Jacqueline Carter
Dame Jacqueline Carter | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Leader of the Opposition | |
| Assumed office 24 March 2024 | |
| Monarch | Alexandra |
| Deputy | Daisy Cooper |
| Prime Minister | Keir Starmer |
| Preceded by | Keir Starmer |
| Leader of the Liberal Democrats | |
| Assumed office 27 August 2020 | |
| President | Mark Pack |
| Deputy | Daisy Cooper |
| Preceded by | Tim Farron |
| 17th Director-General of the BBC | |
| In office 10 April 2018 – 8 May 2020 | |
| Preceded by | The Lord Hall of Birkenhead |
| Succeeded by | Tim Davie |
| Senior Independent Director of the BBC | |
| In office 26 March 2014 – 10 April 2018 | |
| Preceded by | Dillon Harvey |
| Succeeded by | Nicholas Serota |
| CEO of BBC News | |
| In office 5 September 2012 – 26 March 2014 | |
| Preceded by | Declan Phillips |
| Succeeded by | Deborah Turness |
| Member of the UK Parliament for St Albans | |
| Assumed office 7 May 2020 | |
| Preceded by | Anne Main |
| Majority | 34,839 (67.5%) |
| Personal details | |
| Born | Jacqueline Katharine Thomas Carter 22 June 1983 Los Angeles, California, United States |
| Citizenship | |
| Political party | Liberal Democrats |
| Spouse | Henry Cavill (m. 2015) |
| Children | |
| Parent(s) | King Thomas (father) Lynda Carter (mother) |
| Relatives | Sir William Carter (half-brother) Queen Alexandra (half-sister) Anne Hathaway (sister-in-law) Christy Turlington (stepmother) |
| Alma mater | Columbia University (B.M.C) University of Oxford (M.M.C) |
| Occupation |
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Dame Jacqueline Katharine Thomas Carter DBE DCWO DCH (born 22 June 1983) is a British journalist, author, and politician currently serving as Leader of the Liberal Democrats since 2020, Leader of the Opposition since 2024, and a Member of Parliament for St Albans since 2020. The youngest of two illegitimate children of King Thomas and the American actress Lynda Carter, Carter initially spent much of her early years in the United States under her mother's care before later moving abroad to the United Kingdom in 2001. In 2010, she graduated with a master's degree in mass communication from the University of Oxford. A member of the party's centre-left Social Liberal Forum, Carter has been a vocal proponent for the nationalisation and regulation of certain industries, minority rights, withdrawal of British military forces from the Middle East, and clean energy, particularly nuclear energy.
In 2002, Carter began her career as a presenter for BBC News at One, during which over the course of five years, she became one of the most watched hosts in the United Kingdom. In 2007, Carter was chosen as the inaugural main presenter for BBC World News America, covering major American events including the inauguration of President Hillary Clinton, the Great Recession, and the Deepwater Horizon explosion. In addition, she has also presented documentaries on various topics including climate change, global poverty, and human rights abuses on Panorama, Daily Politics, and Newsnight, earning much acclaim and several accolades for her often in-depth analysis and pointed delivery style. Moreover, as the lead presenter on Today With Jacqueline Carter, Carter gained much acclaim for her interviews with various political figures including Prime Minister David Cameron, Chancellor Angela Merkel, and Bahraini cleric Ali Salman amidst the 2011 Bahraini Revolution. In September 2012, she was appointed CEO of BBC News before a promotion to Senior Independent Director followed in March 2014 and subsequently to Director-General of the BBC in April 2018, becoming the first woman to hold the post until her resignation in May 2020. Since departing the BBC, Carter has served as a part-time consultant and commentator for various British media outlets, namely The Guardian, The Times, and The Observer, often providing her own liberal and centrist insight. In addition, she is also the author of a number of bestselling books including The American and British Lives, The Future of British Media, and The Populist's Paradox. In 2023, Carter published Personally With Shimon, a biography based on a past undisclosed interview with the late Israeli politician Shimon Peres concerning the ongoing Israeli-Palestinian conflict and various other issues.
