...so what exactly is "service and duty"?

[ServiceAndDuty]

After countless threads on the royal family, I feel nobody goes into full detail of what the royal family do apart from the same phrase "service and duty".

I genuinely would like to be enlightened on what this "service and duty" is, not including showing up to events and waving, watching tennis and rugby matches, opening places, having an expensive wedding sometimes etc.

I feel nobody has really answered in detail what it is.

I am open to being educated if I'm missing something.

The Royal family are Public Relations people.
I don't really understand what PR involves but it's counted as a real job.

The Queen stepped into the role and made it her own. Imo she lived and breathed the role ever since.

Her duty was probably providing future heirs, following rules and protocol and being a dependable figure.

Whether people like Royal Families or not, the Queen is quite universally admired for how she took up the mantel and represented the country on the world stage, especially in her engagements with other world leaders.

Some people, for reasons I don't personally understand, have a need to consider there are people who were born to be better than them. They have a need to exalt someone to a status above the ordinary, for no other reason than their birth, then imagine that individual is caring for and guiding them. These people feel huge gratitude and appreciation for a word, a handshake, a speech at Christmas, so will consider even the most minimal contribution, smallest inconvenience or basic courtesy from someone royal a great service. So even if they explained what they mean by it, it may not meet your own definition.

I do enjoy the mental gymnastics of people trying to defend these people with comparisons to CEOs and the PM etc.

It's really not the same.
As anti-Tory as I am, I very much doubt that Liz Truss just turns up to a meeting and comes away with no actions.
The Royal Family have vast amounts of inherited wealth and despite the really really hard work of some people on this thread.....no one can give examples of how they actually benefit this country.
Hey ho, just about time to read my papers for the next meeting.

From my perspective, they're born into an inherited role they didn't ask for and opting out isn't really an option (not without huge consequences). So for me, 'duty and service' is attending endless mini ceremonies and shaking hands and talking to people and flying all over the place in the days after your mum has died, when frankly most of us would rather sit at home and cry. Service and duty is acknowledging that your life isn't your own and you can't just pop to the or out for a walk and you're probably never going to have genuine friends (other than the ones on your staff). It's accepting the role you didn't ask for and putting the country's needs ahead of your own,

And yes, it comes with enormous privilege but the price is living in a protected bubble constantly until the day you die. I'm not a royalist but I recognise particularly in the last 10 days that their ethos seems to have been 'country first, family second'. It's more than I could have done.

Mental gymnastics! Well, I'm a long way past the ordinary kind, that's for sure.

Inherited wealth and privilege - look no further than David Cameron, George Osborne, Boris Johnson and a fair number of other top Tory politicians. Tony Blair didn't pull himself up by his bootstraps either.

As for where to find the wealthy bankers etc, there are plenty here on MN. I often see posts saying 'I earn a six figure salary in the City/accountancy/management consultancy/Magic Circle law firm/other unspecified "senior role" ', or their partner does, or both.

The exact same - not able to take time off because they wouldn’t be paid for it, and end up dead during a work shift - could happen today to:

your Uber driver.
your Just Eat delivery person.
your Amazon worker.
the pub worker who is doing a shift there via an agency.
those on zero hour contracts up and down the country.
any person who is self employed, eg an accountant, or a cleaner. Someone in a different thread, who is self employed, detailed how their cancelled operation yesterday wreaked havoc with their health and business.

please also double check how much some of the companies above have paid in tax.

when it is pointed out that the UK has fewer BHs than any other european country, people are quick to mention the cost of a BH. This one was sudden (and all the problems that come with it - see above, eg cancelled operations), the cost was stratospheric, yet not only completely acceptable, apparently, people also tie themselves in knots to explain it.

like the subjects that we are, we should unquestionably bow to our betters. In 2022.

Why do you think she would “come away with no actions”?

Is an actor not doing a job because the performance itself is the task? Or a diplomat not doing a job if s/he is chairing a meeting where other people are briefing him or her just for information? Are they not working while they are hosting a dinner where they are expected to memorise the role of every attendee and put them at ease? Isn’t that part of the job rather than some kind of “perk”?

The entire point is that head of state isn’t a role much like anything else. A diplomat is probably the closest comparison, but it’s not exactly right either. I think however that pretending it isn’t actually a job and does nothing is sneery and ignorant.

Many governance roles across all of the public and private sector might seem surplus to you, but actually performing them is still work. I’m of the mind that we should have a constitutional elected head of state myself; but I’m not foolish enough to believe this wouldn’t be a pretty onerous job — probably devolving a lot of work also to the church, the civil service, the diplomatic service and an elected second chamber in order to make it work — and the entire edifice would cost a fortune to run.

The searchable court circular is freely available on line

www.royal.uk/court-circular

Topgub
Charles couldn't even lift a pen

He can lift a paintbrush;

2016
Prince Charles has been revealed as one of Britain’s most successful living artists after raising millions of pounds for charity by selling prints of his paintings.
Copies have been sold through the shop at his family residence, Highgrove House, and since 1997 the watercolour paintings have brought in £2million for The Prince of Wales’s Charitable Foundation.
Added to that is the estimation by an art dealer who previously handled sales of the Prince’s lithographs that they raised at least £4million.

