I know this will shock you, but did you know that the Princess of Wales’s so-called “landmark speech” at her “national symposium” was just another speech about how the Early Years are important? This woman has no plan, no initiative, no campaign, no goals, no fundraiser, no financial grant, no meaningful or impactful organization to actually change a g–damn thing. All she has is keen busywork and a word salad about the importance of Early Years. Behold!
As I said before, they set her up to fail. They wasted a lot of people’s time too, but my hope is that the silver lining here is that actual early-childhood development specialists had a chance to meet during the symposium and that some work got done away from the palace keenery. But yeah, this is embarrassing. They really just sent her out in a pantsuit and gave her another speech in which she said, for the millionth time, that the Early Years are important and more people need to know that.
The Princess of Wales has called for “action at every level” to help to rebalance and restore society’s social and emotional skills as her early childhood foundation released new research on the issue. In a keynote speech at a symposium convened by Kate to discuss the findings, the future Queen said the skills were the “human wiring we need”.
She stressed the importance of the early years development of children and said those she had met at a “crisis point” in their lives had said for others to avoid their journey, a safe and loving childhood was needed.
Kate’s Royal Foundation Centre for Early Childhood Kensington Palace has conducted a global listening exercise, involving experts from 21 countries, with the results described as “almost a manifesto for social and emotional skills”, by the centre’s director Christian Guy.
Speaking at London’s Design Museum, which hosted the event, Kate said: “Nurturing skills that enable us to know ourselves, manage our emotions, focus our thoughts, communicate with others, foster positive relationships, and explore the world are just as valuable to our long-term success as reading, writing or arithmetic. These skills are the bedrock, not only for helping children to thrive, but also for restoring, protecting and investing in humankind. So, to rebalance and restore, calls for new thinking and action at every level. Because the future for our children is something we all build together; through the actions each of us takes every day.”
Instead of actually doing or saying something substantive or developing an actual plan or setting a tangible goal, this woman has spent the past SIX YEARS developing what amounts to a vague mission statement. I’m really disgusted when I think all of the time, energy, money and access gets wasted here, all because Kate wants to pretend to be a big, important girl reading a landmark school report. Kate is almost 42 years old. The fact that she really thinks she’s doing something here is a tragedy.
Photos courtesy of Avalon Red.
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- Catherine, Princess of Wales visits the Design Museum where she made a key note speech at the “Shaping Us” National Symposium in London, UK, 15 November 2023,Image: 822201047, License: Rights-managed, Restrictions: *** NO UK USE FOR 48 HRS ***, Model Release: no, Credit line: Richard Pohle / Avalon
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- Catherine, Princess of Wales visits the Design Museum where she made a key note speech at the “Shaping Us” National Symposium in London, UK, 15 November 2023,Image: 822201095, License: Rights-managed, Restrictions: *** NO UK USE FOR 48 HRS ***, Model Release: no, Credit line: Richard Pohle / Avalon
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- Catherine, Princess of Wales visits the Design Museum where she made a key note speech at the “Shaping Us” National Symposium in London, UK, 15 November 2023,Image: 822201109, License: Rights-managed, Restrictions: *** NO UK USE FOR 48 HRS ***, Model Release: no, Credit line: Richard Pohle / Avalon
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- Catherine, Princess of Wales visits the Design Museum where she made a key note speech at the “Shaping Us” National Symposium in London, UK, 15 November 2023,Image: 822201133, License: Rights-managed, Restrictions: *** NO UK USE FOR 48 HRS ***, Model Release: no, Credit line: Richard Pohle / Avalon
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- Catherine, Princess of Wales visits the Design Museum where she made a key note speech at the “Shaping Us” National Symposium in London, UK, 15 November 2023,Image: 822201197, License: Rights-managed, Restrictions: *** NO UK USE FOR 48 HRS ***, Model Release: no, Credit line: Richard Pohle / Avalon
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- Catherine, Princess of Wales visits the Design Museum where she made a key note speech at the “Shaping Us” National Symposium in London, UK, 15 November 2023,Image: 822201229, License: Rights-managed, Restrictions: *** NO UK USE FOR 48 HRS ***, Model Release: no, Credit line: Richard Pohle / Avalon
Hahahaha! I’m so embarrassed for her !
No surprise here 🙄typical Kate/MEGHAN WANNA BE🤣🤣🤣COPY COPY COPY 🤣🤣🤣
Even before meghan, there was just never anything substantial in her initiatives. She’s feeding the thristy with dry bread again. This is just a recurrent campaign of word salads, another call to all for action, just not her. Her action is just the call for action. Ridiculous. Embarrassing.
@StillDouchesOfCambridge
Kate is feed the thirsty with flour.