Following a distinguished career in the media industry, Carter, a member of the Liberal Democrats since 2014, made her switch to politics by contesting as a Liberal Democrat in the 2020 United Kingdom general election for the St Albans constituency, becoming its first Liberal Democrat MP. Following this, Carter stood as a candidate for the party leadership in light of the resignation of the incumbent leader Tim Farron where she subsequently defeated the deputy leader Ed Davey, becoming the first woman to lead the Liberal Democrats, currently in conjunction with Daisy Cooper, making it the first time that a British political party's leader and deputy leader are both women. In February 2024, she led a successful effort to oust and hand the Conservative Party their biggest defeat in history while also helping to lead a grand coalition between the Labour Party, Liberal Democrats, and the Hanoverian Union Party, during which she oversaw the party's biggest electoral victory since their formation, winning a record of 72 seats, thereby subsequently resulting in her being appointed Leader of the Opposition, the first woman to hold the office and the first in a century since H. H. Asquith of the Liberal Party, the predecessors of the Liberal Democrats.
In 2015, Carter married the British actor Henry Cavill, with whom she has two children. Through her father, Carter is the sister and half-sister respectively of former professional football player and manager Sir William Carter and the United Kingdom's Queen Alexandra, the country's current reigning monarch.
Early Life
Born on 22 June 1983, Jacqueline Carter was the second and youngest child of American actress Lynda Carter and Thomas, Prince of the Welsh, a member of the British royal family with whom her mother had eloped for several years long but never otherwise married. Being the couple's only daughter after her older brother William, Carter immediately became the subject of much love and devotion from her parents with her father particularly choosing to name her "Jacqueline" after First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy whom he deeply admired. Meanwhile, the choice of "Katharine" as the first of her two middle names is said to have been due to her father's own close relationship with the famous American actress Katharine Hepburn, whose physical characteristics Carter would later come to mimic as she grew up, namely her distinctive high cheekbones. To that end, Carter herself has occasionally spoken about her apparent physical similarities to the famous American actress, noting that as her father was a close friend of Hepburn, whom he even considered a "second mother", the two would at times joke about whether Jacqueline is really the daughter of her mother, fellow actress Lynda Carter, or Katharine Hepburn, given that she resembles Hepburn more than she does her mother.
Like her brother, despite growing up in relative seclusion and away from the public eye, Carter nonetheless enjoyed a mostly happy childhood as she aged with her father said to have considerably "spoiled" an infant Carter. In this, from at least the age of five, Carter's academic and journalistic tendencies quickly became apparent to her parents who, in turn, often bought their young daughter books for the latter to read and indulge herself with. In a later interview, her mother Lynda Carter remarked, "While she wasn't very different from girls around her age who like to play dress up, dolls, and stuff, the one, absolute thing that Jackie loved was reading fairly long and colourful storybooks, sometimes to almost no end. For the first few years, it was mostly books with lots of pictures and graphics but once she started becoming a teenager, books with fewer pictures but more words started becoming her favourite". In the meantime, despite her "bookish" character, Carter was said to have exhibited some "wild" and "adventurous" tendencies which included a lifelong fascination with motorcycles owing to her own father being an avid motorcyclist himself. To that end, in a later interview, Carter admitted that while she was initially scared about accidentally falling off the motorcycle, particularly at high speeds, and thereby injuring herself, her father's enduring patience, coupled with a gradual build-up in her own confidence and self-esteem, saw her ultimately embrace the risks of riding a motorcycle with her eighteenth birthday seeing her being gifted an expensive black Ducati motorcycle which she continues to occasionally ride to the present day for leisurely purposes.
Sometime around 1993, the apparent inevitability of the couple never getting married in reality, coupled with the need to preserve the British monarchy, saw Thomas make the difficult decision to leave his longtime partner and their two children in search for a new one which he later did with the American supermodel Christy Turlington. In this, Carter, who was around eleven years old at the time, later described the moment as "the most difficult moment of my childhood" given the sudden departure of her doting father but added that as her mother subsequently married the American lawyer and video game executive Robert A. Altman, she gradually came to terms with the latter's decision, stating, "If I were to be honest, early on, a part of me felt absolutely betrayed that my beloved father would just leave me and his family like that especially when we probably needed him around so dearly. However, even as he left us, my father promised to me and my brother William that he would be seeing us at least once a month and that he would never miss our birthdays or graduations from school". In the meantime, Carter also developed a fairly warm but not as intense filial affection towards her stepfather, with whom her mother went on to have two more children, namely a son James and a daughter Jessica in 1994 and 1996 respectively.
