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Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

So what the fuck are Kate and Willy doing?

999 replies

RogueV · 17/04/2020 22:39

Isn’t there a princess in Europe that’s now working as a HCA?

A queen somewhere in Asia cooking for the poor?

Harry and Meghan delivering meals?

Bet if Diana was here she’d be out doing everything in her power to help the ordinary folk 💪

OP posts:
Mamamia456 · 19/04/2020 16:40

Leighhalfpenny - They give their time. Every year they carry out over 2000 official engagements. The queen has hosted over 152 state visits as well as visiting other countries on state visits. This plays an integral role in strengthening our relationships with other countries. They may have a glamorous lifestyle but I don't envy them at all. The Queen only came to the throne because her uncle abdicated. I think she has served our country well and is very well liked both here and abroad. I am quite happy to pay £1.24 a year.

Mamamia456 · 19/04/2020 16:43

LaMarschallin - Would you really though. It may seem like an easy cosseted life but you wouldn't have any freedom.

OhMargo · 19/04/2020 16:44

LaMarschallin

Hmmm, maybe going forward it might be a good deal, since you would not be able to go out, no papparazzi, no comment on clothes, no little waves from your chauffeur driven car, in fact the more I think about it, you might be right!

But nah... seriously I could think of better lives than theirs TBH, and I still would not swop for love nor money. Let them at it.

MangoFeverDream · 19/04/2020 16:49

It may seem like an easy cosseted life but you wouldn't have any freedom

It doesn’t seem to matter much, see how Prince Andrew tried to hold onto his position and how H&M tried hard to negotiate to remain somehow while having outside ventures.

No one leaves willingly, it seems. They can leave whenever they want, and no one seems inclined to do so without a fight. Must be a pretty good gig.

twirlycat77 · 19/04/2020 16:50

Oh well just goes to show where some people’s priorities lie. £1.24 isn’t an accurate amount all told, but whatever, it’s a huge amount to give one family. Nurses are dying in this country because of inadequate protection. But hey let’s keep giving the woman who has more than £360 MILLION in the bank. She must need it more......and those state visits she hosts are an unnecessary and extravagant indulgence. Other countries fare far better than ours without them.

twirlycat77 · 19/04/2020 16:52

If I remember rightly, princess Margaret couldn’t bear to give it all up, even for the love of her life. Proves the point doesn’t it.

LaMarschallin · 19/04/2020 16:57

LaMarschallin - Would you really though. It may seem like an easy cosseted life but you wouldn't have any freedom.

Well, I wouldn't mind a go. I've got a perfectly nice life but I've worked very hard for that.
It would have been lovely to know, when my children were young, they'd have a guaranteed excellent education and opportunities that very few could dream of.

As the song says:
"Freedom's just another word for nothing left to lose" Smile

Sorry, Margo - I know there's meant to be a joke in your first paragraph but I don't really get it.

I still would not swop for love nor money

Fair enough then. If I could have the love and the money I'd think it an enticing offer.
As did Kate, presumably.

Wolfgirrl · 19/04/2020 17:08

@Mamamia456

Leighhalfpenny - They give their time. Every year they carry out over 2000 official engagements. The queen has hosted over 152 state visits as well as visiting other countries on state visits. This plays an integral role in strengthening our relationships with other countries. They may have a glamorous lifestyle but I don't envy them at all. The Queen only came to the throne because her uncle abdicated. I think she has served our country well and is very well liked both here and abroad. I am quite happy to pay £1.24 a year.

Why is it that only the cost of the royal family is broken down per year? Why is nothing else? It is done to make them sound cheaper, and the £1.24 doesnt even include the cost of their security which is estimated as doubling it.

As for the engagements, they can last as little as 15 minutes or as long as a day. Lets be generous and say those 2000 engagements are all half-day engagements. That's 1000 full days' work a year. If we divide that among the Queen, PC and Camilla, William and Kate alone that works out as 200 working days a year, still under the 261 the public perform. That is ASSUMING each engagement is at least 3.5 hours and not even taking into account the other royals that figure will include, such as Princess Anne who apparently does the most. We then have to factor in maternity leave, etc.

How do you think the real numbers look?

LaurieMarlow · 19/04/2020 17:10

Awesome PR trick to break the cost down per person per year.

Genius.

Everything sounds cheap when positioned like that. Grin

Wetcarparkrain · 19/04/2020 17:11

The point of having a monarchy going back hundreds of years, was pretty much always to have a strong, bold leader who would get out in front of their people and LEAD. It wouldn't have done Edward IV much good if he'd been all, 'actually, I have a bit of a sore head today, and small kids you know, so I'll just eh... retreat here a wee bit '.

