A ‘powerful’ return: Princess Kate delivers first speech since cancer diagnosis

The Princess of Wales, she has attended an early childhood investment summit in London. Now she addressed more than 80 business leaders at the event in her first speech since she was diagnosed with cancer last year. As business leaders you will face a daily challenge at finding a balance between profitability and having a positive impact. But the two are not and should not be incompatible. At the Centre for Early Childhood we believe that we must do all we can to create conditions for love to flourish. That is how we invest in our future. So Andrew her address is part of her initiative to encourage society to put the needs of children first. Oh absolutely and this was as you say her first speech since her March 2024 cancer diagnosis and she sets out into central London the epitome of style and sophistication and her words resonated with people. She's pushing businesses to recognise the needs of parents and caregivers of children, really really important, especially those under five for children. She highlights how investing in early childhood benefits both families and society as a whole. Her words are wonderful, I'll just repeat them. My passion and the work of the Centre for Early Childhood stems from one essential truth that the love we feel in our earliest years fundamentally shapes who we become and how we thrive as adults. And I've spoken many times on your brilliant programme about how they're doing that with their own children, how Prince William and Princess Catherine, as we permanently call her now, basically they talk about the family as the central thing and having a strong family unit with lots of love is going to help those children flourish. So having those big leaders, that wonderful powerful speech made a lot of sense on that sort of basis. Now let's talk about Princess Anne. She's also described as such a hard-working royal, often described as the hardest working royal I should say, and she's been on tour and she's also been described as the antidote to Andrew and knows how to face a storm, Andrew. Well absolutely, we've had a lot of this long terrain over us, the storm over Prince Andrew. Well she had to suffer the storms of outrageous fortune in Singapore but she was glorious, she said she doesn't get rained off and she's one of the most resilient of the royals. She is, as everyone says, the hardest working royal. She was down in Singapore, she visited places like the National Orchid Garden where lots of umbrellas were on display, scrambled to protect that hairdo which obviously hasn't moved in decades, so it looked really really well. But they said, she's very famous for saying look there's no such thing as bad weather, only unsuitable clothing and she's never gonna be blown off course. She's there, she looks magnificent as always and it was a masterclass in royal resilience. What she was, she was there honouring 60 years of UK ties in Singapore following the independence from Malaysia. As I say, she looked at these wonderful orchids, she toured warships, she did some tours of warships and also charming various locals and things like that as well. It was wonderful to prove how unflappable she is and the ultimate antidote to the former prince known as Air Miles Andy. Now let's talk about Fergie, if we can call her that, and we know that despite all the scandals and scams, she's always managed to bounce back and there are reports that say here we go again, barely a fortnight after being kicked out of the royal family, the former Duchess of York is trumpeting plans to restore her battered reputation. Andrew, what more can you tell us about this? Well, the Duchess of Devious Deals, poor old Fergie, she's permanently reinventing herself, isn't she, and she got into all sorts of trouble. She's got this scandal-soaked saga from steamy affairs and toe-sucking shame which we've spoken about. She got very mixed up obviously with Jeffrey Epstein and more and more emails have been revealed about her relationship with him saying, look, he was a wonderful friend and how he basically lent her lots of money when she was troubled. We also had pictures of her, as they say, toe-sucking and she got involved with a scam where a particular newspaper offered £500,000 for access to Prince Andrew. So she's doing all of this and so on and so forth and what's happening? Basically, she wants to reinvent herself now apparently as a global empowerment leader. Look at those wonderful buzzwords there. They're talking that she may relocate to Portugal where she's going to write books on confidence and resilience. Well, she's certainly got a lot of resilience and she might also go on lecture tours and speak at women's leadership and wellness events, which would be very interesting. But the press have not been very kind to her. They call her greedy, grabby and grubby is what they've said. That's the verdict on them and they say she'll take everything then bite your hand off just to get the rings as well and that's what they've said. But the suggestion is this was this sort of uncertain future. She may go to Portugal to relocate where Eugenie lives at the moment, who's 35. She's got a husband down there, Jack Brooksbank and they're said to have prepared a grand suite in their oceanfront villa at Costa Terra Gold at Ocean Club for Fergie so she could well settle down and get away from this reputational quicksand. Okay, look let's talk about Queen Elizabeth's treasured corgis. There are reports that King Charles is gearing up to reclaim Queen Elizabeth's corgis from