Even a fleeting, oblique reference to victims of abuse, widely read as a nod to the Jeffrey Epstein scandal, in which the King’s own brother is implicated, was treated as deft statesmanship rather than scrutinised for its vagueness.
There’s nothing like a royal tour to sell newspapers. For editors, especially those who beat the patriotic drum the loudest, it’s a guaranteed sales boost. Throw Donald Trump into the mix, and the presses might as well run overtime.
Predictably, much of the UK’s royal-obsessed media fawned over King Charles’s trip to Washington. The Times hailed a “diplomatic masterclass,” focusing on standing ovations and a speech repeatedly interrupted by applause.
Even a fleeting, oblique reference to victims of abuse, widely read as a nod to the Jeffrey Epstein scandal, in which the King’s own brother is implicated, was treated as deft statesmanship rather than scrutinised for its vagueness.
Front pages told the same story. The Sun gushed over “KING CHARMING,” celebrating jokes and easy rapport, while the Daily Mail also reached for a “diplomatic masterclass.”
Even more restrained outlets joined in. The BBC called the speech “powerful,” and the Guardian concluded that Britain’s “soft power flex worked a treat.”
We’ve said it before on RWW and we’ll say it again, the media’s fawning of King Charles is deeply hypocritical. These are the same outlets that have cast the King as some kind of woke radical. ‘The King is becoming so woke, he is in danger of abolishing himself,’ wrote Telegraph commentator Petronella Wyatt in 2023. Her beef was his support of a study into the monarchy’s historic links to slavery and failure to rule out any reparations.
TalkTV’s Julia Hartley-Brewer scorned Charles for being ‘green and woke,’ after the King reportedly turned down the offer of having Heathrow Terminal 5 named after him. While the Telegraph’s Camilla Tominey, insisted the royals will only thrive if they are anti-woke.
And the biggest hypocrisy of all? After the Queen’s death, the same media fretted over whether Charles could sustain Britain’s ‘special relationship’ with the United States. Would Charles be able to offer the same polite smiles as his mother did, “through awkward visits with nearly every US president going back to Dwight D Eisenhower?” as the New York Intelligencer put it.
So, which is it? A meddling progressive monarch, or a master diplomat rescuing Britain’s global standing?
A genuinely critical press might have grappled with that contradiction or questioned whether polite niceties about shared values is enough in the face of deeper political and moral tensions. Instead, much of the coverage amounted to little more than royal spectacle: applause counted, jokes noted, and images admired.
Personally, I’m no monarchist, but I felt sympathy for King Charles, packed off to Washington at the government’s behest to placate Trump’s childish impulses, all the while undergoing cancer treatment.
A difficult duty, poorly timed and rather undignified.
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