To think Prince William and his wife are lacking appreciation of their position

[fideline]

and good fortune?

He just seems a bit of an over-privileged posh boy?

I know everyone says he has lovely manners, but we can expect a bit more than that, surely?

They have just hired a 'forrin' nanny a) after making an enormous PR fuss about not having one b) at a time of high UK unemployment.

The list of god-parents for their baby was a bit multi-barrelled and No foreign royals, as is traditional, but Not the slightest whiff of any demographic diversity either.

There seem to be a LOT of luxury holidays going on with these two.

The uni course he is doing has been especially designed for him and seems designed to prepare him for inheriting the enormous (private) Duchy of Cornwall. Not exactly public-spirited?

In the much-hyped first post-baby interview, he was keen to promote a charity saving Kenyan Rhinos. Nothing intrinsically wrong with that, but the line between animals he shoots for fun and animals he wants to save is unclear and anyhow a charity for under-privileged (UK?) children would have been the nice, publicity-shrewd thing to do, maybe?

For a couple with a great deal of expensive PR expertise at their disposal they seem to be slightly missing the mark a bit too often.

William and kate can do that anytime she just back from some exotic location with her family you don't think she was hanging by the beach (expensively raked sand only) there of course she was , they are always off on jollies, I think its the media that really annoy me though because they keep trying to show them as hard working, when its obvious they are not.

Please. They are lazy as all get out. I don't even follow them and even I recall reading in the last year

• they skipped the Paralympics despite being ambassadors on the basis they were "preparing" for their se Asia trip...and then were busted in France on holidays with those topless pics
• William almost losing his Raf wings he did so little flying (which is basically impossible the hours are so low)
• both of them doing

The tourism argument is just laughable. In addition to the point made several times above regarding higher visitor numbers in republican France, should we really be basing our constitution on what works best for tourism, rather than the population of the country? If North Korea was to drastically expand the tours are currently allowed by its government, would we really think that the non-democratic system there was fine because it was conducive to tourism?

This is exactly the point; the 'Staunch Royalists' are happy with the notion that W & C are 'special' and don't care if they only work 100 hours a year and spend the intervening time bathing in champagne and getting their hair done thrice a day. The hardworking ordinary family gubbins doesn't impress tham.

It just annoys the Republicans and a good portion of the agnostics.

So why bother?

I mean that exactly illustrates the point

is clearly contemptuous of the press
would you not be, in his shoes?

and yes the tourism argument is total bollox, i mean people do not visit Versailles and say ooh yes it is lovely but it would be so much lovlier if there were an incumbent monarch, do they?

He should either hide the contempt better or give up trying to hide it all . His reasons are obvious and understandable.

Seriously though, I think the cynicism shows and that will become problematic.

i am not sure anyway as I rarely take any notice of them....
she does look really vacant though doesn't she? you know that inane grin?

She certainly looks a bit glazed in the photos i've seen.

On the other hand, she chuckled vigorously at the Remembrance Day ceremony.

Seems a bit at sea, but then maybe one would be with such a dull choice of engagements.

Gosh, rainbowfeet, reading your post is rather like suddenly meeting a dinosaur at a dinner party. It's hard to believe such opinions still exist. You get that it's their position that's special, right, not the very ordinary, fallible human beings filling said positions? And that they have all this privilege because, inexplicably to me, there isn't enough support for a referendum on abolishing the monarchy, because of precisely the kind of muddled, sentimental, forelock-tugging thinking displayed by at least some of the monarchists on this thread?

I'm laughing at your line about how the royals are not like you, because you are coarse, unsophisticated, not very well-educated - in fact that sounds to me like a perfectly good description of many of the royals, who, given their attendance of elite schools with wonderful teaching and facilities, are educationally under-achieving. (Why would they need to achieve? No one expects them to forge careers. Do you imagine Charles won his place at Cambridge on his own merit with a B and a C at A-level?)

Philip and Harry could accurately be described as 'coarse' for their racism/Nazi fancy dress/ nude cavorting, while even Diana's spilling her marital secrets, heavily eye-linered, on TV would have had a rather a Jeremy Kyle air to it if she weren't an Earl's daughter.

Only the misty-eyedness given them by their special privilege can turn a rather humdrum, dysfunctional family, not particularly distinguished for brains, charm, character, skill in dealing with the public etc. into special, solemn figures chosen by destiny.

Angel - I so agree with you about role models.

Coming back to this thread very late in the day. I am a monarchist because our Royal family are living history.

"the current Royal family is descended from most of the Anglo-Saxon Kings and Queens except those that did not have children like Edward the Confessor and Harold.

There main claim comes through Matilda of Scotland who was the wife of Henry I she was the the great granddaughter of Edward Ironside and all of his ancestors (including Alfred).

Matilda of Flanders the Wife of William the conqueror was also a descendant of the some of the older anglo-saxon kings. "

So, a line of sucession dating back to way before Norman times. I like to think that the royal family is at the head of our country and provided the lesser royal ( people like Beatrice and Eugenie) are required to stand on their own feet I have no problem in paying 67p per week to keep HM The Queen, Charles, William and Harry and their immediate families in regal style. It actually makes me very happy to see them living this role.

Oh it's 67p a week now? I thought that was an annual cost?

The Matilda?william?Henry I argument is just peculiar.

Why does it make you happy, higgle? We're all descended from people who lived in the distant past, the royals are unusual only in the extent to which their ancestry is known and annotated. And of course lots of royal descendants are ordinary working people.

Or do you think that Michael Ibsen, the descendant of Richard III identified during the excavation of R's bones, should stop being a cabinet-maker and start sitting around on a throne? Or is he less special because RIII lost, and he's only a descendant via the female line?

I always thought that the Royal Family were German.

Silly me.

There are people starving in this country. Why would you want to give money to the uber rich (i.e the royal family) when there are people who are starving? Makes no sense at all!

To be honest most of us of European origin have blue blood, it's actually very common. Professional genealogists believe that Charlemagne pops up in the family tree of nearly everyone of European descendant.

It's cooler to have a serf only family tree.

fideline, what exactly do you expect from the royalty? Are you even a royalist?

squoosh are you saying that blue blood is very common?

Bloody hell. If the Royal Family are very common then WTF am I?

scratches bum and farts