What do you expect from our Royal Family

[Spectre8]

There were alot of good discussions and comments on my previous thread re. William missing the VJ day around the role and expectations of the Royal Family. I didn't want it to be a bashing thread to make personal attacks at William or Kate but well some comments were still made.

So its made me think there is still a very worthwhile discussion to be had about the future of the RF and their role. So lets try to keep it about that and not specifically about the person in that current role.

For me, if the next King wants a more private life, that his service and duty is not about the number of engagements he or the working royals do then its needs to be really articulated what their purpose is and 100% transparency of the sovereign grant, even a reduction of it since some of the money goes towards covering the cost of these engagments. I'd also like to see some of assets returned to us so we can monetise them to pay for their upkeep.

Well no, I presume you are referring to Harry? Princess Mako of Japan gave up her royal status to marry a “commoner” and lives a normal life with him and her child in New York, I think the lack of tell all books, Oprah interviews, Netflix deals and constant court cases helped them lead a low profile life.

Princess Mako even renounced her dowry. She takes buses and mass transit. Her husband is a lawyer ( an actual job).

Yes I know about the Japanese royal. It worked.

I was told yesterday to stop comparing countries! We are very different. It didn't work for us.

And why is that?

Yes royals can live a perfectly normal life if they so choose, whatever country they are from. Princess Madeleine of Sweden and her family are another example.

But Princess Mako wasn’t even in the line of succession for Japan ( not
least as a woman and also many steps removed). So her decision to leave royal life and be Mrs Mako in New York had very low risk for national stability and crisis - unlike the abdication of the heir such as Prince William.

I do think he’s in a bind with a choice between a rock and a hard place, and personality aside, don’t blame him for his decisions to do less until he has to.

Not many reject their identity because they like the riches they are accustomed to. And they see what happens if you do reject and walk away.

Not sure about rejecting but living quiet lives mostly out of the media glare at least some in current RF have managed to do that.

Princess Margaret kids seem to live relatively normal lives - the son well a respected furniture craftsman daughter a painter - Princess Anns do mostly -I'd say Edwards are making steps in that direction.

The closer you are to the throne harder it is to do - but I think if Harry had wanted a quiet life buying somewhere in Canda with an eye to secuirty and living off his inherited riches would have been possible - the TV interviews, book, tv series have all been in glare of media and all needed eyeballs and wallets.

The Crown Estate has always been used to fund the responsibilities of government until the monarch at the time became sick of funding and overseeing the apparatus of government and turned the responsibility over to the Treasury in return for the Civil List grant.

Everything I expect from the royals has probably already been covered but I'd particularly like to see full financial transparency and accountability (no more sealed records), the removal of their ability to scrutinise and veto proposed legislation affecting their interests, a return to a fixed cost Civil List and a limiting of numbers wheeled out on official occasions to the top dog and immediate heir and family ie a proper slimmed down monarchy as we were promised.

I expect there's more 😁

But we aren’t talking about William abdicating, we are talking about royal children apparently not being able to live a normal life, when they clearly can if they so wish. Princess Mako’s situation was not as straightforward as you think, hopefully she has found peace living her life in New York with her husband and child.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/oct/26/japan-princess-mako-marries-loses-royal-status

Mako studied art history and actually worked with the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Her husband passed the NY State bar exam and is a lawyer. They live in an apartment in Hell's Kitchen. They are obviously both intelligent, educated, and have intellectual interests. They recently had a child, whose name, sex, and appearance is unknown. She and her husband seem very level- headed.

George, Charlotte and Louis are living a normal life, they are living a life that is normal for them. They are born into the Royal family which has advantages and disadvantages, just like being born into any other family. I'm not royal (shocker!) but I did grow up in a family with a public facing role, where other people judged my behaviour and knew personal details about me purely because of what my parents did. I had to learn to navigate that, just as the Wales children have to.

There is no such thing as a normal life for a child, there is only the life that is normal for them. I think that Catherine and William are actually doing a good job preparing the children for their future whilst guarding their privacy.

Yes I think if the HRH's and the expectations that they were working Royals were removed from Charlotte and Louis and their equivalents moving on they would be able to have far more fulfilling lives moving forward. Only the Royals can do that though and they show no inclination to even change it for their children. Harry and Andrew were born with the belief that they were somehow special and more important than those around them, and those around them didn't demonstrate anything different ( probably because they needed their jobs). So they can't cope without the deference. We don't know how the Wales children are being brought up. Diana was all 'oh look how modern the children are being brought up, she's sooo much more informal and affectionate' and yet Harry is as out of touch and entitled as the rest of them ( I suspect William to but that's what is expected of him and he has all the benefits of the Monarchy waiting for him)

going forward I wish they would stop treating Harry as if he worse that PA.
allowing PA to play dress up and so on.