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3431159/Prince-Charles-revealed-one-Britain-s-successful-living-artists-new-figures-sold-6m-works.html

www.thenationalnews.com/arts-culture/art/2022/02/04/moroccan-landscape-features-in-first-full-exhibition-of-watercolours-by-prince-charles/

edition.cnn.com/style/article/prince-charles-paintings-watercolors/index.html

@ServiceAndDuty havent read the whole thread so apologies if someone has already suggested this book to you - What do you do?

Yes I know all that, I’m trying to understand why people think we are a better country for having a monarchy.

Logically it makes little sense but in practice it seems to work better than the alternatives.

A symbolic head of state enables pomp and patriotic feelings to be expressed with minimal political misuse.

Also I think power is usually best given to those who don't want it, a hereditary monarch fits that.

The other issue is that you can structure constitutional arrangements all you like; but they may come out with rather different effects in practice.

We have a monarch who is also head of an established church. Yet we have one of the most apolitical head of state roles and one of the most secular public spheres on the globe, maybe bar none.

Compare the US with an elected head of state and formal separation of powers — and yet, as the supreme court has recently shown us, far closer to being a theocracy than almost any other developed nation.

Think of it another way — why did so many commonwealth nations retain the queen as head of state? It isn’t just because of tradition, or because somehow they loved being colonised. It’s because she performed a very useful constitutional function that it would cost a lot to replicate “in-house”, as it were. You might think that in itself is probably wrong — and I would agree. But getting rid of one head of state and trying to replicate those functions in a different form is costly and difficult. And you may not end up with something you like that much at the end, either. That’s not to say you shouldn’t — but pretending that the head of state doesn’t really do anything is just silly. You can, of course, make it so that they don’t do anything. But then you have to have other people who do the job instead.

This will give you an idea of the late Queen's daily work thecrownchronicles.co.uk/explanation/a-day-in-the-life-of-the-queen-her-daily-routine/

Embassador for our country and the commonwealth.
Reassures the country in times of need
The most experienced impartial politician we have.
Generates more income into the country than they are paid.
Custodian on palaces and jewels (not owner)
Supresses their own choices and opinions
Restricted movement (cant go out whenever they want)
Arranges and Writes 100s of letters to people who have reached out to them to provide comfort.
Understands what the people want from the monarchy, the importance of them turning up and what they do.
Hundreds of public engagements to endorce charities for good in our society.
Ceremonial duties.

Opens parliament
Red box daily.
Councils elected officials
Charles will be his own king, but in terms of the queen she has loved a privileged life but also a restricted one. Shes carried out over 21000 engagements in her 70 years, if you worked 5 days a week that's more than 1 a day for 70 years. Dont underestimate the importance of those visits.
Indirect diplomacy (undertaken by most countries)

Charles pre covid did 521 engagements 2019.
Thats not easy and most people his age are retired.

But above all, look at the spectacle of the last 10 days, it makes me proud to be brotish, its our national identity and our Unique selling point as a country for many around the world.

Yes its wrong we have children in poverty but If you sold it all off tomorrow its a drop in the ocean and the problem lies in other places. Oil company profits ect ect. And I genuinely believe we would be worst off without the Royal family and they bring more to the table than they take. King Charles in particular has been vocal about sliming that down as they adjust and modernise.

Look also at the things they have done with the princess trust and the Duke of Edinburgh scheme.

@Mamma80 All what you list is intangibles, esp "generates more wealth etc" 4x as many people go to french palaces than UK palaces and with no Royals, they d be more open = more visitors.

D of E yes thats a great scheme but tbh you could call it anything, so long as it had the funding, after all D of E will carrying on now he has gone.

Reassures? a great help with millions of families in poverty, must be a great comfort.

KC wont slim it down, no one votes for their own demise.

It's certainly a phrase I'll be happy to never hear again after the last couple of weeks.

It makes being born into the royal family sound like an cruel burden, frankly.

I'm with you, OP.

I had a look at the Court Circulars for William and Catherine.

It just read like a load of jollies tbh.

One of the "eulogisers" yesterday said that the Queen never let her true opinion be known about anything. This was presented as an admirable characteristic. I found that puzzling.

How odd to be puzzled by it. Her role was one that relied on neutrality hence her ability to keep her opinions to herself being considered an asset.

Wow “the ability to keep her opinions to herself is an asset”

an adult needs to be congratulated and be given extraordinary privilege and wealth because they manage not to put their foot in their mouth/just not say anything.

that’s the lowest bar I’ve ever seen

I don't like hunting and blood sports either, but I think William and Kate are big fans. William has been taking George grouse shooting since he was 5, according to news reports. It seems a pretty entrenched hobby within the RF, almost compulsory. It's odd that royalists don't object, but I think they probably vote conservative and therefore sympathise with people's desire for hunting as a hobby or 'sport.'

They've also got all these justications about it being good for the environment and a clean death that they (correctly) believe the stupid commoners will accept as beyond their limited understanding of 'country matters'.

At least they kill their own food, the rest of us have it killed for us 😱

Yes, I expect they say it's good for the environment, but activities like grouse shooting raise serious concerns about damage to our ecosystems. There are issues with unauthorised culling of our birds of prey. There's the cruelty of the killing itself. Deer don't get a quick. clean death, nor do fox or boar. I suppose some people just think the RF so special, how could we commoners understand their ways. I think a lot of people are tory voters as well, and traditionally support hunting. You are right there's a bit of smoke and mirrors around the issue, which I do think is similar to the concepts of service and duty.