Described by her teachers as a "brilliant", "creative", and "hardworking" student, after initially attending fairly unassuming elementary schools and high schools in her native California, a consistently excellent academic track record, coupled with her father's relocation across the country to New York, saw Carter opting to further her studies at the prestigious Columbia University in New York City where she majored in communication studies. In recounting her university years, Carter revealed that, aside from maintaining a small group of like-minded friends, she largely lived alone and, in turn, often made up for her perceived "loneliness" by occasionally visiting her father who, together with his wife and their daughter, was also living in New York. Meanwhile, despite her seemingly reclusive nature, Carter's university peers have mostly described her as "very cooperative", "unassuming", and even a "workaholic". George Erik Rupp, who served as Columbia University's president throughout much of the 1990s, similarly said that despite her well-known status as the daughter of a famous actress, a fact that made her some sort of a little celebrity among her fellow peers, Carter generally displayed a "down-to-earth" and "unassuming" character throughout much of her time there, stating, "To some extent, one could probably feel as if she wasn't either really bothered or didn't really liked being known as the daughter of some famous actress because, in the end, much of the news about her is how she is always the top of her class and how she generally bonds well with her friends and professors rather than what food she is eating or what car she is driving, news that you often find when it comes to popular celebrities and the sort".
Media Career
Upon graduating from Columbia University, Carter, who longed on reuniting with her father once and for all, moved to the United Kingdom where, after opting not to pursue her master's degree at Columbia University, she instead chose to do so at the equally prestigious University of Oxford in London, England. Then, upon achieving her master's degree, Carter subsequently found work at the British public service broadcaster BBC where she started as a host for the company's afternoon news programme BBC News at One. In this, Carter's physical beauty, coupled with her eloquent presenting style, quickly raised her profile among British media circles which, in turn, began drawing comparisons between Carter and the famous British-Iranian journalist Christiane Amanpour, a comparison that Carter later described as "personally flattering" while admitting that she mostly looked up to the famous American journalist Barbara Walters whom she mainly credited for her entry into journalism, stating, "Before Barbara came along, I don't think there's anyone comparable to her in the media as in a very well-known woman working in the media industry and, given her profession, is widely trusted by a lot of people watching the news".
In 2010, owing to her ever-increasing ratings, Carter was later given her own self-titled show Today With Jacqueline Carter. As its main and titular host, Carter gained further acclaim for interviews featuring British Prime Minister David Cameron, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, US President Hillary Clinton, American pop star Michael Jackson, and various other famous figures which also included her own father, whose paternity was then not yet publicly disclosed, during which she discussed with the British monarch several topics including the Great Recession, the future of the British monarchy, and gay marriage. Following this, in September 2012, Carter was appointed CEO of BBC News, a position that she held for roughly two years long before a further promotion to Senior Independent Director in August 2014 further increased her fame and popularity among Britons. Then, amidst the rise of right-wing populism across Europe and the prevailing debate about the United Kingdom's continued membership in the European Union, Carter went on to firmly establish herself as among the United Kingdom's leading journalists through widely-acclaimed interviews with major figures of both the Leave and Remain campaign including the likes of Nigel Farage, Michael Gove, Boris Johnson, David Cameron, Karren Brady, and Jude Kelly.
In 2018, after four years as Senior Independent Director, Carter was eventually made the BBC's first-ever female director-general, a role that she held for the next two years. During this period, owing to her inherent status as the first woman to become the BBC's chief executive, Carter focused extensively on addressing lingering gender-related workplace issues while also devoting much time towards maintaining the BBC's longstanding reputation for impartiality, a vision expressed by Carter early on in her inaugural speech in which she remarked, "As the first American to become director-general of the BBC, I hold much praise for the network's longstanding and unflinching commitment to impartiality regarding its media coverage, a phenomenon that I did not otherwise grew up with during my early years in the United States where intense politicisation and political mudslinging between media outlets seems to be the norm if not the prevailing culture. Thus, as someone with firsthand experience of actual media polarisation, I vow that my term as director-general, no matter how long it may last, will firmly ensure that the BBC continues to shine as a beacon of media excellence and an example for others to follow".
