Piers Morgan blocked me on X, formerly known as twitter, quite a long time ago, I think for disagreeing with him on something or other. Or maybe for calling him something unpleasant involving the ‘C’ word? Either way, Britain’s main anti-snowflake campaigner is, well, such a snowflake. He’s also obsessed, unhealthily so in my view, by the royal family, something he has in common with a great number of other people. More recently he has been obsessed with King Brian’s cancer diagnosis.
On 6th February, Moron announced that it was “increasingly untenable for Buckingham Palace not to say what cancer King Charles III has got. Speculation is running riot all over the world. If, as I’m sure he does, Charles wants to help others, far better to be specific about his condition?” Doubtless, a month on, with Brian’s diagnosis still not revealed, Moron must be in a state of near desperation, although I get the feeling the only place speculation is running riot in is in his head.
It is entirely possible that my little world is completely out of step with everyone else’s but I have not been in a conversation in the real world or on line where anyone has even mentioned King Brian’s cancer diagnosis. Many of us may have wondered ourselves what’s actually going on with the old boy but I suspect even among the most devout royalists there is no desire to out Brian’s type of cancer. Any decent, civilised person would wish him well and hope that he make a full recovery, just as they would with anyone else who was ill.
The wider media is more fascinated with Kate Middleton’s condition following her recent operation and the publication of a photo Kate now admits was “edited” seems to have fanned the flames of media interest. Once again, Kate’s condition is only of interest to me in human terms. A young woman with three young children, having surgery major enough to keep her off work for the best part of four months; I wouldn’t wish that on anyone, whether I know them or not. The publication of the photo, which features Kate and her children gurning into the camera, was supposed to set the public’s mind at ease, but of course the photo-doctoring news has really wound up the conspiracists who, predictably, conclude that something we are not being told about is going on.
Some of the comments about Kate are appalling, too appalling, I have concluded, for me to repeat them on this blog. As is all too common, there are always people who believe their own version of the ‘truth’ – you know, the unhinged brigade who think the Covid vaccines are more dangerous than Covid, that Donald Trump actually won the 2020 US presidential election and that Neil Armstrong actually walked on a Hollywood film set rather than the moon. None of the conspiracy theories are true but in some people’s eyes, the more they are denied, the more true they become.
Can’t we just wish Brian and Kate well, without demanding to know what’s actually wrong with them? Apparently not, if Morgan and the rest of the gutter press are anything to go by. “They’re royals, our royals,” goes the argument, “So we are entitled to know exactly what’s wrong with Brian and Kate because … er … we have a right to know.”
Hopefully, this is just a media obsession and the rest of the world isn’t as caught up in this non-news as Piers Moron is. Anyone who is genuinely fascinated by Brian and Kate’s nether regions should give their heads a good wobble and find something better to do with their lives.
