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"

The Royal Estates make a massive amount each year. The Sovereign Grant is only 20% of that. THE REST OF THE MONEY FROM THE ROYAL ESTATES GOES TO THE TREASURY.

Omg how many times. The Crown estates are not their personal money.

It's amazing how little people know about how the monarchy funds itself and seem unwilling to acknowledge the huge personal wealth of this anachronistic institution. For example, the income from the Duchies of Lancaster and Cornwall go directly to the Queen and Prince of Wales despite 'belonging to the nation'.
The truth is that the Queen's personal wealth is private and we just don't know how rich she actually is. No transparency.
Get rid of the lot of them. The monarchy props up the class system in the UK and I am amazed how many people are still happy to be a subject rather than a citizen.
Don't get me started on why the Duke of Westminster owns half of London just because of the vagina he came out of.

Harry and Megan had perfectly stunning apartments in Kensington palace - they decided they didn’t want to live there do they should fit the bill - they are absolutely loaded, why should we pay?

They didn’t have an apartment at Kensington. They had a two bed cottage that has never been used for a family. So there would have been a bill for rejigging at Kensington had they stayed.

KP had all the security set up too, now that bill will be doubled as we will have to pay for them to be guarded as well.

They are now living within Windsor. The Queen and Philip spend vast amounts of time there, Andrew’s home is there and Edward’s is nearby. There won’t be a huge extra cost to the security already in place.

The security bill at Frogmore House is reported to be £750,000 of tax payers money so far, with 20 officers providing round the clock protection. KP already has security in place. Why should an increasingly minor royal be given the choice frankly? They should have been told they can have a lovely apartment at KP or fund themselves.

@momomamy "youll be dead of cancer", that is a very weird way of talking to anyone. Reported

You are avoiding anything to do with 4Ml spent by William and Kate to Renovete their homes??

Who's avoiding it? Harry and Meghan may be attracting criticism right now because of the very recent news about their home, but William and Kate were slated in exactly the same way over theirs

In particular I seem to remember a stink over a beautiful £38,000 kitchen they chucked out for no good reason ...

They were offered an apartment in KP next door to William and Kate, vacated by the Duke of Gloucester and just needing work to the roof apparently. It's only 22 rooms though so probably too small for a new family in need of space

It makes a mockery of the values which many of their charities are promoting.

This, exactly. I hate the hypocrisy of it.

Can you imagine the frothing that would have happened if they’d moved into an apartment with more rooms than the Cambridge’s?! Some in the DM comments section may have actually combusted.

To be clear, I see this as the latest in a long line of outrageous extravagances by the Royal Family as a whole. Kate and William, Charles, the late Diana, the Queen - they are/were all as bad as each other.

Sorry 21 rooms and security already in place. Why couldn't they move in there?

Don't know about H & Meg, don't care either
But what pissed me off was the televised footage of the Queen a few weeks back, with Beatrice giving the plebs the Royal Wave from the horse drawn carriage - that made me rage!!

Why is 2.5ml spent on H&M paining you so much? While W&K spent 4ml to renovate their home ?? A lot to do with jealousy and racism

There are slowly realising n the grand scheme of things they are nothing. William will be King and Kate will be Queen.

They are the new Andrew and Sarah - no role, no real function and don't know what to do.

Also reported momomamy. Amazing wishing cancer on people whilst decrying perceived racism on this thread. Ridiculous.

It's only 22 rooms though so probably too small for a new family in need of space

Reminds me of those property programs where people with all of one child 'need' to move out of their perfectly adequate 3 bed semi to a 6 bed mansion because they 'don't have enough space'.

Why is 2.5ml spent on H&M paining you so much? While W&K spent 4ml ...

That's been answered again and again, Momo - I'm not sure why you keep repeating it?

As PPs have said, they've all been criticised for extravagance at one time or another; the focus just happens to be on Harry and Meghan at the moment as it's only this week that news of their renovations has broken

It's a big waste of taxpayer's money - H&M had a home already and didn't need to move. If they had wanted to move then the RF have many palaces where they could have lived without needing to spend anywhere near £2m unless they paid for it themselves.

I hate the hypocrisy ...

You and me both, Valenta, but if we started on the subject of hypocrisy we'd never stop

Just with Charles alone there's probably not enough space on here to list all the examples

Interesting. What other palaces could they have moved into more or less instantly? Anyone know or have any ideas?

No idea there were so many (presumably empty) Royal Palaces!

I hate,even more than them spending millions on renovations, the way posters accuse others of racism if anything is said against meghan.
It totally and utterly makes a mockery of the whole subject.

It has been explained upthread but people seem to misunderstand where the Queen’s money comes from... she owns the Crown Estate, all of the profits from that go straight to the treasury. The Queen is given 15% of the money back. It’s from that money that the refurbishment was paid. It was effectively paid for by the profits from the land she owns.

she owns the Crown Estate

No she fucking doesn't. It belongs to the legal entity (not a person) ‘The Crown’.

She has no personal claim to them (outside of her status as The Crown), they’re managed by an independent body and she cannot sell or profit from them in any way.

Their original purpose was to fund the institutions of the state (army, parliament, so forth). George III couldn’t be arsed with all that so passed that over to Parliament, while negotiating his own allowance.

If she decided she wanted to ‘take back control’ of the estates she’d then also have to cover the funding of the state that was relinquished in the first place.

HTH

They didn’t have an apartment at Kensington. They had a two bed cottage that has never been used for a family.

Yeah 'cause two adults and one newborn living in a two-bed flat is just unthinkable

Found one! Barnwell Manor in Northhamptonshire, nice and large formerly occupied by the Gloucesters. There are also some residences in Scotland, and in the grounds of Balmoral and Northern Ireland, but obviously those are very far away for them.