Political Career
Liberal Democrats Leader (2020 - present)
While still serving as the BBC's director-general, ahead of the 2020 United Kingdom general election, Carter, a member of the Liberal Democrats, announced her decision to stand down from her current post in favour of contesting in the general election as a member of her political party. To that end, Carter was subsequently fielded as a Liberal Democrats candidate for the constituency of St Albans, a seat held by the Conservative incumbent Anne Main since 2005. Soon enough, despite a generally positive nationwide performance from the ruling Conservative Party under Prime Minister Theresa May, Carter, in spite of a poor overall showing from the Liberal Democrats, successfully unseated Main to become the constituency's first Liberal Democrat MP after securing 50.4% of the overall vote, higher than any of those recorded by Main during her fifteen-year term.
Emboldened by her strong individual performance in the polls, the subsequent resignation of incumbent Liberal Democrats leader Tim Farron in light of his party's poor electoral performance saw Carter declare her decision to contest for the role of party leader as a representative of the party's centre-left Social Liberal Forum with Carter particularly positioning herself as a response to the "failed and disastrous leaderships" of Nick Clegg, who infamously abandoned the party's pledge regarding tuition fees, and Clegg's successor Tim Farron, whose time as leader was heavily panned by Carter and framed as "having undone all the hard work achieved under the late Charles Kennedy". To that end, Carter was only challenged by the party's incumbent deputy leader Ed Davey for the party leadership but, with 66% of the vote in the first round, ultimately prevailed to become the party's first female leader since its establishment in 1988. Then, with the subsequent election of Daisy Cooper, currently the MP for Richmond Park, as deputy leader, the Liberal Democrats thus became the first major British political party to have a woman as both its leader and deputy leader, a landmark moment hailed as "historic" by various media outlets including The Guardian, The Independent, and BBC News as she became the party's first female leader and also the first member of the British royal family to be involved in national politics even if she is not legally a princess in practice due to the circumstances of her birth. In addition, being only two years apart in age, the two, who are both currently in their early forties, have also been noted for their relative youth and thus their collective ability to inject a sense of youthful enthusiasm among the party faithful.
As party leader, in line with her socially liberal views, Carter expressed vocal support for the Black Lives Matter movement in the United Kingdom, describing it as a "morally upright movement of reckoning" while simultaneously criticising isolated acts of vandalism, particularly those targeting statues of public figures, stating, "Without a doubt, no historical figure, regardless of his or her achievements, is completely free from scrutiny by later generations. However, as a mature society, simply toppling the statues of said leaders, particularly those very important to national history, should not necessarily be the norm as healthy and peaceful discussions surrounding their legacies are allowed and should be duly encouraged". Otherwise, on the international stage, following Russia's invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, Carter was quick to criticise Russian President Vladimir Putin, describing the latter as "Europe's most notorious warmonger since Adolf Hitler" and likening the Russian president's action to that of Hitler's 1939 invasion of Poland that led to the Second World War. Moreover, Carter has also vocally criticised China for their heavy-handed response to popular protests in Hong Kong and, in turn, supported a ban on the Chinese company Huawei, citing "likely security risks".
Leader of the Opposition (2024 - present)
On 20 February 2024, shortly after the ruling Conservative Party suffered two major by-election losses that further reduced their share of seats in the House of Commons, Carter publicly spearheaded a motion of no confidence under the premise of new elections and the Conservatives' dwindling popularity. With the defection of their vital coalition partner, the Hanoverian Union Party, Carter, who did so in conjunction with the Labour Party leader Keir Starmer, proved successful in ousting the Conservatives from power under Theresa May and thus ending their fourteen years long stint in power since 2010. Following this, amidst expectations of a slim but guaranteed Labour victory, BBC News reported that Carter, Starmer, and Ungerer, leaders of the Liberal Democrats, Labour Party, and the Hanoverian Union Party, had agreed in secret to form a temporary electoral pact to "completely demolish" the Conservative Party, a theory that soon gained credence with the subsequent entrance of controversial right-wing politician Nigel Farage's Reform UK party which threatened to split the right-wing base that traditionally propelled Conservative candidates to victory. Eventually, on 24 March 2024, while the Labour Party did go on to secure a majority of 472 seats, on their part, the Liberal Democrats, buoyed by several factors including Carter's considerable popularity as party leader, the overwhelming unpopularity of the Conservative Party, and the Reform UK insurgency, secured a record high of 72 seats, thereby making them the second-largest party in the House of Commons for the first time in history. In the meantime, following their historic election loss, incumbent Conservative leader Theresa May stepped down and was subsequently replaced by Priti Patel, the second woman and the first British Asian to lead the party.
