A suitcase with a million euros in cash given to Charles

[antelopevalley]

The real question is what the Prime Minister was expecting in return.

"The Prince of Wales accepted a suitcase containing a million euros in cash from a former Qatari prime minister, the Sunday Times has reported.
The paper says this was one of three cash donations from Sheikh Hamad bin Jassim totalling three million euros.
Clarence House said donations from the sheikh were passed immediately to one of the prince's charities and all the correct processes were followed.
There is no suggestion the payments were illegal.
According to the Sunday Times, Prince Charles received the three cash donations in person from the former prime minister between 2011 and 2015.
It is claimed that on one occasion the money was handed over in a holdall at a meeting at Clarence House. On another, the paper reported the cash was contained in carrier bags from the department store Fortnum and Mason."

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-61941113

MaulPerton We're going to have to agree to disagree (period)

I see it like this: all those weird/random articles about Harry and his wife when Andrew's almost-trial was going on, surely those were the work of pros

It's entirely possible to enjoy the self destructing circus dislike royal bad behaviour wherever it manifests in an equal and unbiased way.

A couple of days before a bad story on Andrew was published they would always print sth about Harry and his wife

Can you supply some links supporting this statement?

Let's not forget the random articles about psychics and Diana "hating Megan"!

Those passed me by and I love a bit of easily debunked woo.

Linkyloo?

CathyorClaire Clearly you only read posh papers! I'll admit to reading the DM...! Ahhh should have NC before admiting to that in public.
It was really really obvious then! Many people started noticing it and commenting on it because it was that obvious and then they blocked and deleted comments because it was that obvious. So you'll notice articles about Andrew at the time had few comments. They even wrote ridiculous articles about Kate too at the time, usually before sth major about Andrew's trial came out.
Here's a link about the psychic but I think there's more I just can't be bothered to look for it, you can google it!
www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-9651031/Princess-Dianas-Psychic-reveals-Meghan-Markles-marriage-Harry-doomed-fail.html
If you google the date on Harry's articles and look for the ones about Andrew, the dates should more or less match. I'll leave that up to you.

I don't disagree with you at all. Clearly, PR is hugely important to these people. I just don't think it's the whole story. There must be something else to account for why we 'like' some RF members but not others despite their expensive PR firms working overtime. For example, Camilla's image has benefited from good advisors whereas Andrew, despite the dutiful charity box-packing stills and videos over lockdown does not seem to be able to improve on his. I assume that Charles employs as good a PR firm as the Queen and yet she is far more liked than he is. I agree with Puzzled that, with Charles, it will be an uphill struggle for any PR firm to rework him.

So Many obvious things. There are a couple of articles on the DM right now on M+H - nonsense articles. One published hours after PC's 3 mil in bags from a ME Sheik story. The PC article was minimized and didn't make headlines but H+M article made a massive headline with over 5K comments and at the time PC had barely 1.5K comments - and you could barely see it with a tiny picture. Hours later another nonsense article about M+H.

It's hardly rocket science. They don't even hide it.

Cathy

Just for you about bad stories being buried with an M&H story.

twitter.com/royal_suitor/status/1542268972095049728

After being briefed that the Royal Family’s annual spending increased by 17% & reached record highs topping £100M during a cost of living crisis, some papers believe a 10 day-old story on someone who’s not taxpayer funded is the lead story while others ignored palace spending

Pictures supplied

Even the BBC breakfadt news are reporting on the Meghan bullying non story will not be published which we all knew anyway. Why aren't they talking about the 17% increase to the RF during a cost of living crisis? Or talking about bags of cash to Charles?

The Sovereign Grant Report 21/22 is out. Bring on a Meghan non story to try and hide it.

£102.4million? They're having a larf. (I know about BP renovation)
And that figure doesn't include security. Their travel costs increased from £1.3M to £4.5M and I do know Covid will have affected that. Spending on the Royals increased by 17%
All in the tail end of a pandemic with no M&H to pay for.

At least Sky News have got the balls to report on the increase in the Sovereign Grant. They have Norman Baker on soon, an ex MP and ex Member of the Privy Council

They have Norman Baker on soon ...

Ah yes, the author of the book none of the monarchists seem to want to want to read - that'll be fun

About the BP renovations, I'm aware that this was used as the excuse for a massive uplift in the funding for x number of years, but what's the betting it'll never go down again?
(Yes, I know the agreement is that it can never go down, but with the renovation cash supposedly being temporary I imagine another fudge will be needed)

The thing is, we know all this and yet it takes only one small nice act from the royals and we start fawning. We all do it. No matter how much we dislike the whole set-up, all it takes is a picture of the queen on a train or Camilla laughing at a country show and all is temporarily forgotten and forgiven, PR or no PR. They are different to celebs, we treat them differently, and it will take a lot to unseat them. H & M's image is gone, possibly forever. No PR can fix them. So is Andrew's. Charles is an oddity, which could play in his favour. Overall, though, the RF will remain for a long time to come.

I watched him. He was good, factual, succinct and hit home.

The upturn in Sovereign Grant is put down to BP renovations being maximised because of the Jubilee. Ho hum

But Baker did mention a private airplane flight from London to up North somewhere for C&C recently, costing something like £23K. He's taken over 20 private flights over the last year because 'he doesn't want to be stuck in traffic'

There were 179 helicopter trips taken by the RF in the year 2021/22 totalling just short of £1million
Obscene.

I'm also at the £24M spent on staff. Do they really need 500 staff? They are just one family after all.

