King Charles - disquiet at Highgrove & the gardeners’ exodus - SUNDAY TIMES INVESTIGATION

[vera99]

Murdoch is growing bolder in his dotage — first with Trump, and now with another bombshell investigation into the grasping, stagnant, and catastrophically out-of-touch Windsors. And yet we keep pumping more public money into this so-called dysfunctional family.

What you need to know

King’s demands, staff shortages and low pay led to gardener exodus at Highgrove

Royal charity which runs gardens told to offer mental health support after formal investigation

Charles has lost 11 of 12 garden staff since 2022 including two head gardeners who quit within a year

Monarch said of one worker: “Do not put that man in front of me again”

After Ukraine invasion King proposed plugging staff shortages with war refugees or the elderly

At one point half of staff were on minimum wage

https://archive.ph/fspT3#selection-1495.0-1501.155

Thanksbut I don’t think so - there’s much smoke and mirrors when it comes to royal finances. Other sources estimate his wealth at around £1.8 billion, which would put him somewhere near 90th on the rich list. But since it’s the Sunday Times Rich List, can we really believe anything they print? Surely not!

www.thetimes.com/sunday-times-rich-list

Great thread @vera99 ✊😄

But since it’s the Sunday Times Rich List, can we really believe anything they print? Surely not!

😂😂😂

@vera99 This entire thread is you asking us to believe a Sunday Times article!

I’m sorry I simply don’t understand the fury or anger! , I don’t have the energy to get irate about a U.K. institution that has been going on for hundreds of years, it doesn’t effect my life or the lives of others, it trundles along in the background as it’s always done ( until recently 🙄) , if republicans get their way and burn it all down, then what?
not only have we destroyed a significant part of our nations history but our identity too!
and for what? Do you think people will be better off?
do you think the government will hand out the wealth to the people?
of course not , they will squirrel it away in the pockets of rich men and sell our historical buildings to foreign investors.

I have yet to see a republican make any argument that would sway a rather apathetic person like myself, certainly not one that would sway a royal fan .
and just for reference if you want to persuade people calling them “ ermine covered forelock tuggers or peasants “ isn’t the way to do it!
I like my royals, like I like my pants , boring, functional with an occasional burst of bling.

Another joke ! Infamy infamy they've all got it in for me - best line ever - Carry on Up the Khyber !

I fully agree @Huggersunite

Wrong. It was Carry On Cleo, and the line was Kenneth Williams taking the mickey out of Roman classics. Carry on up the Khyber was pretty racist, so I wouldn't go around your liberal circles telling people you enjoy it.

Edit to correct the actor name.

To be honest all the carry on films are a little close to the bone!!
I doubt they would have passed the censors nowadays! 😱

A dear friend of mine, who puts my training to shame, shares this perspective from someone who examines the facts carefully and makes decisions based on them. He ran a factory and logistics for 300 people without breaking a sweat. Speaking with authority and no love for the royal family as individuals he says the institution actually saves us from worse. If it were ever to go, it would bring hard times indeed, however logical or moral the arguments against it may be.

Our monarchy would be like the ravens at the Tower - if they go we go.
But I just can’t stop myself it’s built into my software. In an authoritarian regime, I’d be the first to go. And my friend? Well, he’d be the one dibbing me in. I just can’t help it.

I like the thought experiment: If you had been a German in the 1930s not one of the minorities or persecuted groups what would your position have been? How would you have responded to the rise of authoritarianism and propaganda? It’s a tough question but an important one when reflecting on power, compliance, and personal responsibility.

Personally, I think I would have fled the country or ended up as an early inmate in the camps. And we all know that if the Nazis had invaded, Edward VIII was more than ready a Nazi-sympathising figure embedded within the British establishment - and the other Windsors they would have sat it out in exile probably in the US waiting for the fall.

If I have to have them, I want them dripping with jewels and ermine, in gold coaches drivivg matched white horses-and paying their staff properly.

Incidentally, I don’t think royalists are convertible to non royalists so I wouldn’t even try.

You write @vera99that KC should “…..pay them a decent wage especially if you wish to set an example to the nation in conduct, morality, and leadership and don’t bully them either.”

I think the “setting an example in morality” ship sailed when his affair with Camilla was revealed

Don't worry you have it in spades with leaky pens to boot. But don't worry Republics do great cosplay as well and Versailles is still Versailles - no one want Pol Pot in this green and pleasant land after all.

