Talk:Diamond Jubilee State Coach

A fact from Diamond Jubilee State Coach appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the Did you know column on 2 September 2008, and was viewed approximately 5,706 times (disclaimer) (check views). The text of the entry was as follows:

Did you know... that coach builder Jim Frecklington had to mortgage his house to pay for the estimated £620,000 building costs of the State Coach Britannia?

A record of the entry may be seen at Wikipedia:Recent additions/2008/September.

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Change name of article?[edit]

Everyone seems to be referring to it as the 'Diamond Jubilee State Coach' so I was wondering if we should change the title of the article in question? Of course, it might be worth waiting to see what the Royal Mews officially name it as. --Charlie Huang 【遯卋山人】 08:20, 4 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Slanted writing[edit]

Before that point, Buckingham Palace was claiming that Frecklington had completed the coach of his own initiative and that it was not an official royal coach, although Frecklington stated that the coach was endorsed (but not commissioned) by Buckingham Palace. However, the coach was subsequently purchased by the Royal Collection Trust for an undisclosed sum and is now part of the Royal Collection and can be officially put to use.[4]

This appears to have been worded in order to give the worst possible impression of "the Palace"'s role in this matter.

"Before this point Buckingham Palaces was claiming that...." suggests dishonesty on behalf of "the Palace". The correct way to put this is to use the neutral word "stated" or "made a statement" rather than "was claiming". .
"although Frecklington stated that the coach was endorsed...." implies a conflict between Frecklington and the Palace. In fact there never was any suggestion that "the Palace" was going to fund the cost of the coach.

The bias in the way that this sentence is constructed is not supported by any of the references.

The most significant issue is the change of Government in Australia from the Howard Government which was pro-monarchy to the Gillard Government which was not. Although Julia Gillard was prepared to represent Australia at functions such as the wedding of the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge, she did not organise any official gift from the Commonwealth of Australia to celebrate the Queen's Diamond Jubilee. It was suggested at the time that this coach was the ideal gift. It didn't happen.

With regards to the purchase by the Royal Collections Trust, this was financed, at least in part and possibly wholly, by an anonymous private donation. This fact was revealed in some publication at the time; I will try to find the reference.

Amandajm (talk) 18:36, 29 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Electric lights?[edit]

It has hydraulic stabilizers and air conditioning and electric windows; are those electric lights at the corners? J S Ayer (talk) 05:12, 13 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]