Queen Elizabeth

[Nono22972]

No disrespect to her but people and the media often talk about her sense of duty, her stability and professionalism but what would would say are some of the things in her last 15-20 years on the throne that you would criticise her for?

My obvious response is how she handled the Prince Andrew situation and staying on the throne as long as she did. She should've abdicated 10 or 20 years before her death, in my opinion

I think the difference is for H&M we have heard a lot from their own mouthes so I guess it’s easier to judge what they’re like personally (I know they’re media trained and stuff but still)… whereas other royals you don’t know much other than what’s in the media or what friends tell tabloids. They’ll occasionally reveal something like Prince Louis likes Paw Patrol and Princess Charlotte’s favourite vegetable is cabbage or something, but it’s not properly personal

You once defended a poster who said suggested something awful about my character. “It’s just an opinion”. Words to live by.

I would hate feeling such intense dislike for someone I don't know, whose shoes I have never walked in

I understand that sentiment @Roussette I really do. But my feelings aren’t based on nothing. I don’t need to walk in her shoes to know how I feel about certain things which have been said and done, or to form an impression of a type I recognise.

Intense dislike is bit strong, I would say I feel no warmth or sympathy towards her but that’s as far as it goes. I don’t generally carry those thoughts around with me, but it came up so I commented as otherwise I’d have to be helping DH mow the lawn.

I was thinking about the point that we do not KNOW members of the RF. Fair point. I don't know Camilla but I think I know a few things about her. I know her mother had osteoporosis and I think Camilla gives support to a couple of charities about that and arthritis, unless she's now given them up, which I doubt. She encourages reading in adults and children. She sent a cake to the commentators on Test Match Special a few years ago. (Other people did, too. It was a thing.) When Donald Trump went to tea at Clarence House she smiled gently and winked at the cameramen. She looked to me that day as if she has a sense of fun. Many things about her and the others are indeed channelled and controlled to us by journalists - TV and papers, - but we do know and see certain things which we can reasonably like or dislike.

@Ohpleeeease Mowing the lawn on my agenda today too as it's my day off 😀. Shopping and cooking too as kids off to groups 🎉

Roussette · Today 10:47
So your post does not stand. We do not know Meghan so all these endless insults about her being "a type" are total BS.

I criticise the Institution not the people, I don't know them. I will criticise their actions however, bags of cash, opacity of finances, endless promises of slimming down when the opposite happens...etc

As far as I'm aware I've never criticised Meghan for being a type. I've criticised her behaviour in numerous instances. She appears to be totally self-serving, image-conscious, and basically lacking in empathy.
I find it difficult to understand how anyone who has followed her actions since she & Harry married can think well of her.

I do
Others do

Good job we all.dont feel the same, that's life isn't it... different opinions

I like Meghan. From her public appearances, (obviously I don’t really know her - no one on here does), I find her to be charming, funny, and smart. Harry obviously adores her and it’s been 7 years now, and he still obviously adores her.

Her ex coworkers on Suits obviously liked her - saying how thoughtful and funny she was: Wendell Pierce who played her dad said lovely things about her. I’ve watched most of dramas that Wendell Pierce has been in since he played the part of ‘Bunk’ in The Wire - really intelligent tv imo, and worth the watch if you haven’t seen ‘The Wire.’

Meghan’s not perfect, but none of us are. I don’t demand perfection.

I think she’s awesome. Harry… eh less so 😅

Well said. My sentiments exactly 👍😊

I've only just seen this. On Andrew...very different I feel. You only have to look at Duke of York wiki page and see the dodgy deals with oligarchs, arms dealers and ME 'businessmen' he was involved in. Not just hearsay but references at the bottom of the page

You say this we know he associated with bad people. None of that had anything to do with his office
It's EVERYTHING to do with his 'office' . He used his position as a Trade Envoy, and a member of the RF to freeload, do very dodgy deals, make money and that's without his friendships for decades with two sex offenders and sex traffickers

No, we don't know him. But this is fact and we don't need to know him

@Roussette you’re right of course about the Trade Envoy stuff. Awful abuse of position.

Awful abuse of position.

He had form even prior to that.

Paint sprayed at journalists, driving his car through locked gates at Windsor rather than take a mile long detour and swearily demanding his personal protection officers pick up papers he'd thrown to the floor for instance.

Add on randoms romping round royal premises (Epstein and Maxwell), the still inadequately explained Beckham princess party at BP and the financial shockers at Pitch@Palace and it's never been a pretty picture.

Seeing the world through a prism of MM hate must be quite something. Your H has nothing to do with MM - you are projecting his failings onto her and then hating her even more, IMHO. Lest we forget the saintly Archbishop of Canterbury believes she is a unique individual who is making a major contribution to the world.

He has praised Meghan, saying: 'She's a person of profound humanity and deep concern for people, seeking to carry out her role with every ounce of her being – and I think she's a remarkable person.'

In 2021 he expressed sympathy for Harry, telling the Financial Times that being in the Royal Family was 'life without parole' and the public expected them to be 'superhuman'.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11687851/Archbishop-Canterbury-Justin-Welby-fallen-spell-Harry-Meghan-say-Palace-sources.html

Lest we forget the saintly Archbishop of Canterbury believes she is a unique individual who is making a major contribution to the world

Would that be the "saintly" Justin Welby who, when Dean of Liverpool, supported Canon John Roberts despite his longstanding conviction for child abuse?

Or is this going to be yet another case of he didn't know / hadn't been told / didn't realise the seriousness of the situation?