@MaulPerton

Totally agree. We just have to see Kate at Wimbledon in a nice dress, and heaven forbid, taking one of the kids with her and it's all 'move on folks, nothing to see here'

I think we're brainwashed.

I have a friend who has more or less said 'I love the Royals, I love everything about them, they can do exactly what they want because they are royal, and I don't care what they do'.

Thanks for links

I tend to skip over the dull caperings of M+H in favour of the more pertinent outrages the rest of them are committing.

Over £100m on them now and as the marvellous Norman Baker pointed out we can multiply that many times over when the costs of security and tax breaks are factored in.

He was well worth watching this morning.

I wonder if the excesses have to reach a particular number before things happen on the ground? How much is too much excess even for royalty? What do the public see as a big number in this context?

Over £102m is quite jarring I would've thought?!

I watched him. He was good, factual, succinct and hit home

I had a visitor so wasn't able to watch, but thinking about his clearly well researched book that makes perfect sense

The obscene level of use of private aircraft, helicopters, etc, are no surprise since they're all at it. As I've said before it's almost like filling their boots while they can, and why folk are so bamboozled by the spin is an enduring mystery to me

They love to be lesser than. The class system has been ingrained into them.

I promised myself I wouldn't comment on this anymore. However, I've been having a looksy at what's going on in the world and gossip, has anyone read the DM a serious source of news? I almost burst out laughing! I wonder whether they've been reading this thread and that's their way to counter it? Hahah, you don't have to read the actual articles, just open the DM and you don't even have to scroll down... @CathyorClaire The DM rests my case, for those in doubt: the proof lies in the pudding DM.

At the top and printed in massive letters:
www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-10969771/Queen-96-joins-Prince-Charles-watch-military-parade-Holyroodhouse.html
www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-10969051/Thrifty-Queen-leads-way-cutting-back.html
www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10968145/Buckingham-Palace-faces-questions-Meghan-bullying-probe-revises-HR-policies.html
www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10969667/Palace-refusal-publish-findings-Meghan-bullying-probe-olive-branch-Sussexes.html
www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-10968847/Prince-Charles-Princess-Anne-stand-Queen-Order-Thistle-Service.html
Blink and you'll miss it:
www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10967401/Charles-emotional-meeting-Lilibet-reunion-Archie-Jubilee-celebration.html
www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10967213/Cases-cash-Prince-Charles-never-happen-days-source-says.html

@Roussette
No surprise that it's the Fail and the Torygraph that are leading with the bullying story. So much to cover up this week : FBI may call Andy, PC with suitcases, William on camera with his temper towards a pleb and now the spending while we are still battling energy crisis.

Camilla laughing at a country show and all is temporarily forgotten and forgiven, PR or no PR. They are different to celebs, we treat them differently, and it will take a lot to unseat them. H & M's image is gone, possibly forever. No PR can fix them.
You keep saying this.
I don't think people particularly like Camilla, at most they don't care.

For a lot of people, they have seen that H&M were scapegoats, and now that they don't take tax money, no most don't particularly dislike them either.

@Oceanus
That story about PC 'emotional' reunion, what was this story about?

Also where are the 'he is leaking private meetings' brigade?

@notanotheroneagain You know, I wasn't going to read any of these 😊😋 but I read half-ish of the "emotional reunion" one and then scrolled down to the comments... All I can say is I'm surprised this wasn't published 2 hours after the story about the bags with cash came out! Hahah! Surely they ought to have a direct no. to call the DM at this point!
"the 'he is leaking private meetings' brigade" is busy adding down votes on the DM articles and saying "I hate Meagain and she'll be the downfall of the RF!", "Harry's terrible and him going bald is just karma" (and nonsense along these lines) and they're too busy commenting on other articles saying "I love Camilla, she's so nice and she'll make such a wonderful queen!" "Sophie's so lovely!".
Honestly I hardly ever read those type of articles anymore as they might as well have been printed on letterhead from the RF! I will admit to reading the comments every now and then! And I've seen the ones about H+M get hundreds of down votes in a few seconds and whenever sb posts I like Harry they can get a dozen comments with insults in less than five minutes too. Sorry but imho, and my opinion's unlikely to change on this, I don't think any of this is normal. This pattern of comments isn't normal, the same way it isn't normal for the DM to block comments about Andrew -free speech my arse! - more like there was a meeting behind closed doors...
The times for a free press are long gone and I feel sorry for the regular folks because some of what's been written -or hasn't like the mysterious article about Boris, that all the international press were talking about recently, that was published in the UK and then vanished in a few hours from more than one paper- on other topics too is just utterly ridiculous.

The British press is owned by a handful of men who don't even pay the tax here. Lording over us plebs, telling us what to think. They can't even hide their contempt, and it's amazing how many are swayed by them.

I think it isn't about being swayed by them but more about the fact so many see these tabloids as their only bible. They won't look anywhere else for other views and only ever read these, so they're bound to have a skewed view on the world.
Let's look at the experts they use, who usually (and by pure coincidence) always have a book coming out (or are selling something)... Although self-appointed experts would be a better term because some are literally just that "I had a dream one night, woke up and decided to devote my life to this, write a blog, do youtube videos and read a lot about it and voilá 1 year later they're an expert and now they're publishing a book which another expert will be using to write their own book.

Should have added I read tabloids too because I like reading the comments and they can very entertaining but they're not all I read!

It's absolutely fascinating to watch. Who will blink next? Will she make a political bid? Will Will make a funny quip? Will Camilla laugh? Who will pay for it all?