Queen and Charles start to ‘job-share’

Queen and Charles start to ‘job-share’

Merger of staff teams to begin this week

Kate Mansey, Jonathan Leake and Nicholas Hellen Published: 19 January 2014

The Queen will delegate to Charles but will remain in charge (Mark Cuthbert)

PRINCE CHARLES will accompany the Queen on the beaches of Normandy this summer to mark the 70th anniversary of the D-Day landings — as the monarchy moves towards what is in effect a job-share.

The joint trip on June 6 is the most high-profile example yet of Charles sharing official duties with his mother on the world stage.

The heir to the throne will stand in for the Queen at some of the day’s key engagements.

In another sign that Charles will be taking on more of the monarch’s work, royal aides are expected to announce this week the merger of his press office with that of the Queen. A single communications team, based in Buckingham Palace, will be overseen by one of Charles’s staff, a symbolic move that shows the heir to the throne is increasingly taking on his mother’s role.

Prince Philip refers to the royal family as “the