Honestly I’d have secondhand embarrassment for her if I didn’t know what a horrible human being she is. But she probably thinks she stuck the landing because that’s what everyone around her will tell her. But that wasn’t a speech — that was reading a statement… without even pausing for emphasis or having any substance.
Imagine all that money spent to prop up a mumbling mannequin. No conviction, no expertise, no work ethic and no charisma. So embarrassing! The UK deserves better.
Actually they don’t. They had someone better but ran her off, so now they better enjoy this mumbling, hyena grinning, nincompoop they’re stuck with.
BRF actually lets this represent them . There is nothing regal about K, whoever teaches K and Carole their accents has a very vague idea about british upper class accents and definitely no idea that clear speaking is essential. English is her first language, she mispronounces words badly, mumbles, stumbles and always sounds like a bad last minute fill in for someone competent. It is obvious that she chose early childhood because she doesnt have to do any work, there has been intense research carried out for 100 plus years, so it is all about her vanity and the pretense that she cares about something other than herself. She must be incapable of learning, after 20 years, the only thing she is capable of, is finding multiple photo opportunities of herself. Taking a good laxative might help her to improve as well.
We are all being way too polite regarding this person imo. She clearly genuinely believes that this 2 minute statement (basically repeating the obvious) is a ‘speech’ and is actually achieving something. The entire establishment is propping her up by calling this short crafted statement a ‘landmark speech’. It’s now time to face facts, she is as thick as two short planks and cannot be taken seriously. As a representative of the RF she is a compete embarrassment with her husband’s recent failed attempts at being internationally relevant being equally embarrassing for the institution.
What’s really pathetic about all of this is that Kate is not smart enough to be embarrassed by all of this. Like she actually thinks she’s doing something. That’s the part that I keep coming back to. That she is perfectly okay and fine with doing the LEAST – and has no shame about it.
I’d go further and say I think she believes she is doing a lot, which goes to show that Kate Middleton has never had a real job where work is required, growth monitored, and results demanded. This nothing-muchness will be the most she has ever done in her workshy life.
She is the princess of no impact. The UK can barely feed some of its children and I would think that ought to be a priority instead of this expensive vanity project.
@Sparrow: I will even say that to be that uninterested you have to never have any basic intellectual interest. I’m more and more surprise that she could finish high school let alone attend uni. Maybe she is taking pills because she isn’t happy (not the prescribed type) and can’t be bothered by anything else?
@Ameerah what’s even more pathetic? For Kate and her world, this is a huge win. She got to cosplay Meg, say important words in front of important people, and gets her victory swirl around the bowl on Pippa. Because Pip only has a masters in the subject area, but Kate has “landmark” speeches, so…. Also, as public speaking novice, aren’t “landmark speeches” a little longer and have impactful content?
I stopped feeling anything toward Kate years before Meg arrived. How could anyone have access to that much wealth, power, and influence and not used for GOOD somewhere in the world? Because this is Kate. Kate’s entire existence is being the head girl at school for the rest of her life. This is her world and she is more than happy with it.
It never occurred to me that kates choice of this subject was also a jealousy swipe at her sister,but ya. Wow she and Peggy are two peas in a toxic pod.
Do you remember when after the engagement all the press was “this is the first Royal wife with a degree!”
This is not even good for a high school project !
This woman has never worked one day in her life and it shows.
Doesn’t sophie have a degree
@Geegee, no Sophie doesn’t have a degree. She went to college and did a secretarial course, not to University to do a degree.
Autumn Phillips graduated McGill; are we not counting that, too far removed?
It’s hard to think about all the money being spent on this vagueness. And I still remember Carole saying in her first interview with the Telegraph, conveniently a week before the Meghan made Kate cry story, that being royal was about more than just making speeches.
Kate. All hat no cattle.
And to think that she has the UK GOVERNMENT AND UK MEDIA ON HER SIDE, all that support with zero returns 😏😏😏
The fact that the first time this twit tried to do ANYTHING was after Meghan showed up makes me insane. Hmmmm, what happened 6 years ago that could possibly have motivated Kitty to this tiny burst of completely inconsequential “work”?
Congrats to the happy couple, that will one day be your king and queen. It’s so fucking embarrassing.
Literally the Friday before the Grenfell cookbook was launched Becky English promotes the broken Britain project. Because Kate knew Meghan was going to launch a great project and she came up with this bs. Jealous from day one.
Yikes!! Is she showing that woman her teeth in that picture? Look at my teeth and my hands are not flailing. What a big joke and waste of time and money. Early years are important like learning to brush your teeth. See mine are all clean I learned how to do that in my early years.
