Do you think Prince Andrew should be made to leave Royal Lodge?

[Houseplanter]

Another (trashy) article in the press today saying Andrew needs to downsize out of Royal Lodge and make way for Wills & co.

Apparently he doesn't have the fund for its upkeep, it's falling in to disrepair.

W & C obviously could make better use of it.

He's been there 30 years so I can understand he doesn't want to move out of essentially his family home. My own view is he should be in deepest darkest nowhere, but wondered what others thought.

Is there any reason at all to leave him be?

So? They don't make the laws.
Contact the law makers.

They have a legal right to veto any new legislation. They can do this until amendments are made.

Thats what I mean by a culture of deference around them. Parliament, the courts, and the press who are supposed to be working for us instead forelock tug to the Royals. No party will put even basic constitutional reform in their manifesto. The presses job is to hold truth to power. Instead, they drone on about Harry and Meghan. The existence of a Royal Family enables this.

It's just the monarch who can't be prosecuted (Sovereign immunity).

The rest of them can be and some have been taken to court - Princess Anne and her nasty nippy dogs and penchant for speeding spring to mind.

I think it's fair to assume Charles isn't kicking him out because Andrew has a legally binding lease.

Not above that law then?

They are the only people who can get amendments to potential legislatioñ before it becomes law,

Disgracefully they're also exempt from FOI requests, have their wills sealed and have managed to dodge even the limited accountability inherent in the fixed and debated Civil List payment.

We're not talking about breaking laws, we are talking about demanding exemptions before laws are made. So, for example, The Queen demanded an opt out from the Race Relations Act, which still applies to the Equality Act. So when the law was passed, The Queen was still able to racially discriminate when hiring staff. She didn't break the law, because the law contained the opt out she requested. Buckingham Palace can still truthfully say ' we comply with the law' because the law contains an exception for the Monarch.

@CathyorClaire exemptions from many laws apply to other Royal Family members.

In the 1970s, the British government introduced laws against racial and sexual discrimination in the workplace, which were later folded into the 2010 Equality Act. However, documents by the Guardian revealed the Queen was reportedly exempt from these laws.

https://time.com/6275480/king-charles-iii-privileges-laws-exempt/

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2021/mar/25/revealed-police-barred-from-searching-queens-estates-for-looted-artefacts

What's your point?
The police, courts and lawmakers shouldn't allow that to happen. They're at fault.

exemptions from many laws apply to other Royal Family members.

Could you provide some examples?

The majority of exemptions in your articles appear to apply to the monarch alone.

The Monarch is the Head of State. Why should the head of State, and one that we cannot remove be allowed to do this?

The majority, not all.
Here is one that now applies to Prince William. There are more.

https://amp.theguardian.com/uk-news/2021/feb/09/prince-charles-vetted-laws-that-stop-his-tenants-buying-their-homes

I agree. I think in the absence of an elected head of state the least we could hope for is that the monarchy be fully transparent and accountable.

I'm just interested in which other royals apart from the monarch might be routinely exempt from 'many laws' as I've never understood this to be the case.

Here is one that now applies to Prince William. There are more.

That's about the vetting and lobbying process though. Dubious and disgraceful though it is we've known about it a long time.

I agree. I think in the absence of an elected head of state the least we could hope for is that the monarchy be fully transparent and accountable.

I do hold our institutions and the press for this. Who wouldn't, if told they could do what they like, do what they like? They just arent being properly held to account. They should be making sure any exemptions are at the very least openly debated in Parliament and have to be justified. I bet the Monarch wouldn't be making hundreds of demands for exemptions if every one had to be openly announced in Parliament, with a reason why they should have it. I have my issues with The Guardian, but they are the only ones making FoI requests to get this out in the open.

Wasn't the royal family a splendid idea?

Do you have access to a time machine? Perhaps you could pop back to 1066 and let them know you don't approve, lol.

Does anyone remember him smashing into the Windsor Park gates because he couldn’t be bothered to drive to the gates that were actually open?

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3494501/amp/Prince-Andrew-rammed-closed-park-gates-80-000-Range-Rover-avoid-one-mile-detour-home.html

Does anyone remember him smashing into the Windsor Park gates because he couldn’t be bothered to drive to the gates that were actually open?

Yep. And him throwing papers on the floor and telling his protection officer to 'fucking pick them up'. And him making a palace maid climb several flights of stairs to close the curtains he was sitting a few feet from.

He's an arrogant oaf and always has been. Even worse is the thought that but for an accident of birth order it would have been him parking his lardy arse on the throne last year with nothing at all to be done about it.

All states were mafia type warlords steeped in blood and we burned witches for heresy. We have abandoned the latter .....

Grifters gonna grift - looks like Harry is an apple that didn't fall far from the tree, but not adultery as far as we know.

Maybe we no longer burn them with flames. Ask JK Rowling about she’s been treated for her heresy, however…

Many laws do not apply to them. This is just one example of farming laws in wales that Charles is exempt from. This is being above the law. The law does literally not apply to them.

This is not unique to the Royal Family! There are load of examples of bodies being exempt from general litigation. Lawyers are, for example, exempt from having to comply with financial services regulations, despite them very often conducting activities that are regulated. If anyone else conducted regulated activities without being authorised by t FCA, they’d be committing a criminal offence. But not lawyers. The Law Society vetted the proposals and lobbied for the exemption before the relevant act was passed in 2000.

There are plenty more exemptions just like this.