William is rich in his own right and could be perfectly comfortable if he ‘walked away’. He would probably have a much nicer life. However I suspect that he has a feeling of duty and wouldn’t do that unless it became overwhelmingly clear that the U.K. wished to reject the monarchy system. I don’t think that is currently clear at all.

To answer OP’s question, I expect exactly what the Waleses are offering us. I’m happy with that - in fact, I couldn’t improve on it.

What are they offering us?

We rarely see them.

Wholesome family life, play their part well (no major gaffes), non-irritating children, look good (don’t like saying that but in the real and unpleasantly shallow world, it helps and certainly stops the press baiting them for being plain), non-self-promoting characters, attractively reserved etc.

I don’t know if I need to see them that much as long as they do the right thing at the right time.

Are you sure you aren’t a member of the RF you couldn’t get further up their arse if you tried.

So they just live their lives like very rich aristocrats !
I don't think of any children as irritating, it's not their fault they're born into this.

As for the rest, it seems to me you have listed absolutely nothing they do for this country. Apart from turning up and looking good when they really really have to.

I expect them to just disappear, not die, obviously, just quietly abdicate and go live normal lives like the rest of us peasants. Maybe give back a few of their 15 homes to the country while they’re at it. You know, since they love to talk about homelessness, usually from one of their many estates. And of course, let’s not forget the climate change speeches… delivered right before hopping on a private jet.
Honestly, I’d have a lot more respect for them if they actually had real jobs. Funny how none of them seem interested in becoming doctors, nurses, programmers, or anything remotely useful. No, it’s always some vague arts degree (when they even bother to study), followed by a lifetime of ribbon-cutting and waving.
And don’t even get me started on Prince Andrew, paying millions to someone he “never met.” Having sex parties in Thailand with our taxes . Or the King’s strangely warm friendship with Jimmy Savile. But sure, let’s keep pretending they’re national treasures.
They live lavish lives funded by our taxes, surrounded by palaces and private staff, while the rest of us can’t even book a GP appointment. We’re told there’s “no money” to hire more doctors or fix the NHS but somehow there’s always enough to maintain castles, pay for royal security, and fly them around the world for ribbon-cuttings and photo ops. Must be nice to be born into luxury and call it "service"...

totally agree.

That they should be self sufficient with all their wealth and stop claiming benefits from us…

They live lavish lives funded by our taxes, surrounded by palaces and private staff, while the rest of us can’t even book a GP appointment.

This is simply not true. I know this is a commonly accepted "fact", but members of the Royal family are wealthy in their own right and in addition, the Duchies of Lancaster (1265) and Cornwall (1337) were created to provide private incomes for the Monarch and the Heir. Although they are exempt from income tax, the King certainly pays tax on his income, as he did when he was the Heir.

Reimbursement for Official Engagements is funded by the Government in the form of the Sovereign Grant. Taxpayers money is not and never has been used for this purpose. I posted the following on another thread:

The Crown Estate is owned by the Monarch, but in 1760, George III surrendered the management of this part of his holdings to Parliament in return for a fixed annual payment, which became the Civil List. Effectively, that means that the profits go directly to HM Treasury to fund Government expenditure. (There is plenty more information online.)
The Sovereign Grant was established in 2011 by the Sovereign Grant Act. This abolished the Civil List and introduced a single payment to the Monarch to fund Royal Expenditure. Payments to staff, reimbursement of expenses incurred during official duties (by all the working Royals) and upkeep of Palaces owned by the public (Buckingham Palace, Windsor Castle etc) are funded by the Sovereign Grant.
According to the latest figures, the Crown Estate generated a profit of £1.1 billion in 2024, which was paid to HM Treasury. The Sovereign Grant was paid at 12% of this profit - quite a sum, it is true. However, none of this money is paid through the taxes raised by HMRC.

I agree with those who complain about the lack of transparency regarding royal finances, but we must stop this nonsense about them living the high life on our taxes. It is the reverse - if relations between Sovereign and Government were to become soured, the King could probably reclaim the Crown Estate and its revenues, leaving us the taxpayers to find the shortfall.

Let’s bust this myth once and for all: the Sovereign Grant is public money. The Crown Estate profits go to the Treasury , then Parliament gives a slice back to the royals. It’s taxpayer cash, just with a fancy name.
The Duchies aren’t private property either! they’re tax-exempt estates held in trust. Meanwhile, the King “voluntarily” pays tax, because apparently normal rules don’t apply to him/they.
And no, he can’t just “reclaim” the Crown Estate. It’s owned by the nation, not Charles personally. If he tried, it’d cause a constitutional meltdown.
Bottom line: the royals live off taxpayer generosity and special treatment ... no fairy dust involved.😂

You seem very short sighted. We do see them at certain official events but they do a great deal of schmoozing with other countries' leaders which I'm sure is incredibly boring at times but reaps benefit to the country .