Okay, I tried. Two things:
1) her convo with the woman “backstage” before the speech – she kept trailing off, she wasn’t clear, hard to understand. Nothing about that simple conversation indicated that Kate was confident, a leader, ready to give a “landmark speech.” I’m trying to think of other significant women on the world stage – Meghan is such an easy comparison, but i’m trying to imagine anyone from CP Mary to Meghan to AOC to VP Harris having a conversation like that before a speech, where they are barely articulate. And the reason I’m comparing her to someone like VP Harry is is because her team is putting out there that she’s someone who should be taken seriously on the world stage, she is laser focused, she’s ready to play in the big leagues now. Well, that’s who is in the big leagues and its clear Kate is not ready at all.
2) I only made it about 30 seconds into her speech. the way she kept looking down was so distracting. It was like she looked down, read a sentence, remember a word or two to say when she looked back up, then looked down again. Rinse, repeat.
I’m almost embarrassed on her behalf. Almost. What a waste of a platform.
Becks: The backstage discussion was for the press that were gathered there as she came in. The problem was that it was inaudible and served no real purpose. I guess KP thought that putting to speak to the woman as she came in would help to get her message across to the press without being interviewed. She would have been better off doing a short interview with a member of the press before going inside.
It was inaudible but it also just didn’t show her as a confident woman, leading this symposium that’s about her life’s signature work.
Giving an interview to the press would have been disastrous unless she had the questions ahead of time (which of course, she would have lol).
I think I heard her say it was nice to see it all coming together, which gives the impression they’re still working on setting things up; not just the symposium, but her whole early years thing. And it’s been how long? Five years? More? I think ostensibly the entirety of her marriage, right?
I heard her say she was nervous and excited—such a childish thing for someone who is supposed to be driving this project to say.
All of the new generations of heirs, except Catherine-Amalia of the Netherlands, have given their first public speeches. I would say that Kate’s efforts are on par, if not worse, then the speeches given by the 18 year old heirs. The content of her speech his definitely worse.
Right like she’s a seasoned expert, or so we’re told. At this point she should be giving 15 min speeches on specific aspects of early childhood development. Something more than 2 minutes of nothing.
I would suggest that the Spanish crown princess is head & shoulders above Katie Keen in the speech-delivery department.
Yeah she has zero interest in this topic and it shows over and over again. She probably may has no interest in anything tbh which is why they stuck her with this, she’s not a curious person. The only thing she’s interested in is herself. My second grader did a better job with her speech at school this week for Veterans Day than this 42 year old grown woman with all the resources she could ever need at her disposal. She’s pathetic.
All those 18 year old heirs are multilingual. Kate can barely speak English.
@Becks1 The crazy thing is that you watched a full quarter of the speech! It’s 2 minutes long. Landmark speech? Come on. This sounded like the opening remarks for an event. Then then someone introduces a speaker, then the real speaker speaks. We’ve all been to professional symposia. 2 minutes of general platitudes is no landmark speech ffs.
I am completely confused, too. I watched the video, I was wondering if maybe (just maybe) there would be actual substance there. This speech is 2mn long. Was there more, was there a panel she spoke on? Otherwise, as said above, this is not even a keynote, it’s a “welcome” intro.
Wait…what? The “landmark” speech was two minutes long? Get outta here!
It…….it was 2 minutes? What. LOL. I didnt look at the length on the video, just said NOPE after the first few sentences.
Like @LeatheFrench said…..thats not a keynote, its an intro.
I looked away because I was so embarrassed! Unfortunately, I had to go back and rewatch her saying the words “ah-lay yeahs” … does that translate to “early years”? Then something about “ministray of airly caya” means the Minitser of Early Care?!
It needed subtitles…
OMG, thank you! I went back and listened to that 10 seconds twice and could not make out “early care”.
Who wrote this juvenile intro, and how much coaching or preparation got her to this point. There is no life in these 2 minutes.
Becks,
Think about what Dr. Jill would have done in this context. She likely would have spoken with minimal notes and from memory, would have been dynamic, engaged, enthusiastic, would have referenced several papers by those present at the symposium, and would have identified several action items that she wanted to put into practice.
As would Meghan. Kate should have asked Meg for help while she could. Clearly Meg has the benefit of being an actress so ‘learning lines’… so that is fine..how does she do it? It looks so much more professional to not look at notes all the time. But perhaps a fairer comparison is Diana… not a seasoned or experienced public speaker, but she got help , took advice and practised and very clearly improved year on year. Oh I do still miss our lovely Diana. … I know she wasn’t perfect but she really cared about people.
Dr Jill exclaiming “Is that it?” or near enough was so disastrous they can’t risk that again. I wonder what Catherine Quinn thinks of it all, rolling her eyes somewhere I suppose
She could’ve even asked Anne or Sophie. Both have give multiple speeches on big topics—Anne especially for Save the Children and Sophie spoke at a UN conference on sexual violence.