Well if we are going down that rabbit hole King Charles and Laurens Van der Post, Lord Mountbatten and Bishop Peter Ball, Saville ,I could go on ...

https://www.insider.com/prince-charles-history-with-pedophile-priest-peter-ball-2020-1

I was going to say that was a nice complement but the whataboutery stops me.

Sounds like Meghan and Charles keep the same kind of company.

Now let’s talk about how I can no longer spell.

Seeing the world through a prism of MM hate must be quite something. Your H has nothing to do with MM - you are projecting his failings onto her and then hating her even more, IMHO

Prism of hate? Listen to yourself.

Personal experience informs all of our judgment, if it didn’t that would be something to be concerned about.

vera99 · Today 09:54
Lest we forget the saintly Archbishop of Canterbury believes she is a unique individual who is making a major contribution to the world.

Welby is a man, and not a very worldly one. Looks for the good in people, as he should in his position.
Meghan would find it very easy to impress him with her saintly and philanthropic qualities.

Well if we are going down that rabbit hole King Charles and Laurens Van der Post, Lord Mountbatten and Bishop Peter Ball, Saville ,I could go on ...

Only too true, @vera99 - as I often say myself

Don’t forget shouting at Palace staff for not putting his beloved teddies back in the right order!

Things I disliked in the last 15-20 years? I think she was greedy, and found ways to enrich herself and her family.

Her handling of her son was disgusting to me, and it seems most seem to agree she failed her.

I dislike the sweet old granny PR. But I also sometimes loved it so begrudgingly I guess it worked!

I'm on the fence about whether or not she should have abdicated sooner, and maybe have created the title Queen Emeritus, or something of the sort, but if the couriers and advisors were actually running the show (which some seem to agree on after all), then yes. This last decade severely tainted her legacy for me.

I think she was greedy, and found ways to enrich herself and her family.

How exactly?

Opinion By Yasmin Alibhai-Brown

We’re always told the Queen hasn’t put a foot wrong. Really?

I never cease to be astonished by those intelligent and talented people who unthinkingly genuflect to the monarch and her clan
July 21, 2022

A new royal biography has landed! Another one to add to the tall pile published in the past decade. It’s by Tom Bower, a veteran profiler, firmly of the right, married to Veronica Judith Colleton Wadley CBE, previously the editor of the Evening Standard, now Baroness Fleet.
She backed Boris Johnson in the London mayoral elections, and he made her a peer. So, you get the picture. This power couple embody Tory elitism and are righteously loyal to the monarchy.

In his clumsily titled Revenge: Meghan, Harry and the War Between the Windsors, Bower informs readers that the Queen was relieved, glad even, when informed that Meghan would not attend Prince Phillip’s funeral. Not half as relieved and glad, I bet, as Meghan, who was heavily pregnant at the time and probably in no mood for a reunion with the backward Windsors.
Tripe and trite

Another “juicy” Bower disclosure: at the funeral Harry gave a nervous “sideways glance” at his brother, as they walked towards St George’s Chapel, separated by their cousin Peter Phillips.
Tripe and trite, in my opinion. Sam Kushner, an American journalist, an admirer of Meghan, has accused Bower of misrepresenting his views. But royalists will love the tome. These adulatory books are a key part of the propaganda that keeps this rotten royal edifice standing and well maintained.

I never cease to be astonished by those intelligent and talented people who unthinkingly genuflect to the monarch and her clan. Actress Vanessa Redgrave, a lifelong leftie, sank right down to the feet of Prince William in 2010 at a Bafta ceremony. He was 27, had achieved practically nothing. This week, Helen Mirren said that she’d written to Her Maj before playing her in the film, The Queen. She wanted to express sympathy for what she had been through when Diana died. (Really? Queen Elizabeth stayed in Balmoral till public opinion compelled her to show up.) The monarch did not reply.

Inconvenient truths

In this Jubilee year, it has become obligatory to declaim that the Queen “has not put a foot wrong”. She has. Many times. She embodies an extraordinary history and I respect that. But those millions of her loyalists either don’t know or don’t care to know inconvenient truths about the Windsors and the establishment. Their faith is fierce and blind. It is idolatry.
In 1968, a TV film was made of the “ordinary” lives of the Windsors. It was watched by 45 million people. In 1972, the Queen wanted it banned because it let “the magic out”. David Attenborough, the BBC2 controller, agreed and obliged.

In 1995, Wendy Berry, who worked for Diana and Charles penned The Housekeeper’s Diary: Charles and Diana Before the Breakup, a vivid account of their disintegrating marriage. She was 68 and a royalist. Charles had the book banned. It was published in the US.
The Firm has tried to stop further broadcasts of that infamous BBC interview with Diana. The ethics of the interviewer Martin Bashir are questionable, but the Princess knew what she was doing. So, we may watch Charles confessing to his adulterous relationship with Camilla but not his wife talking about her pain? Yeah, that’s freedom of speech British style. And guess what? BBC director general, Tim Davie, this week promised never to broadcast the interview again.
Protected from scrutiny

There’s more. This July, The Guardian revealed that “personalised exemptions for the Queen in her private capacity have been written into more than 160 laws since 1967, granting her sweeping immunity from swathes of British law – ranging from animal welfare to workers’ rights”.
Working royals are exempt from Freedom of Information requests. Much of their tax affairs are protected from scrutiny. Their wills can be secret forever. They do not have to follow the rules you and I have to.
Now Camilla, the third person in that marriage, is on a charm offensive. And the Queen’s subjects are, as ever, falling for the “magic”.
Will this ever end? Will we ever be a real democracy? Not in my lifetime.