Prince William spent weeks hyping his big new pledge, his bid to “end homelessness” in five years. He gave on-the-record interviews. His staffers were sent out with grandiose quotes about how William is the savior of homeless people and he alone can solve this crisis. William organized a six-city tour to launch his big initiative, only Homewards should be renamed Flopwards, because this program is DOA. It’s a Classic William problem too – he’s only interested in the PR aspect and he compulsively overpromises and overhypes. Homewards would have been an okay project – the Royal Foundation giving away £3 million to help with housing for homeless people – if William hadn’t spent weeks telling everyone that this was the biggest, the best, the keenest, the most significant project ever. Flopwards was blasted by actual experts in the field, and Kensington Palace was on the backfoot immediately, huffily declaring that this was not a “PR stunt.”

Well, I simply cannot get enough of how badly this launch is going. William’s final stop of his six-city launch blitz was in Aberdeen, Scotland. Given all of the hype for Flopwards, surely William’s staff would have done the appropriate advance work to ensure that their primary royal would arrive in Aberdeen to a modest crowd? Not so much:

Enjoying that spotlight you demanded, Peg? He spent all of that time and all of those resources to push out the Sussexes and embiggen himself, and this is the result. To be fair – I have no idea why – but he did get some crowds in Belfast earlier in the day. But it looks like Aberdeen wasn’t buying it. Or it could be as I said – dogsh-t staff work. William and Kate do not surround themselves with competent, hard-working professionals. Because like attracts like, they’re staffed by dumbasses who allow their primary to walk into this kind of catastrophic photo-op. Meanwhile, the Scottish media outlet The National had this piece about the lack of engagement:

Did they not tell anyone he was coming? That would be one explanation for the complete absence of any Union flag-waving crowds of royalists during Prince William’s visit to Aberdeen on Wednesday. The number of journalists was far bigger than the number of people excited to see the noble Duke of Rothesay do some of the royals’ trademark walking about and nodding at stuff. In fact, two of those leaning on the fence – apparently put there to keep the baying mob away from his highness – seemed to be there by accident more than anything else. A “heya” and a nod was all William got from one of them. Isn’t Aberdeen meant to be one of the more pro-royal areas of Scotland?

Responding to clip of the missing crowds of adoring royalists, Bella Caledonia wrote: “Mass disinterest in Tillydrone as feudal relic masks their uselessness with performative social justice stunt …”

National columnist Gerry Hassan wrote: “Royal fever not exactly breaking out in Tillydrone, Aberdeen. If this was Harry and Meghan the right-wing press would be drooling about this on their front pages. I have no problem with the Prince of Wales taking homelessness as his cause … but either the PR department at the palace didn’t get the info out, or the crowd barriers were a teensy bit optimistic …” Peter Arnott added.

Another quipped: “Apathy reigns.” Unfortunately not. It’s still the Windsors.

[From The National]

Ouch. Between this and the massive republican demonstrations in Scotland during King Charles’s coronation, it genuinely feels like we’re going to see a Scexit at some point in our lifetimes.

Photos courtesy of Cover Images.