Back in June, Prince William “launched” Homewards, a program William claimed would be the first step in “ending homelessness.” In actuality, Homewards was actually a small, localized and underfunded pilot program which aimed to simply help a small number of homeless people find more permanent living situations. The whole program had financing of… £3 million. Experts blasted Homewards and the whole thing flopped as soon as it launched. Personally, I still believe the issue was branding and PR – William centered himself in the project and he made all of these wild claims about how Homewards was going to be this huge game-changer when really, he should have just said “this issue is incredibly complicated and we’re financing this pilot program to see if this strategy will have short-term or long-term benefits.”
I thought of the Homewards flop this week when I read William’s on-the-record comments to the royal reporters who traveled with him to Singapore. Instead of actually getting to the meat of whatever he’s involved in – Earthshot, Homewards, what have you – he makes these grand pronouncements because he’s not actually interested in finding solutions on the ground. He wants to be seen as a visionary bringing social change, but the problem is that he’s a lazy dumbass who doesn’t have the patience to build something that lasts. Again, here are some quotes from William, from the Telegraph’s coverage.
Speaking about the achievements he has made in the year since he became Prince of Wales, he said: “I care about so many things and previously the family have been very much spotlighting brilliantly and going round and highlighting lots – I want to go a step further. I want to actually bring change and I want to bring people to the table who can do the change if I can’t do it.”
“I think the thing that ties it all together for me is about social leadership,” he said, adding: “That’s what I’m trying to find my way in.”
The late Queen and Prince Philip held over a thousand charity Patronages between them, raising awareness and money through their involvement and support of many causes. Meanwhile, the Prince of Wales – who holds far fewer patronages than his father – has stated his preference for focusing on creating impact and legacy through more specific social campaigns for his tenure, such as ending homelessness.
[From The Telegraph]
I genuinely believe that “social leadership” is William’s new buzzword because he doesn’t have the patience, work ethic or intelligence to actually do the work. The work of being a working royal, the work of building something real, like The Prince’s Trust or the Invictus Games. The Telegraph notes the patronages held by the late QEII and Prince Philip for a reason, because that’s the whole f–king deal of “being royal.” As Tom Sykes noted in his coverage of William’s comments:
William’s remarks will likely send a shiver down the spine of British charities that have long depended on a royal patron to generate interest and funds.
One charity activist told The Daily Beast: “These comments will be very concerning to a lot of charities that have relied on their royal patrons for generations. It is almost impossible to raise any serious amount of money in Britain without a royal patron.”
[From The Daily Beast]
Considering Kate’s patronages keep going broke, having a royal patron is no guarantee for fundraising either, especially if your patron is Kate or William. Besides the charity angle and the laziness angle, William has now pissed off the most ardent royalists in the UK – they think he’s going “woke,” because he’s talking about change-making and social change… like Meghan and Harry talked about.
— Anna 🌸 (@anna_itsonlyme) November 8, 2023
Photos courtesy of Cover Images.
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