The Times

[Rushingfool]

Anyone else think The Times should not be printing extracts from this new book about Royal Courtiers at this time? Incredibly stupid given that H&M are trying to mend fences? I feel really quite cross for everyone involved - William's efforts to build bridges etc, all going to be in vain now. Very naughty.

Wouldn’t life be cheaper in a republic eh?

Either you want a RF in which case you fund pointless multimillion £ weddings or you don’t and spend it on something more useful.

I’d like an explanation of Andrew’s financial dealings with dodgy Kazakhs and why Charles accepted a 1 million charity donation from the Bin Ladens, and 1 million in cash from a controversial Qatari politician.

I mean, let’s have a full investigation of the RF’s dodgy financial dealings over the last 50 years. See how much money has been both bunged and wasted. Yes?

I agree - let's go on the money and the criminality, not the personalities and milinary.

@Coucous I think you're making a bit of a fool of yourself, to be honest.
Alleging slavery is a new low.

Catchy. Might put it on a T-shirt.

You will have to ask the palace about that.

DH does card tricks ( well thinks he does!) also tells worse jokes than Tim Vine ……

Please don't resort to name calling. I am just going by what's being said. It's either she was working for the RF or not. If she wasn't a working member of the RF as has been implied then she did not need to adhere to any employee's policies or demands of wearing a hat or whatever they expected her to do.
Otherwise then she would be a slave - working without being paid. Nobody works without pay.

It's still unclear if she was actually working for them or not!

Maybe Meghan just didn't want to be served on a platter to the highest bidding tabloid every time to cover other scandals? Perhaps she didn't want to be around people accused of sexual abuse, or family members who might be casually racist / hypocrites accepting money in bags from Middle Eastern sheiks.
I suspect there's a lot we do not know and I wish that interview was more revealing - I know there is more.
If only Harry's books could tell all - but for the sake of his relationship with his family he might not. A shame for bottom feeders who live off the gossip.

I actually thought the names of the supposed victims were given, which how posters are going on. It is all still 'sources' and Jason Knauf. Even namedropping (staff members that we already know worked there), it is 'a source said so and so thought this' rather than direct quotes. But hey it works, posters now think it's all true.

Lost of inconsistencies too. Sam Cohen was so mad at H&M, she came back all the way from Australia to negotiate the exit deal on their behalf too?
S Latham was so unhappy she came to help Harry with the Bon Jovi tour, and was front and centre all smiles and laughter?

No mention that that the French PA was a nanny to Robbie Williams and went back to nannying for a tabloid boss afterwards - strange she was given such a high position of PA to a senior royal.
No mention that someone was dismissed for gross misconduct.

Strangely only the KP staff seemed to have a problem with MM. SR staff seemed fine and were distributed around other departments later. The best you can say is that the staff seemed rather incompetent and lazy at such a high level. At worse, they were not used to taking instructions from a woc and did not like it.

This is the same thing VLowe did right before the OW interview. Now he is doing it again before H's book. Mostly, just like TB, he is fleecing the money making 'bash MM train' before it's completely too late.

The book is called 'Courtiers', but it seems he is concentrating on bashing MM instead. I wonder if he will bash the other bullies in the palace like Charles, Anne and Andrew etc. Better yet, why won't he do a prerelease on the actual subject, which its the Courtiers themselves.

"Otherwise then she would be a slave - working without being paid. Nobody works without pay."

Another poster has already pointed out everything that's wrong with this remark.
None of the Royal Family receives an actual paycheck. Their financial reward comes in other ways. Surely you can understand this?

To be fair if they didn't write about Meghan then it wouldn't sell.
Maybe KM was gossiping to her staff about MM to her staff - it only takes 1 person to slag you off and it's game over.

Who paid for the Wedding? The Queen?

And one by one the mice on the mice organ appear with their Tom Bower and Piers Morgan quotes…

Your attitude to people who prick your facade is also illuminating Irisversicolor. I am a good faith, sensible contributor to these discussions. The fact that the only thing you have to offer in return is ludicrous insults says everything I need to know about you.

I completely agree with this. Consistency is obviously not something some posters are familiar with.

The dodgy dealings of bloodline royals who have been part of the royal machine since birth is very different to a non-blood royal who turns up and starts throwing her weight around after five minutes of service. Her conduct should be compared to the other spouses of royals and even then, she never stayed for the dull bit but springboarded a career off the back of her short experience. She never brought wealth, privilege or status to the family (as ,say, Princess Michael of Kent) she took and ran.

I completely agree!

I've largely come off these threads as the waves of toxicity (from both sides) get a bit too much. But I wanted to jump on to say that @Roussette and @Serenster are both excellent contributors to discussion - they are measured and try to supply references/sources if required but both bring different personal experiences/expertise to the discussion - and shock, horror remain civil in sharing disagreements (unless I've blanked a thread when they both went full on Peaky Blinders turf war on each other) Belittling either of them does not show other posters in a positive, adult light.

@Coucous to answer your question - the formula for Royal Weddings as far as I can tell is that the RF pay for the weddingy bits and the tax payer pays for the security. H&M wedding cost by most accounts c£32m and about £30m of that was on security. For comparison, police security for Notting Hill Carnival is about £9million per year and police security for London premier league football matches is about £8m per year.

I don't know if there is any charge back on security to the RF (not that I can see from googling) plus I'm not sure how the costs of international people of importance (or whatever the phrase is) are accounted for globally - do countries just accept that every so often they have a massive security bill to account for a major event or do some countries charge back a proportion of hosting costs to guest countries.....

I have never insulted you. But I do find your posts funny.

Take a chill pill ladies and gentlemen - we don't know these people. Thanks you myrtle for clarifying that.

I just don't think we should pay for the RF at all. The firm should pay for their events. From Weddings, Funerals, Coronations etc.

But I wanted to jump on to say that @Roussette and @Serenster are both excellent contributors to discussion - they are measured and try to supply references/sources if required but both bring different personal experiences/expertise to the discussion

I appreciate that. Thank you @myrtleWilson
I always remember my dear old Aunt Myrtle when I see your name

Thanks from me too @myrtleWilson . Roussette and I did have a close encounter out the back of the Garrison one night, but you’ll be delighted to know we walked away fully respecting each other 😉

Hehe.... we kicked that football on a Christmas Day didn't we?! 🤣

Signs are that William and Kate will make the most changes to the whole protocol in their reign... that curtsying will stop and those hideous colonial type trips to commonwealth countries.

I'd love to see that but I also think William would benefit from his brothers support, even if Harry is not a working Royal. I hope they can work on that for the benefit of all. But the Royals do need to use their influence with the press to stop the slagging off of H&M for this to happen.

I do wonder just who will support William and Catherine because there are few obvious individuals.
It won’t be Anne’s children, could be Edward and Sophie’s perhaps I suppose but obviously not Harry and Meghan’s nor Beatrice or Eugenia. So it will be a very slim RF indeed!

ooft - the next instalment has dropped on the Times. First section does not look good for Harry, second section focuses on the toxic earrings and different explanations for how they came to be used and my take from the rest of the article is that this was a household in disarray - H&M seeing obstruction and difficulty, their staff feeling blindsided and upset.