Although I have a certain sympathy and understanding, I just can’t understand, your friend is right we would end up with worse!
germany is a false equivalence, Edward would never have been allowed near the throne, the monarchy then and now is a figure head with limited powers .

it is more worthwhile rooting out the corrupt government and politicians that are making our lives worse!

I will remember that curlew !!
and bring it up at the next coronation if we are still here! 🤣

Totally agree the disingenuous deflection here about the OW is off the scale. She only got one O-Level, by the way. It just goes to show how someone with few apparent qualifications but a silver spoon in her mouth can rise to the highest office in the land a beacon of light for women everywhere.

So I just looked up current royal staff vacancies. There's a position for an email marketing manager for visitor attractions at one of the palaces. The salary is £30,000. This is my area of expertise so reading the job description it's not a new entry position, I would say the salary is about half what I'd be looking for for this job. Even for a new entry position it's low for London.

Most people who can do well what this job is asking would want somewhere between £55-75,000.

So who is going to take this job? Either a young but extremely bright entry level person who can convince the recruiter that they have the skills to make up for their lack of experience (so early 20s, still house sharing to cope with the low wage.) Or an more experienced person who has additional wealth or income which means they don't need to rely on that salary to live in London.

Both those people are going to do about a year in this role and then leverage the social credit of the position to either move into a more senior role in the royal household or to a much better paid postion for another employer.

It would look like churn if you just took it at face value that they are not able to keep the staff longer than a year, but it's clearly designed to be the way they want it to work because they must know they'd need to offer a higher starting wage if you didn't want the candidates to see it as a stepping stone rather than a place to stay for a while.

This is such a petty , outdated argument and beneath you !
all I will say is … Diana was incorrect and untruthful, there wasn’t three people in her marriage, it was more like 5 or 6.

Ooh - the whole “what would I have done?’ question, mostly with regard to Nazi Germany, is a soul-scorching one. Christabel Bielenberg’s ‘The Past is Myself’ is a haunting read on this topic.

It’s obvious and easy to think ‘I would have stood up for what I believe is right’, but the Nazis were bloody clever at ensuring that it wasn’t just you, but your children and other family who would also be arrested, maybe tortured, imprisoned and possibly executed. Also there’s the ‘boiling frog’ analogy, where nasty regimes make small, incremental changes so that most people fail to identify the point at which they find things intolerable until it’s too late.

I found The Nazis: a Warning From History (TV series and book) absolutely superb on the complexities of this subject.

Yes I actually dislike this question wholeheartedly too!
there is a reason that people didn’t just hate the normal German civilians, most people understand that in that position they were powerless once the army took over, your average man or women isn’t going to risk the slaughter of their families or children to defend strangers, no matter how much you sympathy you have.
there is a reason why there is only a handful of brave civilians who did and are honoured for it.

Thanks for the tip I’m going to get that and have a look. A play I saw at the RSC in the early ’80s has always stuck with me: Good by C.P. Taylor. Alan Howard, a brilliant actor, starred in that production. It’s about how a liberal, well-meaning man ends up, through a series of small, progressive steps, as a guard at Auschwitz.Probably the best thing I’ve ever seen and it haunts me to this day.I hadn't realised the NT revived it a couple of years ago I shall seek it out.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Past-Myself-Christabel-Bielenberg/dp/0552990655

I absolutely hate to say it, but my God, the Nazis were clever in infiltrating every ‘normal’ area of society: youth clubs, mothers’ and women’s groups, church and professional organisations etc so that you just couldn’t get away with remaining neutral. Children were encouraged to tell on their teachers if they didn’t give the Nazi salute and you had to actively show your support in order to stay in your job or profession.

It was incredibly hard for many ordinary Germans to avoid giving tacit support . However, to be in the SS or to do certain jobs, there’s no getting away from the fact that you had to be genuinely very keen and committed…which is a very different kettle of fish.

Sorry for derail!

But luckily for us in the UK today we don’t have such a nightmare to navigate.

Yes ! , people forget that hitler didn’t start out preaching extremism and the massacre of hundreds of Jews ( German citizens included) out the gate ! , he was a normal politician with friends , hobbies ( painting) and family.
by all accounts he was charming and charismatic, the madness that followed was probably a very big surprise to all except his commanders and those who knew what was to come.

It really made me laugh the anecdote of Charles ripping a sink off the wall with his bare hands! I can’t stop laughing 😂😂 that’s made my day! 😂 I mean seriously he must have super human strength or is the Incredible Hulk in his spare time, brilliant! 🤣

Yes like every other job.