Ok, we know that Kate is bad at making speeches – but the real problem here is the elevated expectations. Officially, Kate’s was the keynote speech – the one that gives the general and overall theme of the event, not any specifics. And that would be fine, but her PR geniuses had to puff it up to be a “landmark speech.” That’s like William comparing the ES prize to a Nobel. They can’t be content with just getting a project done right – they have to make it the most important thing that’s ever happened on the planet Earth and they’re bound to disappoint every time.
Agreed – and this has been their issue for years now. Everything is landmark, the best ever, the nobel prize, whatever. When Princess Anne gives a keynote address its literally just “Princess Anne gave a speech” or “made some remarks.”
They shoot themselves in the foot over and over again by setting the expectations so high.
I got about 1 minute in – a minute I will never get back. Complete cringe fest.
“People often ask me” (no they don’t) “why the early yaars” (answer: because QEII insisted I engage a qualified person to come up with something to do and also to try to outdo my SIL). “The answer is that I care deeply about vulnerable members of our society” ( no you don’t – you created a pile on against your suicidal SIL) etc etc more platitudes and I’m really the second coming of Diana blah blah blah. She didn’t even bother looking up after about a minute – just raced through it. Lordy.
So we now have a report that says “tell your kids that you love them,” basically.
Got it.
Please. It was more than that!
It was the most moving 2 minutes of my life. I had tears in my eyes. How close minded people are now! Jeez….
Sarcasm, in case anyone ask, except for the tears… it’s a very painful 2 minutes that I will always regret.
Thank you for taking one for the team so the rest of us don’t have to endure that!
Noted early childhood experts Tony Blair and Lord Hague had a chat. I mean this is a joke on all levels.
Also it’s not global just because someone says it is. No one is covering this outside of the UK.
I notice the organization itself is calling it a ‘national symposium’; global was pure tabloid upselling.
She memorized nothing. Nothing. The golden rule of any presentation is to memorize the first 60-90 seconds so that you can maintain eye contact, have your head up, really show that you are dedicated to the subject, know what you are talking about, are invested, are competent.
As to content, also a failing grade. Early childhood years are important, but are so are all other years (wow, insightful). And of course she made it about herself within the first 60 seconds (people always ask me . . . ).
I rolled my eyes at that line. No one is asking you Kate. Everyone knows why you “care so deeply” about the early years – its because you have young kids, and you were told that making this your “big” cause would endear you to the public for some reason.
@Becks the “I care so deeply” part really struck me as her positioning herself as a Diana-like figure who cares for the vulnerable and the marginalized. I bet her speech writer lifted the phrase from some old video of Diana speaking. Notice also she is widening her circle of care to include people older than five. I think Mumbles is aiming to adopt Diana’s post-divorce Queen of Hearts persona for the way forward.
LOL! Her team borrowed that line from ‘influencers’ who are trying to flog products. The UK public are fed up to the back teeth of this woman. They want her mute and smiley because the moment she opens her mouth, she displays her empty headedness.
Right, “Why do you care so deeply about babies and children under five?” is definitely a question she gets constantly. Caring for children (while simultaneously never actually discussing concrete ways to help get their basic needs yet, bc feeding children is “political”)—such a puzzling, controversial, out-of-the-box cause!
Contrast this 41-year-old two-dimensional cutout with Diana, in her early 20s, insisting on visiting AIDS wards against the wishes of her husband and mother-in-law in the 1980s. Even as an isolated, depressed young woman, she stood up to the palace and fought to take action she thought was right. They definitely made damn sure the next heir’s bride was a hollow Stepford wife who would do as she was told.
I mean, they couldn’t even get a teleprompter so she could feign eye contact at least? What a fail all around. I get it, public speaking can be hard and not everyone is born to it. I wasn’t. I have to do a fair amount of it in my job, so I took classes, read books, and practiced. I wasn’t good at it by far at first, but I got better. I wouldn’t say I’m great at it now, but the effort has paid off. She’s had over a decade to work on this and by sheer laziness she just hasn’t. There is no excuse at this point.
Also, “all level?” Isn’t she dancing dangerously close to politically involved? Oh nos what will the RR and BM say?
Nothing. It’s fine. Everything is just fine.
Exactly. I have a feeling Kate is not technologically savvy.
@Krista she doesn’t need to be tech savvy. Her staff can set it up and all she has to do then is simply read the words in front of her instead of looking down to read the words. But my expectations, drawn from my experience as a functioning adult, are apparently too high for her.
Please note the edit at 1:42. Apparently she couldn’t even get through this short speech without a flub.
