Prince William to leave the armed services

[baffledmum]

I am a fan of the monarchy but this has just made me stop and think...

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-24065166

Hmmm – not going to a “full time royal” = part-time royal then. What's he doing with the rest of his time?

I'd be happy to give up my job to focus on royal work and charity duties if someone can tell me where to apply! Or am I just being mean and unreasonable that he can afford to?

Prince Harry joined in 2006, when minimum requirement was 140 UCAS points.

Curlew the entry requirement to get to Sandhurst is 270 UCAS points. If you want to join as a soldier and transfer to be an officer you still need those 270 UCAS points according to the Colonel who ran the potential officer insight day DS1 recently went on.

It is naive to think the rules aren't bent and they goalposts aren't widened for them. They aren't like us. Harry did not have to prove his worth of a place at Sandhurst. He might be a good officer now, but he is lucky because he was given the chane. How many ordinary people aren't given the chance despite having the entry requirements? Hundreds! They could have been as good, if not better, but their Granny is not the right person!

The UCAS requirement, as posted by grovel, taken direct from the Army's website is 240 points.

Well the Colonel told DS1 270 Frankel.

I wonder if the Colonel misspoke - that's bad. It's 240 minimum for all Services for officers (and for certain roles, higher).

It was 140 in 2006, rising to 180 in 2008, and rose again to 240 (not sure when).

Maybe Edith. DS1 is asleep so I can't ask him, but he definitely said he needed 270 when he got A2 results. He got 410, including an AS, so was well over.

Curlew He clearly inherited the intellect of his Father who managed the stunning feat of grades B and C at A level despite his expensive education. He then managed to gain entrance to Cambridge w/ these results sticking two fingers up at students who were told to achieve AAA or no dice.

BTW Versailles generates more tourist income than our royal attractions. You do not need a functioning 'living' RF to make money from royal tourist attractions. Alton Towers generates more £££ too.

To be fair, when Charles got into Cambridge, being posh and/or knowing the right people was a legitimate entry requirement.........

I believe this year Legoland Windsor ranked much higher than Windsor castle in tourism revenue.

Replace the fuckers with lego, we'll be quids in!

I'm not going to comment on entry requirements etc. as I am just a dumb civvie and therefore understand nothing of it but...

Can I just say that oath you guys take make me really nervous? I mean it reads like you are her personal body guards?

No mention I could see of allegiance to the UK.

Can they just use the army to bitch slap us if they ever (Please Universe) are democratically removed

When did Anne serve in the forces then? She regularly sports her honorary rear admiral uniform. Or maybe seeing as she is famous for 'recycling' clothing she borrowed them from a serving relative?

How would she have credibility if she has not served? I have heard MNers talk of how proud their OH's are at having her as their CO. Would they follow her blindly into battle?

As to her 'work ethic' the 300-500 engagements she performs each year are usually doubled/tripled/quadrupled per day. So divide the total engagements by amounts of days spent upon and she actually only works to earn her civil list payments for about 1/3 of a year. Not that hardworking. But then the royals always did have the most tenuous grasp on the meaning of true hard work in the real world.

Yes that oath is the most bizarre thing. Dated and not reassuring. Might make some feel proud to take it but to be honest if you make an occasion solemn enough and full of pageantry, you could recite 'Have you seen the Muffin Man' and feel stirred by the occasion.

Same as Prince Edward, mignoette. He is seen in military uniform, the only serving he has done is a third of the training required for the Marines!

I like Princess Anne's DH, Tim Laurence. He actually helped my family and I so I have a bit of respect for him.

Well he at least serves.

littlemiss I'm intrigued. We never see anything of Princess Anne's husband. How did he help your famy?

Aargh. Family, even.

Aargh. Family, even.

Tim Lawrence retired from the Navy in 2010. He was pretty visible (to Forces families) in his last post, when he was trying to kick the Defence Estate into shape (huge direct impact on all those in Forces accommodation). Before that he had a full and varied Naval career.

mignonette posted her calculations about Princess Anne on another thread: demonstrating that it was 199 days to conduct the actual engagements themselves (not allowing for travel or preparation time). This is more than say, teachers (195 days) and not far off the normal working year (225 days when you have deducted weekends and holiday allowance), and doesn't include other demands on her time such as IOC role.

Very bad form to reference another thread Edith. Anyway I stand by them. If anne wants to do all her prep work herself, dispense w/ the ladies in waiting, the PS's, the limousines and chauffeurs, the train carriages all to herself, the helicopters and private luxurious travel arrangements, then and only then will she be worthy of being deemed hard working. She is not hard working.

Teachers have to do all their prep themselves. They drive themselves to work. They have to deal with the crappy commute. They even have to hold their own bag, thank you flowers and briefing notes. They are subjected to rigorous peer, managerial and governmental review. Anne is not. We cannot remove her. We are stuck with them.

Edith you have been suckered. Poor you.

I also stated that I had generously over estimated the actual engagements per day Edith. If i actually based it upon the usual four or more per day she does then her yearly working days dramatically decline. Go figure.

My apologies - I have referenced, even linked, simultaneous threads where the same point is made numerous times in the past without adverse comment and so had no idea that when pertinent it was bad form.

Her travel may be comfier, but that does not reduce the time. And she may indeed use resources complied by others (hardly unique).

It is interesting to see how you are now disavowing your earlier assertion of how many days. For even if she did only 1 hour background reading and speech delivery preparation per engagement, the amount of working time would increase vastly.

I'm not disavowing. I am actually saying that if i used a less conservative figure because on many days she does 5/6 engagements and that would significantly bring down her working days per year. i was actually being 'generous' to her. She actually works less than 75 days per year if you apply the 5/day calculation.

Sorry but if you truly believe anne works as hard as normal working people of this country you are absolutely deluded. She'd never cope w/ my DH's work load/ She'd never cope w/ mine. We all do preparation. That is nothing special. She has it all laid out on a plate. Do you truly believe she does her own research/trawls the internet/reference librairies like the rest of us do? No it is all prepared in bullet point for her to read. it takes her far less time. And to be honest w/ the dilettante life of luxury they all lead, I bloody well expect them to be well briefed because they have plenty of time to be (even though they often are not or at least have trouble retaining real life information).

And helicopter travel does cut time. That is the point of it. Otherwise why have HEMS? So do private trains/services where you are the only one on/where you do not have to walk/bus/drive to the station then wait on the platform then walk/bus/tube at the other end. A private door to door chauffeur cuts time. If i had a private chaffeur w/ security escort I could do all my DV's in a fraction of the time.

I cannot believe you truly think her travel time is the same as an ordinary Joe's. Really?

Oh yes, hard working

Someone organises her day. Someone tells her what to do step by step. Someone takes her there. She does something a trained monkey could do (cheer up hospital wards, cut ribbons)

Lets not forget all that hard work at home everyone else does!

Someone fills her kitchen, someone cooks for her. Someone else cleans, pays her bills, looks after and raises her children, organises any social, charity events. Micro manages any occasion she may have to leave the house. Does her makeup, washes her hair...

I could go on. But I have just realised that my rant about Princess Anne ended up being about Kate, the queen etc.

Onesleep we were having problems with our housing. The RAF families federation went to him as he was chief executive of defence estates. He had it sorted and we had our new house ready within 9 weeks. We had been fighting for well over a year by that point.