Joe Bartlett & Rory O'Neill

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Episode Transcript

(00:01):
The Saturday Morning Show continues on sevento ten wore. Here's Joe Bartlet.
Good morning everyone, Welcome to theJoe Bartlett Saturday Show. Got some stiff
competition this morning. Normally there's notmuch going on at six o'clock in the
morning on Saturday, but this morningwe've got the coronation of King Charles over
in London. So my audience maybea little lighter today with people turning on

(00:26):
the TV. But anyway, let'stalk about it, because I don't know
how many people are really interested inthis. If you are, obviously you
watching television. So anyway, we'vegot NBC Radio National correspondent Rory O'Neil with
me this morning to talk about thecoronation. And you know, this is
not something you see every day,I suppose, right, No, it's

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something we haven't seen quite literally inseventy years. You know, it's the
longest gap between coronations in all ofBritish history. So this is something again
most people alive today have never seenhappen before. It's going to be the
first live streamed coronation, so it'sbringing in a whole different kind of audience

(01:07):
in the process. What is itlike I mean they go from where they
go from Buckingham Palace to Westminster Abbey. Is that how it works? Yeah,
So when you compare this to thecoronation seventy years ago, the parade
route for the coronation much much shorter. It is a trip from Buckingham Palace
in the State carriage. They goto Westminster Abbey the inside as the ceremonies

(01:29):
take place over about an hour almosttwo. Then when they leave, they
will leave in the gold carriage,which is a whole different carriage and a
more historic one than the state carriage, and then take a direct route back
to Buckingham Palace. In nineteen fiftythree, during Elizabeth's coronation, she took
that gold carriage on a six orseven mile tour through the streets of downtown

(01:51):
London, which was a long longtrip compared to this one. A couple
of controversies. Number one, Camillais going to be crowned queen and I
don't think there's unanimity on that.There's still this sort of love for Diana,
right, That is one of theissues. You know. I think
for most of the world, Ithink we shrug our shoulders and say,

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so what you know, she's beenQueen Consort up until now, but after
the ceremonies today she will be justQueen Camilla. And to your point,
you know a lot of people aren'tthat thrilled they wanted to keep that Queen
Consort title is sort of a nodalmost to Diana and what she meant to
the Royal family. So that isone of the turns. And you know,

(02:32):
we are seeing, you know,the different generations appreciate the Royal family
differently. A lot of people likedthe queen, loved the Queen, but
thought that, you know what,after the Queen's passing it was time to
maybe start to get rid of themonarchy or downsize. It's significantly. King
Charles has said he will start tolimit the size and scope of the Royal

(02:53):
family, but that's something that couldtake a long time to do. Well,
we've already limited because a member ofthe royal family has been jettisoned,
so to speak, and that's Harry. But he's back. I mean that
was self inflicted on his apartment,so he's back obviously for his father's coronation.
It would be very very bad formto not come. So is it

(03:16):
going to get awkward probably, andI know that the TV networks will make
the most of it. And youknow, where is Harry seated. I
think he's ten or twelve rows backcompared to where his brother is, and
how would that have changed? AndMeg and Marcole is supposed to be staying
back in the US to take careof their two young children. So it's
just Harry, and that's going tobe another factor. Of course, Harry's

(03:38):
had the book come out, He'shad the Netflix series where he pleads for
his privacy. Contradictory, it seems. But yeah, I mean he's been
a polar rising figure himself this pastyear, and of course now you know,
since the death of the queen andhis father ascending, it's it's been.
It's making things a bit more complicated. And President Biden will not attend.

(04:00):
But I understand that's not really asnub, No. I know some
people are whipping it up. Isaw Nigel Farage was trying to say,
I can't believe he's not coming.Even former President Trump thought it was a
slap in the face to not attend. But no US president has ever been
to the coronation of a British monarchand you know, when you think back

(04:20):
to US history, you know,we fought a revolution to get rid of
the monarchy. So that's sort ofthe symbolism there as to why the US
President doesn't attend, But he issending doctor Jill Biden, the first lady.
She's making the trip with a prettysubstantial delegation. I don't think there's
anything to worry about with the specialrelationship we maintain with the UK. You

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know, I think some of thelackluster enthusiasm for this event may have to
do with Charles. He's just nota likable person. Well, it's also
his age. You know, whenElizabeth became Queens, who was twenty five
years old, the UK, theworld old was just coming out of World
War Two, really, so itwas seen as a massive change in the

(05:04):
whole country's attitude. And now youcome to the coronation today, King Charles
is already seventy four years old,and they obviously this is going to be
a much shorter rain. And Ithink that's part of a two which is
why this has been downsized a bitstill one hundred and twenty five million dollars
cost by the BBC's guestimates here.But you know, you're only only going

(05:27):
to have about two thousand people insideWestminster Abbey. When Queen Elizabeth was coronated,
they were eight thousand. They builtso many extra seats in temporary staging
inside the abbey to fit eight thousandpeople in there. But today it's a
two thousand people. So it's ait's a very different kind of feel for
this coronation compared to the last one. Yeah, the feeling could be,
yeah, we're going to do thisagain a couple of years. Let's not

(05:49):
get too excited about this one.Yeah, that's that's not too far off
the market. But it is goingto be interesting see what kind of changes
there is to the monarchy, whetherCharles is going to do anything significant or
whether when when William takes over thatyou know, he kind of downsizes it

(06:12):
or doesn't make it what it's beenknown as. Right, And look,
this is also a religious service inthat, you know, this is when
the king officially becomes head of theChurch of England, so that's a big
part of this as well. Butagain, comparing it to seventy years ago,
Britain is much more diverse by farthan it was when Queen Elizabeth took

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the throne. There are many morereligions being practiced now in the country,
if not overwhelmingly just the Church ofEngland. The country is more diverse and
its populations with not everyone is Caucasian. There have been huge influxes from countries
around the world, in large partbecause they were countries that were once ruled

(06:57):
by Great Britain, and many ofthem now you have, again just a
much more diverse population in terms ofrace, religion. It's a very different
country than King Charles becomes King ofcompared to what his mom went through seventy
years ago. Good point. Thankyou, Rory. Appreciate the explanation this
morning. NBC Radio National correspondent RoryO'Neill take care, thanks Joe. That

(07:21):
was perfect, all right, good. I appreciate it.