Following this, with the Labour Party standing firmly as the new governing party and the Conservative Party, the party previously in power for fourteen years straight, reduced to fourth place in the House of Commons,the Liberal Democrats, by virtue of being the second largest political party, thereby became the official opposition. Eventually, on 24 March 2024, the same day that Keir Starmer was appointed prime minister, Carter was thus appointed Leader of the Opposition, becoming the first woman in British political history to hold the post and the first in roughly a century since H. H. Asquith of the defunct Liberal Party, the predecessor of the Liberal Democrats, to come from neither the Conservative nor the Labour parties. In her maiden interview as Leader of the Opposition afterwards, Carter revealed that she chose to become the official opposition leader rather than a potential deputy prime minister in a supermajority coalition government with the Labour Party due to her and the party's desire to "provide an effective opposition and a working system of checks and balances", stating, "With the numbers they currently have right now, the Labour Party would surely have no difficulties in passing their agendas with relative ease. Regardless, whichever policies they passed, be it good or bad ones, must be appropriately debated and scrutinised firsthand, in line with the concept of democracy, a duty that we, the Liberal Democrats, believe ourselves to be better at executing rather than the dysfunctional and weakened Conservatives". In the meantime, most have speculated that Carter's decision in ruling out a coalition with the Labour Party was to largely avoid the errors of Nick Clegg, the previous Liberal Democrats leader from 2010 to 2015, whose leadership saw the party's share of seats in the House of Commons drop drastically from 57 to 8 due to their general unpopularity as the junior coalition partner of the Conservative Party. Consequently, by instead becoming the official opposition, it was speculated that any subsequent misgivings by the Labour Party could be exploited by the Liberal Democrats with the aim of increasing their share of seats at the next general election while offering their criticism against the government from a more left-wing perspective.
Personal Life
Much like her older brother, despite being born as the daughter of a monarch, she was never included in the line of succession owing to the fact that she had been born out of wedlock, thereby immediately disqualifying her from ever succeeding to the throne. Having been born on June 22nd, Carter notably shares the same birthday with singer Cyndi Lauper, actress Meryl Streep, and the late Dianne Feinstein, a former longtime senator for California. Meanwhile, she also shares the same birth year with her husband Henry Cavill as well as other actors including Chris Hemsworth, Adam Driver, Mila Kunis, and Rebecca Ferguson.
A dual American-British citizen, Carter currently resides in the United Kingdom with her family members but has also spent some time away back in her native California. In this, much like her brother, Carter herself gradually adopted a more "British-sounding" accent which helped her swiftly blend in with her coworkers at the London-based British Broadcasting Corporation. During a 2023 interview with the BBC, Carter revealed that her given name "Jacqueline" was directly taken from First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy, wife of US President John F. Kennedy and whom her father largely admired and thus chose to name his firstborn daughter after.
In September 2015, Carter married the British actor Henry Cavill, with whom she had two children Thomas and Elizabeth. The couple was wedded at Westminster Abbey in an intimate ceremony following a two-year-long relationship that began after Carter met Cavill at the premiere of Man of Steel in which Cavill played the titular character of Superman. Born only a month apart, the two later began a discreet relationship that was eventually publicised for the first time when the couple appeared together at the premiere of the 2015 spy film The Man from U.N.C.L.E.. Later, on 10 September 2015, the couple was wedded at Westminster Abbey in the presence of their respective families along with several of their close friends in attendance including fellow actors and actresses Daniel Craig, Christian Bale, Idris Elba, Amy Adams, Hayley Atwell, and Alicia Vikander. As a result of their marriage, Cavill became the brother-in-law of the famous former professional footballer Sir William Carter and, in turn, the co-brother-in-law of the American actress Anne Hathaway, her brother's wife.