Andrew Mountbatten, Windsor and Sarah Ferguson amid claims that the disgraced Yorks could no longer provide a safe home for the pooches. We know how much the Queen loved her corgis. So what can you tell us about the King now reportedly planning on taking them from Andrew Mountbatten, Windsor? We spoke about this last time as well, Muick and Sandian. There was even a little book which has been published by a fellow company in the News Corp Corporation as well. Where's Muick? The last of the Queen's corgis and it was Princess Beatrice, 37, and Princess Eugenie, 35, who bought the two pups for the Queen basically to distract her, provide some comfort when she lost Prince Philip in 2021. What happened is when Andrew was booted out of Royal Lodge, they sort of turned around and said well what's going to happen to Muick and Sandy? And there was a statement on basically on October the 31st basically saying from Buckingham Palace saying that they will remain with the family. Well remain with the family doesn't necessarily mean Sarah and Andrew as I pointed out at the time. They didn't clarify which family members. So there's a bit of a concern. They want to keep these wonderful pooches, these pampered pooches within the realms of Windsor Castle so they can enjoy the walks. And also they have a magnificent diet, one which we would all love. Apparently what they get, and this was revealed as well fairly recently and I spoke about this last time, they have a daily poached beef, chicken or rabbit, which is finely diced of course and is rotated monthly and it's served with rice and cabbage for digestion. They eat superbly but watch this space as to what's going to happen to those pampered pooches next. Very pampered indeed. Now Andrew, this is the moment you've been waiting for, our favourite Meghan Markle. And would you believe it, she's been slammed. She's been labelled as disconnected. Now this is in relation to her latest venture in Hollywood. Of course Meghan is due to release a Christmas special for her Netflix series on December 3 and we know Andrew that you are going to be doing that research for us. I do that for the sacrifices I make for you. Thank you. Look what can we expect? Well we can expect more Montecito madness from Meghan Markle. What's going to happen? We've got this Netflix fest with love as you know. She also has this ferocious flack with the media and everything that she does. They basically have lambast the whole thing. December the 3rd is what we can expect. This Christmas special will be dropping so we'll be glued to that. But it can't mask this chasm. That's what it is between the hype and Hollywood's harsh verdict. People just say she's so disconnected with pots of jam costing an absolute fortune. And it's not even jam, it's scam jam because it doesn't have the right sort of balance. That's what they call it. And the candles must cost an absolute fortune. You have to sell your left leg to get it. So all of that sort of nightmare. And of course let's not forget those edible flowers. Everything's got those edible flowers. Oh how can we forget? If you look very carefully everywhere she goes but she couldn't find a poppy for Remembrance Day. That was the scandal last week but edible flowers are there. That's what they're saying. Look there's a total disconnect from people who basically have their daily lives and even chopping up fruit in wonderful shapes and sizes for the children. As beautiful as it looks, what hard-working mother or father has got time to do that? This is what they're saying. She is basically confessions of a female founder or rather a female flounder who can work on that basis. But this is what's that disconnect. She needs to build that bridge. Mimi Mimi Megan. I mean that is a new name and that is one that I think suits her indeed. Look finally King Charles is celebrating a birthday. He made a visit to wet and windy South Wales for his 77th birthday Andrew. What more can you tell us about the trip? Well I can tell you there's a storm over Andrew but he didn't avoid the storms. It was wet and windy Wales for his 77th birthday. He was presented with a wonderful cake in the shape of a castle and we saw a picture of him in a sort of beige outfit with a shepherd's crook and things like that. He's been wonderful. Long to rain over us. I say it's stormy weather all around. Very hardy-esque the weather but he's weathered that storm incredibly well in spite of his cancer scares. It's just come on the back I told you of his 50th anniversary of his membership of the Magic Circle. We have 1,700 members around the world. He had to do an exam and he did the famous cups and balls in front of examiners and he passed with flying colors 50 years ago. So he celebrated that as well. Crown member of the Magic Circle as indeed am I. But his 77th birthday well done. It was great to see him. The crowds came out in force and he spoke to a number of people. He spoke to a TikTok influencer. I bet he knew what that was. And he spoke to he spoke to Ruth Jones of Gavin and Stacey fame and also other people as well. He's connecting. He's the connected king is what he wants to do. But 77 and it makes him actually he's the fifth oldest monarch to live to that sort of age. Obviously the king was I think she was about 90 odd when she did that. And basically he's up there 77 years of age and long may he rain over us. Andrew Ebourne, barrister, broadcaster, president of Octopus TV. Thank you so much for bringing us up to speed with all the royal news. It's always a delight. And don't forget, Princess Catherine will be back with us next week.