Between his drama-loving family, an angry Earl Spencer memoir, and Prince Harry moving back into the neighbourhood, King Charles’s approval ratings are officially sliding faster than a rain-slicked balcony at Buckingham Palace.
Imagine waiting all that time in the world’s longest job interview, finally getting the corner office, and immediately realising your more photogenic son was the one everyone actually wanted.
He is essentially the human equivalent of the middle child of British history—permanently stuck in an existential sandwich where both the bread and the filling are way more popular than he is.
For decades, he was the awkward opening act for the Diana Show, a global phenomenon where he was mostly cast as “the guy who wore the wrong suit.” Then, after surviving a 70-year internship, he finally gets the top job, clears his throat to speak, and realises the entire crowd has already turned their chairs around to look at Prince William doing a perfect, high-definition hair flip.
It’s a brutal cycle: he went straight from being the underwhelming husband to the underwhelming dad. At this point, Charles could literally walk on water across the Thames, and the tabloids would just run a front-page headline saying: “William and Kate Set Trend for Staying Dry (Plus: Why Charles Refuses to Use the Bridge).”
Dear Diary,
Woke up at 6:00 AM to the soothing sound of the bagpipes, though frankly, the only thing getting blown this morning is my fuse.
I spent the entire afternoon yesterday cutting the ribbon on a magnificent new sewage treatment plant in Lincolnshire. I gave a highly intellectual, forty-minute speech on the geo-political future of sludge. I even wore my lucky signet ring.
And what is the front page of the Telegraph today? “WILLIAM WEARS BLUE SUIT: Prince of Wales stuns nation by matching his trousers to his jacket. (Page 4: King opens a drain).”
A blue suit! The boy didn’t even button it properly. He literally just stood near a hedge in Bristol, smirked at a toddler, and the British public fell to their knees as if he’d personally parted the Red Sea.
I turned to Camilla at breakfast and said, “Darling, is my posture lacking? Do I look like a man who understands modern infrastructure?” She didn’t even look up from her organic marmalade. She just said, “Charles, you could discover Atlantis and the press would just ask William if he plans to swim there.”
She’s not wrong. Camilla’s own approval rating is hovering at 42%, which means she is officially less popular than rain at a bank holiday barbecue. She told me she tried to wave at a pensioner yesterday and the woman just hissed, “Where’s Diana?” into her handbag.
Then William swanned into the drawing-room to “check on me.” He was wearing those ridiculous trainers and looking like a walking teeth-whitening advert. He saw the papers, patted my shoulder—which I explicitly told him was treason—and said, “Great stuff about the drain, Pa. Really vital work. Very… industrial.”
I am currently sitting in the Highgrove greenhouse trying to explain the concept of primogeniture to a begonia. It isn’t listening. I suspect it’s a William fan.
C.W.