In addition to her media and political careers, Carter has also enjoyed some success as an author, having so far published several best-selling books including My Life: From California to London, The Future of British Media, and The Populist's Paradox. On 2 August 2023, Carter published Personally With Shimon, a tell-all biography based on an undisclosed interview that she had with the late Israeli politician Shimon Peres, whom she affectionately referred to as "Uncle Shimon", who served as Israel's prime minister from 1984 to 1986 and again from 1995 to 1996 before later serving as president from 2007 to 2014. Having specifically dedicated the book to what would have been Peres's 100th birthday, Carter explained that she was initially motivated to do the interview, which she revealed was done sometime in 2006, after discovering that Peres, aside from his career in Israeli politics, was a cousin of her paternal grandmother Queen Lauren. Moreover, Carter further added that the death of Rabin from assassination in 1995 left Peres as the only surviving major Israeli figure behind the Oslo Accords which, combined with the latter's familial relations, inspired Carter to seek a personal take on the issue from the man himself before the elderly Peres eventually passed away, which he ultimately did in September 2016, almost a decade after the interview took place. Later on, in recounting the historic interview, Carter described it as an "extremely unforgettable" and "once-in-a-lifetime" moment, stating, "There were some profound things said to me by Uncle Shimon during the interview that the public will probably never hear or know about themselves in a thousand years. Thus, it is the sheer rarity and exclusivity of those words that he willingly divulged to me is the main reason why I will always treasure the very interview that I did with him because, despite much of the nervousness and anxiety about meeting someone as famous and distinguished such as Uncle Shimon, I ultimately learned and knew a lot of things that I wouldn't have had I instead not done the interview at all".
Political positions
A member of the Liberal Democrats' centre-left Social Liberal Forum, Carter is generally associated with socially liberal and economically progressive policies. To that end, her relative youth, coupled with her "steely" and "unflinching" persona, has quickly led some media outlets to dub her the United Kingdom's "Iron Lady", a nickname that was first given to Carter for her role in unseating the Conservative government after fourteen years in power, along with her subsequent appointment as the first female opposition leader, a historic milestone that followed Theresa May of the Conservative Party being appointed the first female prime minister in 2018. In their post-election coverage, The Guardian described Carter as a "cunning and shrewd political strategist", noting how despite having formed a temporary electoral pact with the Labour Party to deal the Conservative Party their biggest defeat in history, thereby increasing the party's overall share of seats more than initially projected while also losing none of their incumbents in the process, Carter, aware of the mistakes of her predecessor Nick Clegg, chose not to follow up on it with a formal coalition but instead opted to become the formal opposition, becoming the first non-Conservative/Labour opposition leader in almost a century since H. H. Asquith.
In a 2020 interview with BBC News, Sir William Carter, a former professional footballer and Jacqueline's older brother, described his younger sister as "someone who, on the surface, appears to be rather timid, unassuming, and, to some, rather submissive but, in actuality, is a very assertive, driven, and hardworking person", adding that underneath her "innocent" exterior, Carter could otherwise be a completely different character when necessary, an assertion that was even supported by Prime Minister Keir Starmer in a separate interview, in which the Labour leader described Carter as "someone who rarely compromises on her beliefs and goals and, even when forced to compromise, would always try to ensure that she does not lose much ground during negotiations with the other side". Later on, the duo went on to form a temporary electoral pact that successfully dealt the Conservative Party their biggest defeat in history as they were reduced from 363 to 41 seats, the first time the party ever dropped down to double digits since it contested in the first general election in 1835.
Domestic Issues
During her run for the Liberal Democrats leadership, Carter positioned herself as a vocal critic of neoliberalism, an ideology that she blamed for the worldwide Great Recession that took place during the late 2000s, a phenomenon she attributed to the "severe deregulation of the markets by free market ideologues". Otherwise, Carter has expressed her support for "active but reasonable" government intervention in the economy in order to elevate living standards and boost the economy and is also a vocal supporter of progressive taxation, stating, "Of course, every single law-abiding citizen must pay their taxes to the government in exchange for the right to live in the country. However, the issue that often arises is how much the poor and the rich should pay in which case one side would normally argue that the other is not paying their relative fair share, to which the obvious solution would be that as one's income gradually rises, so would be the amount that they are taxed for. It is only fair and reasonable enough that if you have more money to spend, then you would have more money to pay to the government".