The sight of a healthy, strong man who in normal life couldn't keep his part-time job and combine it with the few paltry charidee engagements he does every year (when every other responsibility is handled for him - finance, DIY, housekeeping and groundskeeping, live in nanny and mostly stay-at-home wife, no laundry, no picking up shit from the dry-cleaner, no trying to frantically get the printer to work to print out that stuff about a charity one's going to see because lo, it's already been done for you and put into a neat folder marked BRIEFING), who has now run away to his country pile and patronisingly says 'very well-done' to older, more experienced, harder working, braver people working in Yorkshire schoolS, who are conditioned to be all 'Oh, your highness, you've right lifted my spirits with your few words of praise', is extremely disappointing.

They should 100% have capitalised on their recent great PR by staying in their mahoosive house in London, and by one of them volunteering to do SOMETHING, ANYTHING. If they had the wit to do that they'd have guaranteed themselves for a lifetime.

As it is they've answered 'what do they actually DO for the country in a crisis?'

Leighhalfpennysthigh · 19/04/2020 17:12

Leighhalfpenny - They give their time. Every year they carry out over 2000 official engagements. The queen has hosted over 152 state visits as well as visiting other countries on state visits. This plays an integral role in strengthening our relationships with other countries. They may have a glamorous lifestyle but I don't envy them at all. The Queen only came to the throne because her uncle abdicated. I think she has served our country well and is very well liked both here and abroad. I am quite happy to pay £1.24 a year

Ahh yes, the old smile and wave argument.

Is that as good as the argument for them gets?

twirlycat77 · 19/04/2020 17:17

Yes it’s tiresome how royalists, for want of any meaningful argument will trot that “only costs me £1.24 a year” out. The PR person who dreamt that one up should have got a pay rise. There is NOTHING else in the country broken down in this way in order to sound good value. Either that or the pathetic “good for tourism” yarn.

LaurieMarlow · 19/04/2020 17:18

They should 100% have capitalised on their recent great PR by staying in their mahoosive house in London, and by one of them volunteering to do SOMETHING, ANYTHING. If they had the wit to do that they'd have guaranteed themselves for a lifetime.

Absolutely.

What the Queen mother persuaded the family to do during the war had stood to the Queen to this day. If they’d half of her wit they would have capitalised on this and it would have set them up.

But they didn’t.

Wolfgirrl · 19/04/2020 17:22

William did 150 engagements in 2018 (bearing in mind he quit his air ambulance job to be a full time 'working' royal in 2017).

Even if they were all full-day engagements he still only did slightly more than half what your average full time working person does.

Any of the royalists care to comment?

OhMargo · 19/04/2020 17:23

Wetcarparkrain

Good post there. You are saying what many are thinking of this parasitic family.

Indeed where are they when we need them most during this awful time?

Nowhere to be seen. The emperor's clothes and all that, and going forward, if social distancing is ongoing, they will not be able to do much in public either.

I don't wish them any ill, but I am not very impressed with their (usual) lack of concern for the peasants amongst us either.

They are finished if they cannot parade around in the chariots and bullet proof cars to wave at their subjects anymore, and people WILL begin to question what they are for really.

CathyorClaire · 19/04/2020 17:24

Do tell what laws they invoked to protect their interests

The duchies hide behind FOI exemptions so use those for a start but both have had spokesmen on their behalf saying they have not refused to consent to any bill affecting crown interests unless advised to do so by ministers which suggests such refusals have taken place.

In addition Charles has form for meddling in government business and promoting his own agenda. See Black Spider letters.

Wolfgirrl · 19/04/2020 17:27

I think the royalists have legged it.

Leighhalfpennysthigh · 19/04/2020 17:33

I'm hoping they are reading the Norman Baker book - I was a republican before but by god I didn't realise half of how they are ripping off this country. It's obscene.

Hopefully one of the outcomes of this lockdown is that this country sees the utter pointlessness of these "engagements".

CathyorClaire · 19/04/2020 17:34

They give their time. Every year they carry out over 2000 official engagements

They don't give their time. They have a very, very good hourly rate boosted by travelling to and from 'engagements' (which can be only half an hour) in luxury.

The Queen only came to the throne because her uncle abdicated

The queen would ultimately have succeeded to the throne anyway given her uncle's childless marriage.

Mamamia456 · 19/04/2020 17:37

I do have other things in my life besides mumsnet, haven't read all the replies yet, may be back later, depends how bored I am! I do find these royal threads entertaining!

Wolfgirrl · 19/04/2020 17:40

@mamamia456

I wouldn't find being humiliated in a debate amusing, but everyone is different I suppose!

If you come back later please have a valid argument 👋

plumpynoo · 19/04/2020 17:44

What are you doing to help others that you wouldn't normally/ are employed to do? I'm at home looking after my kids and shopping for my mum, that's about it. Why should the royals be doing more that I'm doing myself?

Mamamia456 · 19/04/2020 17:45

Wolfgirrl - How am I being humiliated, you are funny ! Now go away for a while, do à puzzle or something, I need to cook some dinner.

CathyorClaire · 19/04/2020 17:46

The Norman Baker book should be required reading for the entire country Wink

Wolfgirrl · 19/04/2020 17:49

@Mamamia456

I would say it is embarrassing to endlessly dodge questions. You would make a natural MP.

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