When King Charles III is crowned on Saturday, he will undergo a ritual so rare in modern British history that it last occurred 70 years ago, roughly the wait between sightings of Halley’s comet. And yet the coronation has yet to capture the imagination of a Britain preoccupied by other concerns.
Images of the new king — in chocolate, in Legos and in wax — are popping up in bakeries, toy stores and at Madame Tussauds wax museum. Ancient relics of coronation, like the Scottish stone of destiny, are being delivered to Westminster Abbey for the ceremony. Charles and his queen consort, Camilla, are rehearsing every step of the service in a specially staged room at Buckingham Palace.
But in a recent poll of 3,070 adults in Britain by the market research firm YouGov, 64 percent of respondents said they had little or no interest in the coronation. Only a third said they were strongly or fairly interested in it. Among those aged 18 to 24, the number voicing little or no interest rose to 75 percent. » | Mark Landler, Reporting from London | Sunday, April 30, 2023