“People always ask me…….how a talentless hack like myself manages to get through the day”
It’s a tragedy that she thinks she’s really doing something but an even bigger tragedy that so many Brits think she’s doing something. All of us here saw this coming from a mile away earlier in the week when it was announced. Wash, rinse, repeat on an endless loop for the early years.
Why is KP embarrassing her by sending her out again and again to make speeches when she has no knowledge of the subject and can only read from her script , she is wasting peoples time here . I think she knows deep.down this job is not for her , but she is not going to.step.down for anyone. What a disappointment she rurned out to be. ..
It shows when she starts rushing her speech. She sees this as an unwanted burden that she’s stuck with for the foreseeable. How many times is she going to state the obvious with this ‘campaign’? Either start doing some actual campaigning and fundraising or step away.
I started off really liking the suit, colour wise, it looked much brighter in different lights. Then it hit me. She’s wearing aubergine to get Egg(plant)’s attention. 🍆🍆
As I predicted, over promise and under deliver. Landmark speech=stating common knowledge.
There was no passion in her speech, just Keen rushing through it. You would think she would have her talking points memorized after all these years, yet she kept looking at her notes. What a colossal waste.
Yes and she was not going to Singapore because she had to help George study lol. She couldn’t study for her own speech much less help George.
I simply cannot believe that she can’t deliver a speech at this stage of her “career” without looking down at her notes every third word. I am pathologically terrified of public speaking; for college, and later, work interviews/presentations, the only way I can stay calm is to memorize what I’m to say and practice over and over again so that I don’t need notes. She has all the time and resources at her disposal to be not so BAD at this.
The thing is, in every professional context there are experts who aren’t so hot at professional speaking. They mumble, their voices shake, whatever. But if they have something worth hearing, people give them a lot of grace. If she’s such an expert, the speech would at least be worth listening to despite the atrocious delivery. But it isn’t
I see “slick” is the new catch phrase used to describe this non starter. I can imagine all the pages of the thesaurus scattered over their office floors while desperately trying to come up with more adjectives to sell the loser that is the POW.
I wasn’t expecting anything different. She was put out there to front this issue because they thought Meghan would have still been around and they couldn’t have her showing up Kate all the time. Now, Kate is stuck with this boring initiative because KP told the press that she was going to fix Broken Britain a few days before Meghan’s first project was going to be launched.
I mean, it says right there she’s “sharing early childhood wisdom” *rolls eyes*
And for the love of all that is holy, how hard it is to memorize a 2min 30s speech?!?!
I’m glad there was a transcript because I could not understand and she was slurring some as well.
I thought most people were being too hard on her, but naw, her speech speaking voice is horrible.
But airly yares are her life!!!! Jk, jfc what was that dog crap? Like why not just endow learning centers and raise money? Why waste time on pretending to care? Her suit looks cheap and outdated.
In theory Keen has access to so many things that are potentially out of reach for your average citizen and yet, she fails to make good use out of any of it. Someone suggested that she hire a speechwriter recently (sorry, I don’t know who to credit) as s bare minimum. Learn fricking public speaking and practice. Interact with your target audience behind the scenes.
Yesterday, there was an article on tipping and in the comments I mentioned that many restaurants have ZHCs, which according to AlpineWitch are also a huge issue in GB. Why doesn’t Kate take aim at stuff like this: take on the issues that make it more difficult for parents of those early years children! Childcare access and affordability. Mental health care. Public transport. Shift times—we spoke to people in England who worked 12-hour shifts because that’s cheaper than having three 8-hour shifts for companies. She’s not doing her job.
From what I saw on the website, the people who were invited actually do know what they’re doing. What Kate has to do with all this is still a mystery. This really is like Will’s ES – with people doing some kind of work we don’t hear about in the background and him swanning around in front.
I doubt she wrote it.
Barely 2 minutes and 30 seconds.
For a “landmark speech”?????
Total word salad that was devoid of any meaning.
I feel for the audience members that were in attendance.
Is she on something? I’m not even asking in a joking way. The way she mumbles constantly, isn’t coherent, and is always fidgeting reminds me of someone who is on sometime of drug…prescription or otherwise. There is no reason why this woman with all the worlds resources is so bad at public speaking. In college it was actually required for us to take one public speaking class, I liked it so much, I took I took two more. One of the things we learned was to memorize the first few sentences, and the last few. We also created bullet points, much easier to read than paragraphs (pre computers…I’m aging myself). The point is there is no excuse for this woman to be so awful at everything
This is my experience as well. I had to give presentations for my job with a multi national corporation. I hated it, I was scared, but I learned to do it, from a room with half a dozen people to a conference hall with 500+ attendees. I learned all the tips and techniques that I could, went on courses, and used to give a trial run through of my presentation to friends in my department so they could critique me and I could become familiar with how the presentation would go down. I even practised in front of a mirror.
