Prince William and Kate Middleton Face Criticism After Attending Service With Prince Andrew
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00:00 Maybe it's the air or maybe it's too much locally caught salmon or maybe it's being
00:04 stuck hundreds of kilometers away from a decent flat white.
00:14 How else to explain that the royal family keeps making the same ghastly mistake when
00:18 they collectively shuffle north and take up residence at Balmoral for a few weeks of board
00:22 games, overcooked venison and non-stop tartan tedium?
00:33 William and Kate, the Prince and Princess of Wales and their troop of small HRHs have
00:37 arrived in Scotland for the annual bout of Windsor family, fun!
00:41 A fact we know because they were photographed driving to the local church Crathie Kirk on
00:46 Sunday.
00:53 The problem is not that their idea of a holiday looks a lot like a seminary student's average
00:57 Tuesday, early morning religious services, oh my!
01:01 But who was with them, plonked in the front seat of the car, massive gammon and reviled
01:05 former UK trade ambassador, Prince Andrew, the Duke of York.
01:17 His slightly startled look.
01:18 The dark light of the Highlands.
01:20 A future Queen sharing her travel mints, I'm guessing, with a man who has only a slightly
01:25 worse reputation than Chlamydia.
01:28 It was all horribly reminiscent of that time in 2019 when the late Queen Merrily took Andrew
01:33 to church hours after Jeffrey Epstein's death.
01:43 Here were the Prince and Princess of Wales, recreating what was one of her late Majesty's
01:47 worst missteps since that time she briefly flirted with Unitarianism and the writings
01:52 of Tony Benn.
01:59 For William and Kate, the optics of this church outing could only be worse if the photos had
02:04 revealed they were simultaneously FaceTiming Mr. 215 lb Donald Trump or had converted their
02:10 Range Rover to be coal-powered.
02:18 For two people whose image is seemingly more carefully calibrated than the settings on
02:23 the large Hadron Collider, why?
02:25 Why in the name of all that is good and holy would the Waleses have agreed to play happy
02:29 families with such a leprous relative?
02:32 A relative they have gone to lengths to avoid being publicly associated with?
02:43 Last year, it was revealed that William had stepped in to prevent Andrew taking part in
02:47 the Order of the Garter ceremony in Windsor.
02:50 The first such gathering of the ancient chivalric order post-pandemic and since the Duke's hobbling,
02:59 Roberto Jobson, writing in the Evening Standard at the time, reported that William had been
03:07 "so alarmed" at his uncle's attempts to worm his way back into public view by taking part
03:11 in Garter Day that he had threatened to pull out.
03:21 The Royal was "adamant", a senior source told Jobson, that, if York insisted on taking part
03:26 publicly, he would withdraw.
03:35 It was the right call for William to make, to quarantine he and wife Kate and their wholesome
03:39 image from the taint of Andrew.
03:48 Taint of Andrew, sounds like a horribly pungent body spray that Fergie would try to get off
03:52 the ground.
03:56 So, how did we get from a movable William, taking a hard-line stance on the toxic, unemployed
04:12 Duke, to him and Kate seemingly happy to be photographed with the 63-year...old?
04:24 The Wales's volt here is inexplicable.
04:27 The Prince and Princess and the Duke exist at polar ends of the public opinion spectrum.
04:39 On dot one hand, the former are generally adored and could probably get away with being
04:43 caught...running an underground aristo dognapping ring without it denting their favorability.
05:02 Numbers much?
05:03 Andrew sit at the other extreme, a man whose name will forever more be tied to allegations...of
05:15 sexual abuse of a teenager, claims he has always denied, and his friendship with a...convicted
05:27 sex offender, short of him single-handedly facilitating peace in the Middle East...and
05:39 managing to prize ex-wife and loose unit Sarah Ferguson, Duchess of York's off of...Instagram.
05:51 I doubt his reputation could ever really truly be rehabilitated, so why have we just seen
05:57 William and Kate risk the contagion of being seen with his uncle?
06:08 Merrily tootling along to church with him?
06:10 Other members of the family drove separately to Crathie Kirk, with Prince Edward and his...wife
06:17 Sophie, the Duke and Duchess of Edinburgh and Princess Anne and her husband Good...Gloak
06:34 Admiral Sir Tim Lawrence sharing one car, while King Charles, Queen Camilla and her...Trusty
06:46 flask of Irish coffee, well, I'm hoping, were chauffeured in the Sovereign's Bentley.
06:58 My point is, I'm assuming the carpooling situation is such that if the Waleses had been...strenuously
07:10 opposed to having to be photographed with Uncle Andrew, they could easily...easily dodged
07:21 it.
07:22 What conclusion can we draw here but that being seen with him was a choice they made?
07:30 Willingly?
07:34 The timing for William of all this is, technically speaking, absolutely pants.
07:45 It was only last week he rightfully came in for a pasting for deciding not to turn up
07:49 at the women's soccer.
07:58 World Cup despite a. England being in the finals, b. the Cup being held in 2-2.
08:10 Commonwealth countries who are making come hither glances at republicanism and c. him...being
08:22 the president of the UK's football association.
08:25 Contrast that with last year when it was reported that the Wales's office would consider...looking
08:37 at arrangements for the prince to fly in to attend the men's World Cup final in Qatar.
08:49 If the English team made it to the final 2.
08:51 No official reason has been given for the Prince of Wales's abject failure to do something...looking
09:03 dangerously like work during his and Kate's now standard lengthy summer hauls.
09:14 Instead Kensington Palace put out a limp a social media video of William and his daughter.
09:26 Princess Charlotte holding a soccer ball.
09:28 Thus right when the prince is being accused, by me anyway, of exhibiting a quiet contempt.
09:40 For women, here is being photographed effectively welcoming back in from the cold.
09:51 Member of the royal family who went on TV and somehow forgot to show any sympathy for.
10:03 Sex trafficking victims.
10:04 Goodoo then.
10:05 The king might have reportedly been busy extending an olive branch to Andrew, giving him...the
10:17 plum Cragowen Lodge on the Balmoral Estate to stay in over the break, but that does...not
10:29 mean that the prince and princess have to quiescently follow suit.
10:33 It's not as if William and Kate have not exhibited a readiness to risk his majesties...displeasure
10:44 and do what is best for Brand Wales.
10:47 Who can forget that series of high-gloss...social media videos their team churned out over the
10:58 coronation long weekend that...somehow forgot to make much of the actual king and queen?
11:04 And which instead made the...whole event out to be a glorious marquee event for the Waleses?
11:15 The only vaguest of vague glimmer of sense in all of this came on the way back from church.
11:27 When Andrew was relegated to the back seat.
11:29 Here's hoping Kate didn't let him have a...second travel mint either
11:39 and...here's hoping Kate didn't let him have a...second travel mint either.
11:40 Here's hoping Kate didn't let him have a...second travel mint either.
11:41 Here's hoping Kate didn't let him have a...second travel mint either.
11:42 Here's hoping Kate didn't let him have a...second travel mint either.
11:42 [BLANK_AUDIO]