Prince William makes a ‘timed’ move to upstage Prince Harry’s UK trip
London: Prince William returned to his royal duties after a long summer break to visit a Pret A Manger store branch in Bournemouth town centre on Thursday.
The royal was greeted to by a huge crowd as he had turned up to discuss The Pret Foundation’s plans to help homeless people back into work. At event, he also bumped into ex-footballer Paul Gascoigne and chatted with him warmly, before posing with him for a selfie.
Royal commentator Daniela Elser noted in her comment piece for News.com.au that the timing of the appearance had been quite interesting as Prince Harry had also arrived the same day in UK.
“More intriguingly, Thursday also happened to mark the return to Britain’s shores of one Prince Harry, the Duke of Sussex, palace defector and aspirant podcaster,” she wrote.
“He is back in the UK for the WellChild Awards, an organisation he has been patron of (and dogged, passionate supporter of) since 2007. It is also the duke’s first trip since the coronation.”
Elser stated that “Timing, as the saying goes, is everything.” She opined, “On the very day that Brother Two, the beardy, often belligerent one, looked all set to steal a good chunk of the spotlight, how interesting that Brother One just happened to be out and about putting on the ol’ royal razzle dazzle.”
The royal expert pointed that in his bombshell memoir, Harry claimed that William over the years had been ‘jealous, petty and, in one famous incident, physically aggressive.’
However, despite Harry painting a ‘deeply unflattering portrait’ of William, the crowds at Bournemouth reveal that they are quite ‘taken’ by William and his wife, Kate Middleton.
“If Harry had hoped to shift public opinion towards the Prince of Wales or to unmask him as the supposed villain of the palace piece then, no dice,” Elser surmised.