A firm social liberal, prior to entering politics, Carter had publicly heralded the passing of the Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Act 2013 which introduced same-sex marriage in England and Wales. In addition to this, Carter, much like her mother, has also publicly supported the transgender community, stating, "It should be the most reasonable belief that as long as one's actions do not directly or indirectly harm anyone else, it should not necessarily be a matter of public alarm or even an ammunition for a useless culture war". Meanwhile, as a woman herself, Carter has also publicly criticised what she described as the "online misogynist phenomenon" and its leading figure, namely the controversial British kickboxer and social media personality Andrew Tate who is currently detained in Romania on charges of sex trafficking. In this, Carter once publicly criticised Tate's "warped" and "twisted" version of masculinity, stating, "As someone who kicked butts in films like James Bond while also serving in the Royal Navy, my father is undoubtedly a somewhat masculine man but, unlike the type of masculine men heralded by these online misogynists, my father was never aggressive with me or saw his own daughter as some lowly object like these people would. Instead, my father was, by all accounts, the most loving man I ever had in my life and is also who, if I were to ever come near, would make me feel safe and comfy rather than terrified for my life for no reason".
As a member of the British royal family, Carter, thereby a self-described monarchist, is a vocal supporter of retaining the British monarchy, describing it as the "one-half of the British parliamentary tradition that has weathered through countless events in history that occasionally threaten its existence and survival". Meanwhile, regarding the House of Lords, Carter declared in an interview with BBC News that she is firmly against the abolition of the upper house, arguing that the Tilgner Report, the precursor to the House of Lords Reform Act 1980, had been sufficient in its goal of reforming the House of Lords while ensuring its relative impartiality, a quality that she argued would be lost if the House of Lords was made an elected chamber rather than an appointed one as it currently is.
A unionist, Carter opposes independence for the United Kingdom's constituent countries, stating, "The United Kingdom is the major power that it is today because of the contribution from all five of her constituent nations. Without even one of these five nations, Britain might not perhaps be as powerful as it is today and at the same time, neither of these nations including England could realistically stand on its own without requiring the necessary support from the others". At the same time, Carter is known to be largely supportive of devolution, considering it an acceptable middle-ground solution between total independence and direct rule from London for the constituent countries.
Foreign Issues
On the international stage, Carter is a vocal supporter of multinational institutions such as the United Nations, European Union, World Trade Organization, and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. In 2016, amidst a nationwide debate over the United Kingdom's continued membership in the European Union, Carter publicly expressed support for the country remaining in the European Union, stating, "The major issues brought by those wanting the country to leave the European Union are either nationalistic fiction or simply blown out of proportion for their own agenda. Ultimately, separating ourselves economically from the very continent that we have inhabited for thousands of years is downright ridiculous if not comically idiotic". Despite this, Carter is against any sort of further formal integration within the European Union, arguing that member states should retain some levels of national sovereignty while ultimately working in tandem towards a common goal. During the 2016 referendum concerning the United Kingdom's membership in the European Union, Carter disclosed herself as having voted for "Remain", stating, "To essentially lock ourselves out of an organisation located right on our doorsteps is one of the most foolhardy things ever and it is a step that the United Kingdom should avoid at all cost".
