fakakta social impact: “The core part of the Duchy works on its people… what it stands for,” he explains. “The key point of the Duchy for me is about social impact. People, places and planet, those are the key things we’re working on.”
The Dispatches documentary on William & Charles’s slumlording: The joint investigation with The Sunday Times detailed how the Duchies, as landlords, were making “millions of pounds a year by charging the Army, the Navy, the NHS, the prison service and state schools to use their land, rivers and seashores”. At the time, it was met with some incredulity and criticism from the public, who were largely unaware of the estates at all. Those who defended them pointed out that they were acting like any other landowner in Britain. Now, there is some defensiveness about it from tenants. “Load of twaddle,” snorts one farmer I ask about it. The suggestion that the Duke or the Duchy don’t care about tenants is “really frustrating, it couldn’t be further from the truth”, says Stuart Rogers. “It’s one of the best things that could have happened to us. Would we still be dairy farming if we hadn’t been bought by the Duchy? Probably not. There’s no better landlord.”
It’s absolutely hilarious to me that William granted the Telegraph all of this access to his rare “Duchy Day” out in some farm, but William still refused to go on the record about the Dispatches documentary and reporting, nor did he address the credible reporting on his position as a huge slumlord who traps vulnerable people in terrible rentals. All Kensington Palace could do was beg some random farmer to dispute the investigation in a vague and nonsensical way.
As for the rest of this… my favorite part is the overemphasis on how William quietly does all of this duchy work, and he’s not looking for recognition, that’s why he invited the Telegraph to shadow him on one of the rare times he just happens to stop by some farm. It also sounds like Charles did his best to Peg-proof the duchy so that the heir wouldn’t undo all of Charles’s careful and methodical efforts with Britain’s farming community. William’s like “I’m gonna smash it for social impact, LOOK AT ME!”
Photos courtesy of Avalon Red, Cover Images.
