The King’s Christmas speech: which Gospel?

Posted on December 29, 2025 
Filed under Opinion

“I missed the King’s speech this Christmas – after all, it was delivered at 2am in Australia! And then I read the reviews before I actually watched it on YouTube. Some commentators were ecstatic. Damian Thompson of the Spectator’s Holy Smoke podcast was one such: ‘The King’s speech was beyond reproach – a perfect balance between his Christian faith, emphasising the significance of meeting Pope Leo, and his warm relationship with other communities.’

Fraser Nelson called it ‘an important and even daring contribution to a vital debate’. In this article I want to interact with both the speech and Fraser’s article, which to my mind has been the most thoughtful and stimulating of all the responses.

Having commented on the previous two Kings Christmas messages in 2023 and in 2024, I wondered if this was third time lucky. Maybe the King after a year of facing illness had had time to reflect further on what Christ really taught? So, I listened and sadly it was the old moralist, therapeutic deism which came across. As regular as Wizzard’s ‘I wish it could be Christmas every day’, the King’s speech repeats the same narrative every year. …”

– Read all of David Robertson’s response to the King’s speech at The Wee Flea.

Photo: The King”s 2024 Christmas message.