AIBU to think Harry and Meghan are taking the piss?

[ohymygodbethenny]

How are people not more outraged? And no, tourists do not visit the UK specifically because of the royal family.

"This year, 320,000 people were recorded as homeless in Britain"

Kate not having expensive clothes, are you having a laugh?

So many of her coats and ballgowns are made bespoke, and couture routinely costs 5 or 6 figures.

dudsville

Instead I've made my own little hermit world where by, except for threads like these, I'm oblivious to the goings on in the world, and I'm so much happier for it.

So, wouldn't you be even happier ignoring threads like these too?

Dudsville, I don't want to be a hermit, I like actually taking part in life.
And so what if it was 5 apartments made into 1 home, the point still stands its too bloody much. And I know the royals live in palaces but that's too much too.
I thought Harry and Meghan would be a bit of fresh air in amongst the stuffiness of the royals and they seem to do a lot of humanitarian work so they know the problems of the world. I think they both seem a caring decent couple. If they had lived somewhere that didn't need so much spent on renovations and invested some of the money in their charity I think they'd have turned the corner for the royals. But instead they perpetuated the myth that the royals need free ostentatious houses.
And I know the money had to be spent on this and not put to charity, but maybe the archaic rules could be challenged too?

Their excesses would be easier to swallow were it not for the hypocrisy in telling everyone else to live more carefully.

I wouldn’t single out Harry and Meghan specifically. Charles for example spends lot of time saying one thing but living to another tune entirely, and he’s not the only one by a long shot.

Nowadays especially, being seen to make an effort, to be a little more modest, wouldn’t be a bad idea. But they seem largely oblivious, or deliberately don’t want to be aware.

@ssd, that money is only available for Royal expenditure and the Sussexes have no say in how it’s spent. It’s not available to them for charitable donations.

And I think making these threads about who spends the most on dresses takes away from the facts of royal privilege and how it's looking in 2019 when people are sleeping in the streets.

I hear you alsohuman, but I'm thinking maybe the rules could have been challenged, from within?

France have done well without a royal family. I say once the Queen dies get rid of the lot of them, open the palaces up to the public. You'd still make money off the Royal family without having to pay for them. They can pay for their own security if they want to remain in the public eye.

The Trooping of the Colour seems to be the one thing everyone attends, regardless of maternity leave or not

Fair enough. But as a woman who sometimes still had to pop to work for a few hours to cover some emergency whilst on maternity leave I'm not sure that excuses her not being able to turn up for an hour or so to greet and take a photoshoot with your own President during one of only 3 official state visits in history by an American President to the uk. A President of a country we are allegedly looking to make a very important (economically speaking) trade deal with post brexit.

Had it been me, I would have put on my extra thick pads plastered on a smile and done it. Wouldn't most of us who know how important the future of the uk is? Rise above and all that. If I'm not incorrect she had other visitors during her ML. And she wasn't too unwell to host them - I think the Clooneys visited or am I wrong?

I remember thinking that DoS being American with canadian links would be a big plus. But so far it's meant schmoozing with celebs, an extravagent canadian branded wardrobe and excessive and unecessary refubishments to ones' house.

They are both definately in need of better PR and advice.

But as a woman who sometimes still had to pop to work for a few hours to cover some emergency whilst on maternity leave I'm not sure that excuses her not being able to turn up for an hour or so to greet and take a photoshoot with your own President during one of only 3 official state visits in history by an American President to the uk.

I vaguely assumed that the DoS not showing up for Trump but pointedly appearing for the Trooping of the Colour only a few days later was quite intentional on her part and a signal of her disapproval of Trump's politics and her desire to distance herself from that version of the US, and I thought insofar as I gave it any thought 'Good for her'.

By the stifled and archaic forms of non- self-expression allowed to the royal family, I thought it was a declaration of intent.

But perhaps I am too generous, and she, like the rest of the family she has married into, has cloth between the ears.

YANBU OP. I have a lot of respect for the Queen, however by allowing the profligacy of M and H to continue unchecked, the royal family risk losing the goodwill of the people.

Erm, has it escaped your notice that Versailles gets far more visitor numbers than any UK palaces?

True, Laurie, but you're not comparing like with like.

Versailles is open all the time as it's not a working palace. Buckingham Palace is a working palace. It's lived in so is only open a fraction of the time that Versailles is - in fact, it's only open 2 months of the year.

10 million people per year visit Versaiiles; 2.8 million people visited all the royal palaces in the UK last year. 482,000 people visited BP in 2 months. If it were open all year, it could attract 2.8 million.

For the royal family to continue we the tax paying public have to feel we are getting value for our money.
We never see these types of threads about the queen, the cost of her dress, private jets, jewellery collection or any other trapping of being a royal as the general public on the whole see that she is an asset and even at her advanced age is still a very visible monarch.

On the other hand you have Harry and Meg preaching on climate change and yet taking private jets to a party at a cost of £350k, lavish clothing and jewellery worn at every appearance whilst the country still in a period of austerity. Refusing a larger apartment at Kensington in favour of Frogmore and then going way over budget on its renovations ( and remember the project is not finished yet) and the continued celebrity like lifestyle.

If you are royal and want to remain as an active member of the royal family and funded by the state then you don’t get to pick and choose which state visits you are going to attend nor do you get to express views on politics. I am sure the queen has shaked the hand and hosted many who she personally has no wish to meet and who’s political views go against her personal views. But she has done her job as head of state and got on with it.
Harry and Meg need to look as see know grandma does it if they wish the general public to stop with the negativity about them.

let's have a referendum on going a republic like Ireland and France, got to be more democratic than simply being born to the right family.

@vickibee, yes let’s. Because the last referendum went so well. In any case 70% of Brits are monarchists.

yougov.co.uk/topics/politics/articles-reports/2018/05/18/who-are-monarchists

In any case 70% of Brits are monarchists.

There's a depressing (and illogical) statistic from a country in which inequality is rapidly growing.

I think the stats on support for the monarchy will change once the Queen has gone.

It’s only depressing if you’re not a monarchist, which most people outside the MN bubble are.

Versailles is open all the time as it's not a working palace. Buckingham Palace is a working palace. It's lived in so is only open a fraction of the time that Versailles is - in fact, it's only open 2 months of the year.

That’s exactly the point though. If we turfed out the royals and opened the palaces up we’d get more visitors, not less.

are you always this mean to women who have given birth to baby's that are a few months old

Indifferent to all members of the RF, but what a daft comment

Alsohuman
It’s only depressing if you’re not a monarchist, which most people outside the MN bubble are

Rubbish! Most of my friends and associates would definitely NOT refer to themselves as monarchists. I do tend to know quite a lot of intelligent people though

I can’t fathom why anyone would be a monarchist frankly.

Why would you be happy with someone being superior to you by accident of birth?

Genuinely interested in people’s responses to this.

It’s not about being superior. It’s having a head of state with some tradition attached. I like tradition personally.

Thanks for the snide comment about my intelligence and that of 70% of the population @BossAssBitch. You’ve just proved my point about bubbles.

But it is about being superior. You’re her subject. She takes precedence over you in all kinds of ways, based on nothing more than birth.

You can have tradition without a monarch. Plenty of traditions in the House of Commons.

Plenty of traditions in the House of Commons

Indeed. And that’s an absolute epitome of virtue. The Queen is not superior to me at all. Her position is. Big difference.