Buckingham Palace staff say King Charles coped with the Caribbean tour. A senior aide's account, circulated again on Tuesday as papers looked back at the nine days, is that the King carried out more than 40 engagements in the Bahamas, Guyana and Antigua and Barbuda, in temperatures that at times approached 40 degrees, and that he did so while cancer treatment continues. The programme was described as complex, demanding and tiring. The health line from the same staff was short. He is dealing with it. He and the Queen were back in Britain before Sunday's two-minute silence at the Cenotaph, which he led.
The tour was the one on which he called the slave trade a monstrous injustice and stopped short of an apology, leaving that decision with ministers. An aide had already called him a secret weapon for politically charged trips. Tuesday's version of the same briefing is less about diplomacy and more about stamina: a 77-year-old man, in treatment, who finished the schedule. That is the Palace's case for the working monarchy as it is currently staffed. It is also the case a poll is now testing.
Fifty-eight per cent, and the son on 74
A YouGov poll taken in October, and reported widely on Tuesday, put the King's positive rating at 58 per cent, down four points since the summer. Negative views stood at 34 per cent, the weakest favourable score of his reign on that series. Queen Camilla's figures were harder: 42 per cent positive and 45 per cent negative. The Prince of Wales was on 74 per cent positive. The Princess of Wales was on 72. The gap is not new. It is wider than the Palace would like in the week after a tour that was meant to show the King doing the work only a head of state can do, in rooms where an apology was the sentence people had come to hear.
The Tour and the Poll
- More than 40 engagements across the Bahamas, Guyana, and Antigua and Barbuda.
- Temperatures at times near 40 degrees. Cancer treatment continued.
- YouGov, October: King 58 per cent positive, down four points. Negatives at 34 per cent.
- Queen Camilla: 42 per cent positive, 45 per cent negative.
- Prince of Wales 74 per cent positive. Princess of Wales 72 per cent.
What the Palace is asking the numbers to bear
The King has no say in the policy that followed him around the Caribbean. Downing Street opened a structured dialogue and ruled out direct reparations. CHOGM wrote time-bound talks into the communique. His speech carried sorrow and a historical judgement, and left the cheque, if there is one, to the government. A poll taken in October cannot be a verdict on a silence he led in November. It can be a verdict on a year in which the heir is the more popular public figure by a distance, and in which the Queen's numbers sit under water.
Palace officials answer that sort of poll by pointing at the diary. Forty engagements, two speeches the government could not give, a ship, a church service, a summit opening, and then Whitehall in the rain with a wreath. The diary is real. The percentages are also real. Tuesday's briefing asks the country to treat the first as the answer to the second. The next test is not another tour. It is whether a King who has shown he can finish a hard trip can close the gap with a son who has not had to make it.