One of my really good managers said to me that it was OK if somebody looked at their watch during my presentation. I should only worry if they shook it to see if it had stopped! LOL.
In her speech she asked a bigly, important question that I thought she would give us the bigly answers to, but the answers were never revealed; she turned the page and moved on to something else. LOL. Presumably, the answers were concluded by all these science, educators, etc. she said she convened with “globally” so why not provide these conclusions in her speech?
Also, Kaiser, stop giving them ideas on what they should be doing. You’re giving them a road map; let them continue down this path of self-destruction. Please.
hey Kate, be best 🤣🤣🤣
What the heck is a “global listening exercise” … I think its code for “Let’s pretend the Princess has a meaningful job”.
Whoever writes her speeches must have written them for business as they are expert at stringing a lot of words together but saying absolutely nothing. The fact that Kate cannot connect these big ideas to actual real things happening — like organizations she supports under the early years umbrella to highlight how they are putting to action the grand idee that she is espousing is so basic.
It’s all written and done for her, basically. All she does is show up in flashy clothes and makeup and coo at the cameras and read what they wrote.
Imagine her being able to go off the cuff and report on the various charities she’s met with to show how the Early Years is making a difference. IMAGINE!
The cynicism of this from her puppet masters is revolting. Trot out pantsuit Barbie from her divorce cottage, photo op while she mumbles, pictures next day for all the Brexit grannies. The saddest part is that it works on so many.
What I find offensive about this speech is where she says ” ..know ourselves, manage our emotions, focus our thoughts, communicate with others, foster positive relationships, and explore the world are just as valuable to our long-term success as reading, writing or arithmetic” She doesn’t practice any of that as far as I can see. What a hypocrite.
If you truly believe in something, you shouldn’t have to look down at your speech every third word! It’s appalling that somebody in her position hasn’t engaged help in giving presentations. Yes it’s hard, but there are tips and techniques for the most bashful of speakers.
Kate could not manage her emotions when she publicly glared at Harry and Meghan
Or when she practically squared up to Meghan when she was meant to be presenting a united front in mourning the Queen.
It is insulting to real experts and scholars to have shallow Kate who has no degree in the field and is all talk represents this group. It is pitiful. Kate studied art history and never used the degree.
Oh, and the bots are already out under the YouTube video, you betcha! Praising the saintly “Princess Catherine.” It’s put me off my breakfast, this nonsense.
There are many reasons I can never take this woman seriously and her performative, PR with Early Years is high on that list. She is raising 3 children in a system that deliberately supports the heir at the expense of the others; intelligence, suitability for the role or even wanting it are ignored and, I suspect, being gay would possibly be accepted behind the scenes but not in public and an arranged marriage enforced (yes, I do think coercion would come into play). The system doesn’t care about personal happiness, mental health etc., it’s a machine and she knows it. Kate is a hypocrite.
Oh, yeah. A “safe and loving childhood” is needed? You mean, like having your aunt and uncle acknowledge your very existence? Like being defended when you are three days old and the press compares you to a chimpanzee as a joke? Like not having your security pulled and your location leaked when there are actual people publicly calling for you to to be “put down”? Like someone, anyone, in your family putting out a statement of support when their employees are dragging you for being given your great-grandmother’s nickname? Like your name and proper title being added to the family’s very public profile without your parents having to publicly shame them? Like having your cousins at your first birthday party? THAT kind of safe and loving, Kate? Eff all the way off Your Royal Unkindness.
There are several points where the footage is clearly jumping, I wonder what they were cutting out?
At least one very significant break in the footage. The mumbling must have been out of control.
Oh, come the eff on!! That speech could have been an email, one of those emails no one bothers to read because they’re written like basic form letters.
What a waste.
She is super aware of those cameras and s i mpers at them.
Agreed. She can’t be natural – just always affected.
I don’t listen to her “speeches”, or reading aloud if you prefer, just too embarrassing. Does she ever say anything such as “these are the statistics on this area”, or “my meeting with prof so so touched on this aspect”, or “I found out from my project work at so and so place that this is effective and getting results”….I suppose my question is, is it just blah or are there areas of worthwhile speaking, as found in speeches done by real people at these kind of events?
I wonder if there will be coverage of what the actual experts will be discussing and sharing. Will there be a write-up about this in some professional journal? Will there be academic papers to come out of this? Will there be some lobbying of governments to adopt or pursue policies to help child development? Does Kate’s institute release an annual report on how far they’ve come in achieving their goals? Have they set goals? Great aubergine coat, though. I think she carried that off successfully.
