Here we go … Andrew to leave Royal Lodge and lose title

[Flixon]

Headlined in The Times just now …. About bloody time …

Make a change from the usual drivel it portrays so badly.

It wasn't "unprecedented". Other heads of state had similar.
This isn't down to the RF or even KC.
It's the Foreign Office.

Sandringham Estate was bought in 1862 by Queen Victoria when her eldest son, Bertie (future Edward VII) got married. I think Bertie then had the existing house rebuilt.
It has always been in the family's private ownership, which is why George VI had to buy it back from the Duke of Windsor after the abdication.
Both George V and George VI died there.
Princess Diana was born on the Estate, as her parents rented a property.

He is trying everything he can to wriggle out of it. But the story keeps getting bigger.

Edited to add: I don’t remember Trump having much to say about Epstein when Epstein. Was arrested and died in prison. At the time Trump was president - and in the following year, the last of his first term - I can’t remember him saying anything either?

🤣 what a load of old shit. They get on well!

It’s happened plenty of times! Charles has had eggs thrown at him some 3 times since he became King, and his other also faced lots of protesters, including before her coronation. Here’s an article pointing out some other recent examples.

https://www.hellomagazine.com/royalty/864665/all-the-times-royal-family-heckled-and-ignored-it/?viewas=amp

While I definitely don’t agree with anyone being hounded it’s the press that has brought his appalling behaviour to the attention of the British public

Spot on, @Zippedydodah, and thank god for them considering parliament's been utterly supine over all this

However if the press can dig on one royal they can dig on others, so I can quite see why they'd want to imply an illness (mental health issues in Andrew's case) to prevent any idea of the enquiries spreading

The royals know they're increasingly unpopular/irrelevant and are playing to the crowd to survive like the Queen did after Di died. I feel a bit sorry for Beatrice & Eugenie being dragged into their dad's shame, but none of them are in danger of starvation or homelessness.
The royals were a UK icon but the nation has moved on and they haven't. I still find Camilla & Charles unlikeable.

Will & Kate might turn it round if they look like they're not having too much fun at the expense of the masses. There's a lot of really feudal stuff behind the scenes that grates with me, like most proles I'm less sycophantic about them than my forebears.

William instigated it, I should think - which should worry his brother. HMK has done the right thing.

Yes, but that constitutional position is based on... what?

And their titles?

And money, mansions, art, jewels?

Where is the evidence that William got out of his permanent pyjamas to instigate this please?

Yes, but that constitutional position is based on... what?

The UK’s constitution (as established by laws and practice)….

Do you have any evidence for this?

Part of the information i would like to see put forward by Republicans is detailed costings. It's easy to say it would be cheaper but i haven't seen proof.

Absolutely agree.

Yes, agreed there is wastage in the NHS. My wife works at a relatively senior clinical and managerial level, and I rejoice at some of what she tells me about her work, and also despair at a fair amount too.
I'd much rather public money be wasted on non-medical well paid NHS roles than paying for (ex?) members of the Royal Family to live in comfortable exile.

Can’t they put him into one of William’s damp properties on the Duchy ?

I think you are wrong. HMK is less popular than HMQ was in her final years, but until the 90s she wasn't especially popular either and deeply unpopular in the first years of her reign - I remember my DM being very scathing. People may dislike family Windsor but I doubt anyone wants to replace them with 4 yearly elections and the millions it would cost to have a political president - and it could be Blair. Currently taxpayers pay for protection and everything else is paid by the Crown Estate - the property of the soveriegn (not the monarch) - which (if you watched the Accession Council in 22) is handed over by the monarch at the beginning of his/her reign, and this has been the case since 1760. The monarch gets back between 15 and 25% for all expenses to do with being the monarch and paying those who deputise for him/her. And they do a useful job for which we pay very little, encourage tourism, are diplomatic heavy-weights and mainly innoffensive.
Andrew has been an idiot, a sleaze-bag and is an entitled, arrogant man, and I wish the Nordic model was in place in the UK so we could charge him (but it sadly is not).

It isn't based on any of that. It's a legal position. They got it by winning against the others who wanted to rule but these days the King is King because that is what the constitutional law says. All his legal functions could be removed and given to an alternative Head of State.

It's not necessarily about it being "cheaper" it's more about the way the RF family wealth has been accumulated I think. That plus the fact that the POW as future HOS is automatic and we have no say in who represents us, even if it is posited as "soft power".

I agree. I can't see this being the end of the monarchy. It may start a period of unpopularity but that has happened before and will happen again. Unpopularity won't remove the monarchy. It needs a clear and viable alternative and the politicial will to push for it. I don't see either at the moment.

I see that Wiki profile of Ehud Barak (who was a PM) mentions Giuffre, the many times he went to island and his business ties with Epstein. So that is not a secret but what he did on island is of course unknown.

We have no say in who represents us as Head of State. We do have a say in who represents us politically. Even if the monarchy is removed the family will still have enormous wealth, although not as much as many other people in this country have.

Who would be political, would cost a lot more - because HMK is paid for out of the Crown Estate, which is the property of the sovereign not the state so a wrangle over who gets it - and all our laws and procedures would have to change. And for what?

True, but then people won't be expected to bow to them or see them as somehow different and 'above' (highness, majesty) the rest of us.