William ‘holds crisis meetings to modernise monarchy’ after disastrous Caribbean tour

Prince William has held crisis meetings with his staff on how to improve the Cambridges’ public image, according to insiders.

The Duke of Cambridge is still reeling from the negative coverage of his recent tour of the Caribbean with his wife Kate, which turned into a PR nightmare.

The trip, marking the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee, was overshadowed by questions over Britain’s colonial legacy and calls for an apology and reparations for slavery.

William has held ‘abrupt’ discussions with staff behind the ‘haphazard planning’ of the tour and wants an overhaul of his team, royal sources claim.

The duke and duchess reportedly want to ‘rip up the rulebook’ and establish a new ‘Cambridge Way’ as they seek to modernise how they do things as royals.

William and Kate have personally interviewed two ‘star’ candidates suggested by their advisers to lead a new communications team to boost their image, the Mirror reports.

But the pair rejected both applicants – a man and a woman who were both white civil servants in their 30s – as ‘not being anywhere close’ to what they were looking for, sources claim.

They say the Cambridges told advisers to start looking ‘beyond the confines of Whitehall’ for new additions to their staff.

One insider said: ‘You can’t think outside the box if everyone is sitting comfortably in the same one.’

Immediately after their eight day tour of Belize, Jamaica and the Bahamas, the duke and duchess reportedly summoned their entire senior staff for a meeting to ‘clear the air’.

William was said to be concerned over a perceived lack of input from his staff, leading the couple to be poorly prepared for the response to the trip.

‘The Duke was clearly frustrated at the lack of answers and the absence of any workable solutions being put forward,’ a source told the Mirror.

‘The feeling was there were so many pitfalls that could have been avoided. He knows full well his reputation is on the line.’

The source said he and Kate risked ‘fighting for their futures’ if they were seen to be out of touch with the sensitive issue raised during their visit to the Caribbean.

William and Kate’s tour was met with protests accusing the couple of benefitting from the ‘blood, tears and sweat’ of slaves.

They were forced to cancel a trip to a village in Belize – among others – after  locals said they were not welcome amid anger over the lack of consultation about a helicopter landing on a local football field.

Images of the couple riding in the back of an open-top Land Rover during a military parade and shaking hands with locals behind a wire mesh fence also raised eyebrows.

A source told the Sun: ‘William and Kate will modernise how they work. It’s a breath of fresh air. They were bruised by attacks that their Caribbean trip harked back to the colonial age.

‘In future they will rip up the rule-book and do things “The Cambridge Way”. They’re trying to work out what that will look like.

As part of the revamp, it is reported William will have 70 fewer aides when he succeeds Prince Charles, halving the  estimated 137 staff members his father relies on.

The duke and duchess will hire staff to work on five or six ‘comfortable and credible’ good causes, while also focusing on smaller, solo trips around Europe and closer to home.

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