As Rachel Reeves struggles to balance the books, the Royal Family should forgo a £46 million increase in their funding. AIBU?

This 💯

I agree but I think we're in the minority

I think it's disgraceful that the tax payer is expected to fund the Royal Family when they are disgustingly rich in their own right.

Prince Andrew is not doing anything that is not his right. He is a prince and he has a right to do who he wants. Some people criticise the Queen for lobbying for a job so he could accept bribes and sell out the UK government for his own ends, but he is a royal and is above the law, so are they all. We need to wordhip them not run them down. We need to destroy any foreign country that want a to denigrate our royals. God bless them all.

They are not a minority interest group though. They are the family of our Head of State. They present their firstborns to us as our next Head of State and expect to do so without question. They take public money, represent the UK and are afforded significant perks by people who are meant to be our elected representatives-people apparently acting on our behalf. Apathy or ignorance isn't really good enough. William will not do a thing to reform the amount of money they take, their excess or their favourable arrangements in relation to tax unless he is forced to do so by the public. Royalists will not do this. Its only people who are not in thrall to the Royals who will scrutinise and pressurise them into changing.

Yes they bloody well should.

@jumpingthehighjump

You will then often see the truth about how the Windsors are really viewed !
I remember threads from when Elizabeth died and they were eye opening . People see through the propaganda.

I think it was @CathyorClaire who said if the Windsors had had any style they’d have ended their grift with Elizabeth’s death.

@Ukisgaslit
I am pleased when a thread about anything connected to the Monarchy stays out in the open and not on the royal board, which is heavily populated by Royalists and Meghan and Harry dislikers.

You get a much more fair and interesting discussion

Absolutely!

I feel strongly that many aspects of ‘royal’ issues should be on all topics on mumsnet.
The Windsors’ corruption, associations with pedophiles ,their greed - these affect every aspect of our society- the extra 50 million the Windsors are taking from the budget, on top of their usual half a billion , being relevant here

I really wish that MN would force these threads into the Royal Family topic

And for those who say they submit accounts - they do but only after they themselves have decided what they’ll declare .

Polo pony costs claimed as a business expense anybody?

Mountbatten-Windsor

I agree

But I do hope that this isnt another instance of ‘distract from the king and the heir’.

ALL of them need a proper investigation .

Why the hell is the medieval bullshit of the Duchys being above tax law still allowed in 2025 ? Haven’t the Windsors amassed enough from us already ?

And for those who say they submit accounts - they do but only after they themselves have decided what they’ll declare . And William has stopped offering even the limited information that Charles did !

MPs on the public accounts committee asked for more information decades ago -and were ignored- in fact over 100 years ago MPs wanted the Duchy rip off stopped

They need to change the name from crown estate to national estate

Maybe that will help the hard of thinking who repeat the lie that the royals share their money with us- it’s the other way round . And always has been .

Who is MW?

She ensured that the finances of the RF took precedence. Let's put it that way

And again it’s not just Andrew who has a peppercorn rent . Edward too by the looks of it . Maybe others too. The whole rip off needs a thorough investigation.

Agree entirely.

Harry benefited from a deal cut on the 'repayment' that saved him some £750k and thus indirectly cost the public purse its percentage.

An explanation as to how a seedy associate of MW came to be occupying a CE Mayfair flat apparently rent free wouldn't come amiss either.

I've been asking about the nature of Edward's arrangements for years.

Delighted the ex prince affair is finally getting a spotlight shone in murky corners.

While we're considering surplus royal income maybe we should also be asking why any excess from the SG goes into a reserve fund to be spent on additional royal costs arising rather than being returned to the Treasury.

Some costs relating to both the Jubilee and the Coronation were met this way. Why can't the royals pay for their own knees-ups?!

And again it’s not just Andrew who has a peppercorn rent . Edward too by the looks of it . Maybe others too. The whole rip off needs a thorough investigation.

William has had how many ‘forever homes ‘’?
It’s not private money . Cornwall councils have cut services and closed buildings due to lack of funds while William is trousering 25 million and refusing to confirm reveal even the small amount of financial detail that Charles did .

We can all see the difference in treatment between Andrew and Harry no matter what you think of Harry there is no comparison between the two. It speaks volumes about the Windsors and what they value .

Blaming estate staff is a new low .
As if they’d do anything without the say so of the Windsors .

I agree that there are significant questions to ask over Andrew’s lease terms. The sims seems very modest for such a grand estate and the length of the lease (which would have extended well beyond his lifetime, tying up a key property so that it couldn’t be used for several subsequent generations).

Andrew and Harry were both ‘working’ royals at the time that each property was handed over, but the arrangements were different. Andrew’s was the unusual one. It does look like the Queen wanted to give him cast iron protection from the property being removed from his possession and that she wanted to make sure he had a deal he could afford. The Crown Estate staff who drew up the contract were too deferent and should have looked after the long term interests of the Crown Estate, not her preferences.

Please link to my post where I accuse QE2 of being a thief! What nonsense, who is twisting words now???

I have said nothing of the sort but all of them, the whole family, work very very hard at enriching themselves. They have significant wealth and they capitalize on it. There are very blurred lines between public and private and that private wealth is as a result of their public roles

@Genevieva

Im asking why Andrew was in a mansion with a peppercorn rent and upkeep seemingly ignored - and he wasn’t a working royal

Yet Harry had his lease cancelled ( by which mechanism exactly ?) and Harry repaid the taxpayer .

Neither Harry nor Andrew were ‘working’ royals ( the term working royals is more gaslighting)

Why the different treatment ?