Oh my good god, my shoulders are aching from cringing so much! What a bloody embarrassment!! It’s no wonder the camera didn’t pan the audience, they would have been asleep after the first few minutes or playing candy crush on their phones!! If you are brave enough to really listen you will hear her slip up and drop the posh accent on a few occasions,
She has spent a fortune and taken years, just to say “early years are important”, and channel Whitney as “children are our future”. Go back to sleep katey dear, because the grown ups are having a meeting now.
She got up and delivered (badly) this absolute nothing of a speech in front of actual professionals in the field. God knows what they made of it. I’d have died of embarrassment if it were me.
Ironic that she calls for “action at every level” while providing zero action herself.
She needs to stop cheesing for the cameras and making dumb faces when she’s interacting with people. What might have been cute in her early years, only makes her look silly doing it now.
Dont shoot me what is the point of yearly childhood ?? Money ?? Better understanding?? I mean it’s part of the process when as adult you unlearn the things from your childhood and go on self discovery and healing journey. What kate says is pure bs having two parents and money and playing outside doesnt have much impact becoming adult. There are Fked up adult who comes from two parents like charles and lived a privilege life turned as arse. It’s a vanity project.
She in effect is saying single parents are not as effective. Saying that is wrong on so many levels.
Throw rugs on the stage? Why? Those are tripping hazards!
She is such a nothing – completely out of her league, unserious, unintelligent, lazy and ridiculous. It says everything about William that he married her knowing what would be expected of his wife. Losers both of them.
Also, how the hell do they have the nerve to call a 2.5 minute speech “landmark” or “keynote”? You can’t say anything of meaning in so short a time. That’s the sort of time you give the guy who comes on to tell you where the fire exits are and what time is lunch.
What I got out of this is that she simply doesn’t care. She doesn’t have her heart in this at all, otherwise she’d put MUCH more effort into it. In fact I’d hasten to add that she finds this type of stuff a chore because the only actual work she puts into it is getting dressed up in a lurid purple power suit, wiglet in place, fresh botox and made up to the hilt with a phalanx of photographers to memorialize this bIG iMPOrtAnT eVEnt! What a joke…
@Jaded this woman has access to resources and support staff that most of us can only dream of and yet won’t put the work in herself. Diana was a shy unpractised teenager but knew public speeching was going to be a key skill to master. She had a speech coach and put those hours in and I seem to remember reading, Sir David Attenborough gave her additional help and advice. Judi Dench, Emma Thompson and Joanne Lumley are all vocal royalist with great presence and fantastic voices who are wonderful public speakers. Why doesn’t she call in the best to at least improve her public speaking with so much talent to call on?
I give public presentations and really it is key to be enthusiastic about your subject and write your speech yourself and commit it to heart. Boy would I love to have been able to afford my own coach and famous actor to learn the art of public speaking.
The British press should be ashamed. Embarrassing stuff. How is this journalism? History will be unkind to them
Aside from the poor speech delivery this is exactly what Kate should be doing at multiple events during the year. Coming in as the introductory speaker who opens the event but clearly isn’t involved in the actual important work carried out by experts. Other royal ladies attend events like this all the time, the royals look good the event gets some extra publicity, it’s a win-win. What she shouldn’t be doing is taking any credit for the actual symposium or acting like she is the keynote speaker with any type of expertise. There is nothing landmark or otherwise significant about what Kate did, this is bread and butter to all the other Queens and Princesses, outside of the UK
“Arly Kerr” is important. She spoke for less than three minutes (or two) in her “landmark” speech. There are no initiatives, plans or money coming from her or being coordinated by her. Totally worthless. I am ashamed for her. Despicable, really.
They’ll just use the excuse – she’s still learning.
And the reason why intelligent people don’t take her seriously.
What about that headline that said she was one of the top experts in neuroscience? I resent her guilt tripping struggling parents who are dealing maybe with poverty, homelessness or bereavement. Why not endow child care centres which could look after kids in a crisis? And make them accessible and non judgmental. I can’t listen to the unsaid words about her ‘perfect childhood’.
The stream on here wouldn’t come through for me, so I had to watch it directly from the Royal Family Channel on You Tube and over there she is their queen. I would give her a pass if she hadn’t mistreated Meghan. The speech was just re-hashing the same things that have been said over and over again. Nothing new.
Off topic here but I think I have figured out why Kate got her distracting Farrah Fawcett bangs. It is clear from these photos that Kate had some more work done on her nose. It looks as though they filled and evened out the bridge of her nose. This follows what I believe to be minor chin work. Both of which, oddly, make her look a lot more like Crown Princess Mary of Denmark. While she wants to dress like Meghan, I think she wants her face to look like Mary’s.
Lord have mercy.
1. Landmark speech? HOW? Someone better get out a map, because there are no landmarks here and we have clearly lost our way.
2. Her only message: “Kids develop a lot before the age of five. It’s a crucial time.”Doesn’t pretty much everybody on the planet know this by now? “Few people know?” Okay.
