Moir: The Windsors looked irrelevant, blithering & banal during their trips this week

This week has felt like the British media is working through an incandescent hangover because they were so “shook” by the Invictus Games. The Duke and Duchess of Sussex looked amazing and loved-up, the Invictus cause is worthy and important, high-ranking officials from around the world traveled to Dusseldorf and all of them wanted facetime with Harry and Meghan. The BM tried to ignore all of it, tried to relaunch old smears (Thomas Markle, the cost of Meghan’s clothes) and all of it fell flat. Prince William was trotted out for carefully managed events in New York and they tried to declare victory. Charles and Camilla did a short tour through France and the BM was bored to tears. Please allow Jan Moir at the Daily Mail to explain the weird vibe this week in her column “Since the Queen died, I’ve struggled to see what the point is of the Royal Family any more. Is that wrong?” Oooof.

No magic since QEII died: “Since the Queen died, I’ve struggled to see what the point is of the Royal Family any more. Is that wrong? Once this dignified, dutiful, much-loved matriarch left us for the great palace in the sky, she took the last drop of regal charisma with her, along with my devotion. All we are left with now is the well-meaning but essentially ho-hum next generation, the second tier on the crumbling cake, the monarchical subs’ bench.”

The royals abroad: “If questions are raised about the value of their individual and collective roles within the UK, then the issue of their significance gets even more crucial when they venture abroad.”

The asparagus issue: “There was a fabulous banquet at Versailles, although it was a bit much of King Charles to demand he was not served foie gras nor out-of-season vegetables such as asparagus, particularly as salmon and asparagus fishcakes are still on the menu at the Pavilion Tea Room in Kensington Palace. (I hope you are hungry, Your Majesty, because this piping hot hypocrisy is delicious.)

Charles’s big speech: “There was further embarrassment when, in a historic address to the French parliament, the King called global warming an ‘existential challenge’ and called for a ‘sustainability agreement’ with France. Fine words, but after the British Government U-turned on green targets, Charles must have been feeling very green indeed. And this was more than just unfortunate timing, it perfectly emphasised increasing royal irrelevance.

Let Camilla retire: “And then, of course, there is Queen Camilla. What I am thinking is, do we really have to put the 76-year-old through all this torture? Camilla trundled through Paris like a woman expecting to face a guillotine at the end of every day. She looked terrified most of the time, and when she wasn’t looking terrified she was battling to keep her hat on, fighting to keep her hems down and avoiding being patronised by Madame Macron. The First Lady of France fussed with Camilla’s evening cape on Wednesday and then — unforgivably — made her play ping-pong during a cringeworthy publicity event yesterday. Camilla does her best, of course she does, but she always has the air of someone who ponged her ping a very long time ago. Someone who would always rather be somewhere else: preferably at home, feet up, ciggie lit, dog on lap, stiff gin to hand as she riffles through the latest issue of Horse & Hound.

William’s trip to New York was even worse: “And if all that wasn’t bad enough, Prince William in America was even worse. He was speaking in New York as the finalists were announced for his flagship environmental project, the Earthshot Prize. The Prince appeared in front of an audience that included Bill Gates, UN climate envoy Mike Bloomberg and former New Zealand prime minister Jacinda Ardern — or as I like to call them, people with nothing better to do. They certainly must have wished they were on an earthshot the hell outta there when William began speaking. ‘I think if we remark on how pessimistic and doom and gloom everything is, even though there is a healthy dose of that needed… it doesn’t provoke the reaction from us humans that we would like,’ he blithered. Honestly. Who writes this banal guff for him? Then he went to inspect some oyster beds — don’t ask me why.

[From The Daily Mail]

“Blithered”? Oh my. “People with nothing better to do”? Well well. “It perfectly emphasised increasing royal irrelevance”? Harsh but fair. I actually agree with Moir about Camilla needing to be, um, put out to pasture. Camilla has already made it clear that she doesn’t want to travel or do these tours anymore, and she’s truly not adding anything. No one, anywhere, is clamoring for Camilla. The king seems spry enough, so they just send him out solo and let Camilla have lunch with Jeremy Clarkson and Piers Morgan. But as I said, the royal trips this week have suffered because of the collective media hangover from the Invictus Games. It’s a stark comparison and the Windsors just look… unimportant, irrelevant and silly. I love that for them.

Photos courtesy of Cover Images.