Catherine’s return to duties

[PrettyFlyforaMaiTai]

Catherine has returned to her public duties and has visited the Royal Marsden hospital today to “show her gratitude to the incredible team, but also highlight the world-leading care and treatment the Marsden provides".

It has been revealed that she attended her chemotherapy appointments at Royal Marsden. She thanked staff and visited patients for approximately an hour. It’s also been released that she will join William in becoming a royal patron of the hospital.

news.sky.com/story/kate-visits-royal-marsden-hospital-to-thank-staff-who-looked-after-her-during-cancer-treatment-13288556

They can do what they want. Your money isn't funding their holidays. They're allowed a holiday, just like you are.
Your money funds the sovereign grant, which funds official travel, property maintenance, and the operating costs of the Royal Household. It also includes a one-off sum for the restoration of Buckingham Palace.

Interesting that they didn’t fly by private jet …..

So they didn't fly by private jet that's big of them. That small detail will keep the fawning royalists happy then.

Agree a lot of families with money will have skied at Christmas and will be away for half term.

I do think delaying it to attend that BAFTAs might have been a nice thing to so - BAFTA might consider moving it if it's always going to clash with half term!!

Royal Fashion Police has quite the takedown of this decision!!

no, my money is funding their lifestyle.

How lovely, a family holiday in Mustique, they are welcome to my 50p or whatever after the year they’ve had. Are you a very big earner, @Mightymoog as you seem concerned about the amount you’re contributing?

Are you a net contributor? I am. My money is funding many peoples' lifestyles. Many services I will never need. Many superfluous jobs in government. Much waste and unnecessary frippery across all publicly funded services. That's the social contract of being a taxpayer. If I wasn't funding the monarch and his heirs, I'd be funding another head of state and his/her cronies.

you may be happy to directly fund billionaires: I'm not

But are you, @Mightymoog ? Are you a net contributor?

Very good point, @PigeonDress and still no answer.

@RadStag "Your money funds the sovereign grant, which funds official travel, property maintenance, and the operating costs of the Royal Household."

Also security.

No it's not.

It goes on the sovereign grant, which funds their roles.

Your taxes fund my lifestyle fa more than theirs no doubt. You races allow me to send my kids to school for free, so I can spend the money on holidays. Your taxes fund the local leisure centre so I can swim.

They're not billionaires.

We don't funf their lives. Just the work they do... much like we fund MPs...

That's probably part of operating costs, but fair enough.

We also fund security for other high profile people that have credible threats to their lives and their families.

I pay far less towards the royal family than I do towards my tv license (which I begrudge paying as I barely watch the BBC and generally don’t like the institution) and find them a lot more entertaining.

We may fund a lot of public servants but we don't fund their spouses, children, siblings and so on. Before a royalist comes up with oh but we only fund the working royals. No we don't the rest of the hangers on are also funded. For example Princess Anne's children live rent free on her estate which the Queen gave to her. where was that property originally from? Edward and Sophie's properly has a long term lease on it so their children can live their rent free. They are all funded from the RF in some way or another which is in turn from the tax payer. They pay no tax, inheritance tax or anything else like the rest of us. I am a tax payer and yes I do begrudge my 50p going on them.

I find the security issue a red herring. In the US presidents and former presidents get security so I can't see how removing the Royal family would save money on that front.

I think I am. Hard to pin down exactly when I've used the NHS maternity care etc, but I pay a fair chunk of tax from the business so on balance pretty confident I'm a NC.
What has that got to do with my funding the billionaire RF though?

And do we then fund mp's children and grandchildren forever?

The current king is worth approx. 2 billion in private wealth

So some of that is untrue. They all pay tax apart from the monarch who pays income tax voluntarily (I agree that should be changed) and no inheritance tax monarch to monarch (that needs looking at again).

The Queen buying Anne an estate from her private funds is no different from all the other old rich families who built up wealth by sheer luck if birth and sometimes clever money management.

Re the lease situation. A lease is the right to occupy the property - rent and maintenance still have to be paid.

I agree there need to be a lot more detailed financial transparency so that we can see exactly how the money is distributed between Crown property maintenance and personal expenses.

For example Princess Anne's children live rent free on her estate which the Queen gave to her. where was that property originally from?

This is all publicly available information. Gatcombe Park, Princess Anne’s home, was purchased for her by QEII shortly after her marriage to Mark Phillips. It had previously been the home of Rab Butler, a former Home Secretary and his wife who was the daughter of the very wealthy Samuel Courtauld. She had been left the house by her father. The purchase price was not publicly disclosed, but was estimated to be between £500k and £750k, and paid from QEII’s private funds. The purchase was publicly discussed at the time by MPs by the way, some of whom disapproved it.

I don’t imagine you know whether Princess Anne’s children live on the estate rent free or not? If she still owns it at her death and leaves it to them in her will they will have to pay inheritance tax on it, however. And it’s worth considerably more than its purchase price now, of course.

Did the Queen buy her other two kids a house as well?

No she didn’t - although I think she gave Andrew money towards that first home that he and Fergie built and lived in? The one people joked was like Southfork in Dallas.

I assume Edward got money towards the lease, rent and upkeep of the Crown property he lives in instead of a house purchase.

Anne got the best deal I think - she owns it, it’s both home and a business that she loves, and big enough to offer homes for her kids to keep the grandchildren close. And as it’s a private estate and not a Crown one Zara and Peter don’t have to worry about disclosing how much rent or not they pay to their mother, vs the Crown properties.

Three kids you mean?

Charles bought his open (Highgrove) via the Duchy of Cornwall in 1980, so it’s owned by the Duchy rather than Charles personally. He has rented it from the Duchy ever since.

Interesting, Parliament had assumed that that Charles would live in Chevening House in Kent, which had been left to the government in the 1950s on the basis that the PM would decide who got to use it. Charles preferred to arrange his own accommodation however, and so Chevening House is now assigned to the Foreign Minister for their use.

QEII bought a house for Andrew and Fergie (or rather she bought a plot of land and a house was built on it). Andrew sold it to a Kazahk businessman (in a not at all dodgy-looking deal 👀 ) in 2007.

And Edward and Sophie lease Bagshot Park, a mansion in Windsor that Queen Victoria had built for one of her sons to live in. It had previously been leased to the Army, but they relocated and the house became vacant and was leased by Edward the year before he and Sophie got married. He allegedly pays £90,000 a year to lease it and paid £5m to extend the lease for 150 years (where did he get that money? Most likely funded by QEII, I would imagine?).