3. Please center yourself on the podium. And lose the mini jazz hands. Not effective.
4. Uhllly yars.
Well, I braved the video. My wasn’t she determined to get done in a hurry. I think I caught most of it, but it was hard to understand when she talked fast. This is what I concluded. She will now be able to use the fact that she parents older kids than 5. The way she made of point that it was the early years to adulthood made me think that was deliberate. No matter how old her kids get, she’ll be able to use them in some way for this project.
The other thing I concluded is that she has no idea of what families struggle with. Most parents do love their kids, but how many of them are worried about having enough money for the essentials? How does that play into a kid’s feeling of safety? There are parents who work 2 jobs just to make ends meet, so are unable to spend as much time as they want to with their kids. How does that play into a kid’s early childhood development? She chose a very complicated issue to play with. That’s what she’s doing–playing.
It would be interesting to listen to just ONE of the experts in that room.
“Calling for action at every level” to do what, Kate? What action are you asking people to take?
How do you propose we all change our thinking so we can help infants and toddlers in the early years have better social and emotional skills?
Also, what the heck does “restoring, protecting and investing in humankind” mean?
What a farce.
Maybe she borrowed William’s earthsh*t speech?
Oh Kate. She convened the meeting yet I swear she thanked the woman for inviting her? If she set up this foundation and now they do the work and she highlights it fine whatever, I’m not British and for all I ever saw that’s what QE2 did as well, go and visit and make people pay attention to the actual people with passion and energy for the world. But where’s the substance? Is this a welcome speech? Who are the people she meets who would ask, excuse me why do you care about children? That had me laughing. Ok and where’s her telling us about the people present and their work, like give us some actual details please, you have all this money and attention now tell us something substantial! It’s quite annoying to know someone had all this public influence and they can’t look up from their belly buttons long enough to do anything helpful.
One thing that I respected Princess Diana for: she worked on herself and got the right support to become eventually, a pretty competent speaker. I am old enough to recall her starting out as a 20 year old, having to make a speech in Welsh, she was SO nervous and it showed. But she practised and got coaching, and became pretty accomplished at it.
I just do not understand why Kate is still so bad at it. I suspect it is because she regards public speaking as an unwelcome ‘thing I have to do as PoW’ and her heart isn’t really in it. I think that if she was really passionate about what she was saying then people would pick up that passion and forgive a lot of nerves & stumbling. Real passion – the desire to communicate information and connect with people – goes such a long way to overriding fear.
And if she is as passionate about this subject as we are told, surely she would have studied and made herself an authority on it? She could have done this surely….maybe she could have done it during lockdown and you know, got herself a Masters/PHD? It is not as though she doesn’t have the resources.
The rest of us of us (in the real world of work) have to put in the learning and gain the experience, in order to trust that we have the right to have our view respected.
Don’t tell us what we know already Cathy.
Who wrote this garbage for her?.She rushed through this ”landmark” speech as if she did not want to do it.
I do not think she has any interest in Early Years at all.As others have said, she has given disgraceful treatment to the two young children of her husband’s brother.So how does she expect anyone to take notice o her?
Okay enough! Honestly, what happened here is they thought the early years would be a cute fluffy no controversy front for her laziness. Any advisor worth their salt realized quickly early years is a truly complex injustice that after all the extensive, longitudinal, and global research on early brain development on attachment, governments aren’t acting on which would mean for Kate to do anything meaningful, she’d actually have to take a stance. She needs to gracefully bow out of this important work and centre the voices of actual experts. This is legitimately becoming detrimental now.
Okay. I hurt myself by watching a good bit of the clip. She wasn’t as horrible as she has been. But in the one-sided competition, heck, even against Wills, she’s just so unnatural. She is what happens when your entire outward personality is supposed to breed and be pretty. She should be very angry at the Firm for making her suddenly be of substance when all she signed up for was Stepford Wife. And I would bet money, they (the firm and her mother) made sure she would never be anything but until Meghan.
I just find it funny that the Firm is so bad at this. They could have let her be Sports Barbie all these years. She would have had passion. She would have appeared genuine. It’s clear that where she shines, but nope. The Firm is all about roles and shoving someone into shape until they somewhat fit into that role. But a future queen isn’t a tomboy. She breeds and cares oh so much about children.
The weird pauses when reading the paper really looks bad though. She was saying basic stuff and it’s like the first time she ever saw those words. There is no excuse to be so bad at giving introductions that are this basic. It shows laziness more than anything.
I think Kate has actually demonstrated the importance of the early years through this initiative. She’s cleverly demonstrated that if you neglect something for the first five years, the result is underdeveloped and lacks a strong foundation. Well done, Kate!