In an interview with New Zealand’s 3 News, Morrissey has accused Kate Middleton of feeling “no shame” about the suspected suicide of Jacintha Saldanha, and described the British monarchy as a dictatorship, encapsulated by a history riddled with “murder… mayhem and slaughter.”
In what was a wide-ranging interview that will no doubt capture the public’s attention, Morrissey also suggested that the British press and Clarence House put severe pressure on Saldanha, something which he believes ultimately led to her death.
Asked if he felt there should have been a counter-culture reaction to the Diamond Jubilee earlier this year, like there was during the Silver Jubilee in 1977, Morrissey said:
Yes, I think there should be but I think things are different now. There’s a more firm grip on the press. The print media has more of a stranglehold and it’s very difficult for anything to slip through, whereas back in the days you just mentioned, they weren’t quite prepared for that. It’d never really happened before, so they weren’t expecting it, but now they’re going to great lengths to keep anybody with an oppositional voice at bay and that’s how dictatorships work.
When pressed on why he deemed the Royal Family a dictatorship, he said:
Well, it’s difficult not see them as a dictatorship. What else are they? A self-elected monarchy. If you study the history of the monarchy it’s murder and mayhem and slaughter, so what is there to celebrate? And certainly in England, I don’t know about the rest of the world, but one cannot say anything against them. And even with the recent story about the nurse killing herself at King Edward Hospital, there is no blame placed on Kate Middleton, who was in the hospital, as far as I can see, for absolutely no reason. She feels no shame about the death of this woman, and she’s saying nothing about the death of this poor woman. The arrogance of the British Royals is staggering, absolutely staggering. And why it’s allowed to be I really don’t know.
Does she [Middleton] have a health condition? Is it anorexia or is it pregnancy? … I mean morning sickness already? So much hoo haw and then suddenly as bright as a button as soon as this poor woman dies she’s out of hospital? It doesn’t ring true. And I’m sure the Palace and Clarence House put maximum pressure on this poor nurse and of course that’s kept away from the press. I’m sure the British press hounded this poor woman to her death. That’s kept away [from the public] and by this time next week she’ll be forgotten, and that’s how the British Royals work.
He added that the two Australian DJs, who have been roundly blamed in the British press, were actually not the main causes of the tragedy:
It was a prank call and they probably didn’t ever think they’d ever get as far as they did. And I’m sure thousands of prank calls are made to Buckingham Palace everyday – people probably do it all the time. The fact that they got so far probably astonished them beyond belief, but the pressure put on the woman who connected the callers was probably so enormous that she took her own life. It wasn’t because of two DJs in Australia that this woman took her own life, it was the pressure around her. And, of course, the Royals are exonerated as always, they’re just so wonderful and we focus on something else, two DJs in Australia, and it’s not how it should be.
The interviewer then suggested that the Royal family had “refashioned itself,” to which Morrissey retorted:
They had to do that because they were losing their grip. So they put themselves forward as the Topshop royals, and drag in Kate Middleton as the voice of youth, and therefore with the Olympics, or anything else that’s happened in recent years, they hijack every event to make sure any celebration of England is really a celebration of the Royal Family, which of course it isn’t, but the Royal Family believe they are England and nothing else is England. And if you live outside London it’s not England anyway. But the way they hijack everything and shove their face in is extraordinary because what do they say? Please tell me one thing the Queen has ever said, or William and Kate. I mean, they are zombies but they are a business and it works.
They are not [tourist attractions] because tourists don’t come to sit down with William and Kate and have tea with the Queen. They go to see Buckingham Palace, and so forth, which will always be there, and that’s why tourists go. They don’t come to meet any member of the extended Royal Family. They are not a tourist attraction. The history of England is a tourist attraction. We don’t need the flesh and blood Royals now. They should retire and resign.
Morrissey’s questionable insinuation that Kate Middleton was in hospital for spurious reasons will no doubt grab the headlines, but in a world where most musicians and pop stars are now bereft of opinion, it’s nothing if not interesting to hear somebody so forceful in theirs. I’m sure it’s times like these, however, that David Cameron maybe wishes he hadn’t pursued his association with Morrissey so aggressively, since their opinions differ so greatly.
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