Should the Royal Family have to declare gifts

[Polka83]

I would be interested in people thoughts. Should the royal family have to declare gifts made by other states?

There is a Guardian article which says royal family agreed to declare gifts received over the last 4 years but they have failed to do so.

I understand that the royals will receive gifts from friends which don’t need to be declared, but what about gifts from other heads of states? It is unlikely that these gifts would come to the royals if they were commoners.

There are strict rules in how the royals should handle these gifts and if they belong to the state rather than personally by individual royals. For example, the Duchess of Sussex got £500,000 earrings from Saudi Arabia. How can we check if these rules are being followed unless they declare them?

https://amp.theguardian.com/uk-news/2024/oct/12/buckingham-palace-published-list-official-gifts-royal-family-king-charles

I was just talking the other day with a friend who grew up.in a South African township. Birthday and Christmas presents were largely clothes (and school stationery) because families couldn't afford much so new clothes (rather than hand me downs) were a treat.

DD and her friends have new clothes when they need something (though luckily we have always had loads of really nice hand me downs from a friend!).

For my friend growing up the equivalent of a brand new iPhone would be similar to a racehorse for us - crazily expensive and unrealistic.

For some people a racehorse worth a million is no big deal. Some people pay more than that for a watch.

I don't think that level of inequality is right, but the system needs to be changed, rather than criticising one person and blaming them for the system.

William was given 3 "I love New York" T-shirts for his dc when he was in NYC last year by an UK expat. I think it would be nice if the kids did wear the very inexpensive gifts.

In my experience, dealing with any kind of municipal, state, or government infrastructure is a nightmare since they are understaffed and have aging tech. I imagine it is the same in the UK.

William was given 3 "I love New York" T-shirts for his dc when he was in NYC last year by an UK expat. I think it would be nice if the kids did wear the very inexpensive gifts.

Well I suppose they might do in private, but given we only really see them on State occasions or occasionally in public where perhaps a slogan T-shirt is inappropriate, plus the fact that children grow like weeds, they would probably be unable to publicise the fact that they wear them. Also, given that they probably get quite a lot of stuff like this, how would they decide which ones to wear to be photographed 🤷‍♀️

edited to remove repetition 😆

The late queen made a member of the royal family donate money to charity after they sold official gifts

Sounds like a piece of PR puff to me - show the receipts and I might actually believe it

Possibly the Guardian (the Mail in reverse) is struggling for something to fill their wretched site/pages, but it doesn't alter the fact that the RF have a long and depressing history of cover ups and squirrelling cash wherever they can, and probably expect to go right on doing it

If The Guardian has something solid to go on they would print it rather than just imply a problem. They need to do more digging for evidence of they want to lobby for changes to the existing rules.

It's hard to dig for evidence when the royals can and routinely do block FOI requests.

I think it's interesting the Palace blandly 'declined to comment'.

I think it's interesting the Palace blandly 'declined to comment'.

Didn’t they only decline to comment on the actual location of the items, though? There is no dispute about the fact that the items
have been catalogued. I’m not sure they would ever say where the items are for security reasons 🤷‍♀️

Didn’t they only decline to comment on the actual location of the items, though?

According to the article they declined to comment on the 'ownership status' of the artworks.

We're left to make of that what we will...

Do you know what the actual question was that the Palace returned “No comment” to though? It’s very easy to twist words.

For example, the newspaper provides a copy of an article to someone for commnet. They say “we have no commnet to make”. Newspaper cherrypicks a couple of individual allegations and says “X said no comment to this”. A very common press tactic. Not untrue, but misleading.

It surprised me that people think there can be no conflict of interest or inappropriate favouritism.

Why are they being given such incredibly expensive things if there’s no benefit to the giver?

I’m very surprised to learn that for example the Saudis give expensive presents to people for no reason. If that’s the case I’ll have some jewellery thanks.

I have no reason to think these things aren’t recorded properly, I’m just very surprised that people genuinely belive extraordinary gifts are handed over with no possible benefit.

Sometimes the only benefit is to the giver though. It can be a way of showing off their extraordinary wealth and therefore their power. I would imagine that many of the expensive gifts are of no real use 🤷‍♀️

@smilesy of course there's a benefit to the giver. Especially when it's the Saudis. It's just like them buying a football club and using it to sportswash their image.

If I go to dinner with someone, I take a gift, flowers, perhaps chocolates. The Saudi's just do the same with diamonds and race horses!

The difference being that you're presumably not at dinner with an official representative of an oil rich nation with a hugely questionable human rights record.

I love the naivety around this - it's just very rich people with terrible human rights records being nice! And it's just being awfully busy that makes the royals 4 years late with letting us know about their gifts!

I think we are all aware of the issue with some regimes. The point was that extravagant gift giving is normal to them

@smilesy the extravagant gift giving is another use of their extreme wealth to make themselves look better. They use their wealth to buy people and get them on their side.

I’m very surprised to learn that for example the Saudis give expensive presents to people for no reason. If that’s the case I’ll have some jewellery thanks
They give presents that are not expensive to them. They give them to people who host them or are hosted by them. The presents mean the same to them as chocolates or wine do to us. Why would they give you a present?

Yes I know that. I’m just pointing out that it is normal to them to give lavish gifts. I am
well aware that they have other motives but they also do it to demonstrate their wealth and power to a domestic audience ie they do it to make themselves look good as well as to try and influence others. I wasn’t attributing pure altruism to their gift giving 🙄

grammar

@smilesy but you've continued to do that? There is only one motivation. It's nothing to do with it being normal to them.

Of course it isn't pure altruism! I don't think anyone is claiming that.

But nor does it tend to be a straightforward purchase of influence.

Back in my fundraising days one charity got a very significant (over £1million) gift to our campaign from someone who didn't hide that they were after a knighthood. They gave similar gifts to the party in government, so they just needed to provide an excuse for that party to nominate them. 'Services to charity' was the excuse. Should we have turned the money down?

No I haven’t. I said they give lavish gifts to
demonstrate their wealth and power. In what way does that mean I think their giving is altruistic?

eta by “normal” I mean that is what they do. They give gifts. I don’t mean that they don’t ever expect their gifts not to be reciprocated in some way. But sometimes gifts are given as a demonstration of wealth and power, not in expectation of something in reborn on that occasion. It all boils down to the same thing effectively so I’m not sure why you seem to think I am on their side or something 🤷‍♀️

I don't understand why it's fine for the RF to take extravagant gifts and not declare them but not for politicians to do the same.

In return. Not reborn. Missed editing window

The other point to remember is that the Royals are having dinner with these official representatives of oil rich states with a known penchant for extravagant gift- giving because the Foreign Office tells them to.

Making nice to oil-rich states that invest billions in our economy and buy our weapons is a key plank of the current foreign policy. Guess who is coming here for a State Visit in December? That would be the Emir of Qatar.

It’s not - their policy says they should. They haven’t been publishing the records recently though. (Again, they should).