In regards to the Middle East, Carter has generally expressed a preference for "treaties" over "armed conflicts" in solving the region's issues, namely the ongoing "cold war" between Saudi Arabia and Iran. In this, citing the assassination of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and the country's continued role in its armed intervention in Yemen against Houthi militias, Carter publicly called for a "gradual and irreversible" reduction in military ties with the Saudi government, stating, "Aside from the hundreds and thousands of civilians dying each day, Western military assistance, even in terms of geopolitics, has not contributed to any meaningful success at all concerning Saudi Arabia's ongoing conflict with Iran". In addition, Carter has also argued that Iran, which overthrew its theocratic regime during the Green Revolution in favour of a democratic, secular constitutional monarchy headed by the restored Pahlavi dynasty, is a far more compatible Western ally as opposed to Saudi Arabia, a conservative absolute monarchy, stating, "With the right leadership at the helm, Iran could well do anything that Saudi Arabia has done in terms of stabilising the Middle East with the help of foreign powers at hand. Ultimately, one country is a free and secular democracy while the other is an authoritarian and repressive absolute monarchy in which elections are unheard of while women are only allowed to drive as recently as 2018".
A supporter of the two-state solution concerning Israel and Palestine, Carter is known for her somewhat moderate-to-liberal stance on the issue with the general aim of preserving the nationhood of both Israel and Palestine. In this, following the October 7th attack by the Palestinian militant group Hamas against Israeli civilians, Carter declared her support for Israel's right to response to the attack while stressing that it must be done in a measured manner. Then, amidst subsequent controversy over Israel's conduct in the Gaza Strip, Carter gradually began backing calls for a ceasefire while also expressing criticism at Israel's inability to completely eliminate the Hamas figures deemed responsible for the attack. In the meantime, Carter also expressed support for the arrest warrants issued by the International Criminal Court against both Israeli and Palestinians leaders including Benjamin Netanyahu, Yoav Gallant, Ismail Haniyeh, Yahya Sinwar, and Mohammed Deif, calling it a "fair and measured response" and adding that "no particular ethnicity, be it Jewish or Arab, should be treated as a shield against any strictly fair and legitimate criticism". Later, following the decision by the governments of Spain and Norway to officially recognise Palestinian statehood, Carter subsequently called for Prime Minister Keir Starmer to follow suit, adding that any recognition of Palestinian statehood would strictly recognise the Fatah-led government in the West Bank rather than the Hamas-led government in the Gaza Strip. In a subsequent speech explaining her decision, Carter remarked, "Contrary to the belief popularly held by some people, our decision, whenever it may come, is not a reward for terrorism conducted by armed groups but rather a meaningful step in potentially bringing an everlasting conflict that has lasted for decades to a peaceful end". In July 2024, following the assassination of Hamas leader and lead negotiator Ismail Haniyeh in Iran, Carter remarked, "While the people who are against all forms of terrorism would certainly not be mourning the death of Haniyeh, such an action itself is undoubtedly a very aggressive one and should not be used somewhat liberally so that any peace efforts could bear fruit at last". Later, just two months afterwards, Carter echoed the same sentiment when it was confirmed that an Israeli air raid on Beirut, Lebanon had killed Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah and several high-ranking officials of the militant group. Similarly, on October 16th, Carter once more expressed caution against further escalation following the assassination of Yahya Sinwar, stating, "With the masterminds behind the heinous October 7th attacks now largely dead, there should be a greater emphasis on settling things at the negotiating table rather than prolonging this bloody conflict for years on end".
A proponent of nuclear energy, Carter had vocally called for the adoption of alternative sources of energy by Western countries with the main aim of completely eliminating their dependence on oil from otherwise hostile or malicious traditional suppliers such as Russia and Saudi Arabia. To that end, shortly after reports emerged that OPEC was slowing down oil production amidst an ongoing cost of living crisis, thereby likely resulting in increased oil prices, Carter controversially branded the organisation an "enemy of the common people and of Western values of freedom and democracy", a heavy-handed remark that promptly drew criticism from the governments of Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, and Russia, among others. In response, Carter defended her remarks during a subsequent BBC interview, stating, "By simply looking at a map, one could easily decipher that the majority of OPEC members are neither Western nor are they generally aligned with Western liberal values. The inevitable fact that they somehow control a considerable amount of oil production in an otherwise free and borderless world is not only concerning but something that should be fought against by any reasonable means". In this, Carter has publicly criticised the Scottish National Party's opposition against nuclear energy, a stance she claimed is rooted in "Chernobyl and Fukushima paranoia deliberately manufactured and exaggerated in order to prolong countries' reliance on oil and fossil fuels, thereby delaying the transition to alternative energy as no feasible alternative to nuclear energy is even brought up along with their complaints".