Rhiannon Mills at Sky News has an interesting piece about the new Prince and Princess of Wales and how they view their new roles and titles. So far, we’ve seen more of William and Kate than we usually would have this time of year, but there honestly hasn’t been a dramatic difference in the substance, tone, style or operations. Literally the only thing they’ve done differently is “do more public appearances for a month.” And it didn’t last!! Anyway, it’s abundantly clear that Kensington Palace sent Mills a list of all of the ways in which William (and only William) will be great in this role.

No hard relaunch: Those who’ve worked with them tell me you don’t get a sense of a hard relaunch for brand Prince and Princess of Wales, they have a well laid out thematic agenda for their work and they are sticking to it.

William won’t be “too political” like his father: It is a label that William and his team are likely to wary of, but there are suggestions we may now actually hear more from him rather than less.

Lord William Hague (chair of the Royal Foundation) on the Keens: “Certainly in the royal foundation, we’re not changing tone, you know, if anything, we’re going up another gear with a tone that’s well established of how to help with certain issues of some of society’s deepest problems where we need to bring people together to work on… There will be other issues to come in the future. So I think you will find for the Prince and Princess of Wales that work very much goes on and if anything, goes up another gear.”

The foundation’s work won’t be political, says Hague: “We’re always careful, the royal foundation is non-political of course and it’s global. So of course we have to take great care with the issues that we work on. But there is no shortage of those issues. It’s absolutely right for a royal family that’s engaged with the world and wants to help people and serve people to get involved with.”

They’ve been looking at polling: The royals don’t do their own opinion rating polls but members of some households have been reading other polling since the Queen died to see how their messaging has been playing out. A source observed that “their strength has come in continuity. The household hierarchy means Buckingham Palace leads, so there are guard rails in place to stick to”.

William & Kate care about the optics: I am told that both William and Kate pay a very active interest in how their events are covered, a lot of prep work goes into how it’s going to be perceived, how it looks. As they step up it does feel like a missed opportunity that more context and background on the work going on behind the scenes hasn’t always been briefed, and often that’s been put down to it being a small and young team. There is a sense that approach may be changing, not just to counter potentially negative headlines, or because their roles have changed, but ultimately because what they can deliver is incredibly powerful; a global platform to get messages out to a huge audience, and an unrivalled ability to convene on issues like the illegal wildlife trade.

Lord Hague on how Americans are jealous of William & Kate: “The US government said to me, no government in the world could do what you’re doing in the royal foundation, what Prince William is doing on this issue. Because you see we have Chinese airlines, departments of the Chinese government working in the same grouping as the United States Fish and Wildlife Service, and companies from across the Western world, with no political mistrust or suspicion about a government organising it. So what Prince William has shown with this, with the royal foundation, on wildlife is really that there’s this tremendous convening power.”

[From Sky News]

The most interesting part, to me, was the stuff about their Communications department: “I am told that both William and Kate pay a very active interest in how their events are covered, a lot of prep work goes into how it’s going to be perceived, how it looks.” They literally do not. Their Caribbean Flop Tour was a perfect example of that, with their colonialist cosplay, scuba diving mid-tour, the sh-t with the Bob Marley statue and of course all of the tone-deaf and flat-out racist sh-t with Black people. The truth is that William and Kate are too lazy to care about the prep work, so they outsource it to their “small and young team” full of incompetents.

As for Americans being jealous of the Royal Foundation… lol. Their foundation is a massive scam and I would love to see it audited.

Photos courtesy of Instar.