Give Victoria a break
The Local is not responsible for the content of blog comments.
‘It must be ghastly to be a royal’. Usually when people say this, they are either letting you know that they are dyed-in-the-wool royalists who admire the plucky devotion to duty of our beloved leaders, or they are convinced republicans who want to make sure you know that while they hate the hereditary system, they have nothing but warm feelings for its main protagonists.
This morning I found myself uttering the same words, when I saw this promotion in Aftonbladet for a television programme asking viewers to choose a boyfriend for the already-spoken-for Crown Princess Victoria:
http://www.aftonbladet.se/vss/klipptoppen/story/0,2789,1049658,00.html
While this must be a pain for Victoria, it must be even worse for her poor boyfriend, Daniel Westling. The couple have been together for five years, yet as far as the tittle-tattle mongerers in the press are concerned, Victoria should dump him in favour of some film star or Eurotrash royal.
Indeed, even when you speak to many ordinary Swedes, they’ll say in an uncharacteristically snobby way that Westlind isn’t ‘prince material’.
Surely the whole point with royals is that they are selected randomly, whether that be by birth or by marriage? Is it too much to ask in 2007 that Victoria be allowed to make up her own mind about who she wants to marry?
May 13th, 2007 at 12:09 am
Certainly Victoria or any other young woman, royalty or no, should be allowed to choose whom she should wed. After all she will be spending her life with this guy. He will not “belong to the people” and he will not belong to a “harum” of other ladies to whom he is married.
Rediculous idea is someone other than Vicky making her own “picky”.
June 6th, 2007 at 10:30 am
It is probably one of the simple facts of living the life of royalty; that royals are constantly the subject of gossip and such. Such, being the reality and an almost traditional manner for royals to be accustomed, it is not necessarily bad nor even harmful; if, when given the option, the media likes to have a little fun at speculating with whom Victoria should or should not be involved.
Nonetheless, when all of the fun and games of gossipy speculation are set aside, it is indeed of course a matter of personal choice for both Victoria and indeed Daniel Westling; if they are to wed each other.