New series on the royals with Dimbleby

[MeNotMyselfAndI]

Anyone watching? Just watched Ep 2 on royal finances - it’s unbelievable. Greedy greedy fuckers! 🤬

I want to see focus on other ways in which the Windsors are enriching themselves at our expense.

The Guardian ran a very, very good investigative series 'The Cost Of The Crown' a little while back.

Well worth a read but maybe not so good for volatile blood pressure!

The Waitrose connection is one I should have mentioned. Despite that change, I stand by my point about the purpose behind the brand. Even so, I think C has really made an impact with The Prince's (now King's) Trust and that his desire to support young entrepreneurs and preserve British craft skills is sincere.

Ah yes. I read it. My blood pressure soared.

William 100% won’t go for change - he’s already choosing to hide his tax dodging!

Interesting take - and I hope more people watch it and come away with a different opinion. I disagree about the politicians though - I would imagine even those who want to take a stand would struggle against the power of the monarch. Charles has always struck me as a nasty vindictive fucker and I would imagine would not take kindly to a lowly minister attempting to get between him and his ability to line his own pockets 🤬.

How much money is enough for them, and how much do they actually need?

It's one thing to make money by entrepreneurship or whatever other self made route, quite another to make it on the backs of often struggling subjects though.

The more I read and see, the more enraged I become. How dare they!

What's clear is that they enjoy the amassing of money. It's not about what they need.

I suspect the whole culture within their sphere encourages this too. You only had to watch a bit of Nicholas Soames' interview to see that many people within their orbit believe the privileges accorded to the Royal family are right and proper. To an extent, it benefit those in the upper classes too because privilege extends downwards & privileges can be bought. They have no real concept of what life is like for ordinary people.

I agree. I remember hearing an anecdote years ago that illustrates this. Andrew was staying with an 'ordinary family' and couldn't understand why they had to take the bin out themselves.

I think The Queen was quite good at getting people to do what she wanted by getting her courtiers to make it known that if people didn't do what she wanted they would suffer career damage and would get special favours if they did what she wanted. However, that is no excuse for ministers. They were just as self serving. They decide not to discuss the Monarchy. That same programme stated that Boris Johnson, when The King and William were murmering about slavery, pointed out that they would have have to sell the Duchy of Cornwall to pay back everything they themselves owed as a result of their own profiteering from slavery. Their own profiteering from Empire in general runs into many billions so if politicians wanted to put them in their place they could.

I can't believe Andrew stayed with an ordinary family! Are you sure you didn't dream this? Is it on YouTube? 😄

@RainbowBagels after the Queen died there was a lot of talk about how nice she was & she'd never get cross with anyone etc - well of course not, she had people to do that for her!

The Queen was as hard as nails when it came to finances. She learnt from her mother - all those fluffy, floaty outfits were a decoy.

I definitely didn't dream it and heard it before YouTube.

@IdaGlossop need to see if I can find it online, its either going to be hilarious or will utterly infuriate me

@RainbowBagels I actually had a lot of respect for the late Queen and I agree with you. Remember the surprise I felt in recent years when the Queen mum was described in soft & fluffy terms, that wasn't the narrative I grew up with!

Another detail has come back to me. The house was a terrace so the bin was carried through the house. Andrew was bemused by that too.

Nuts. Initial search is just bringing up recent news, might take a while to find

They couldn't have picked a better royal for the spectacle though!

The thing is, it shouldn't be up to William to change. The MP's should push for reform and that has to come from the public ultimately.

But then there are a lot of vested interests to get by, House of Lords, Life Peers, MP's themselves and then you have the monarch.

I do think if the public pushed hard enough though that reform would have some hope.

100%
Leaving it to the monarch of the day to change continues to reinforce the unjust privilege they receive.

I've just done a search. The AI result doesn't source the story but says it has been in circulation for years.

I remember Sarah Ferguson going to stay with an ordinary family. But not Andrew
I wonder if people are confusing it with that. It was called 'The Duchess in Hull'. She was there for a week apparently. Poor them.

It was definitely Andrew. A terrible thought has just imposed itself which I feel compelled to share 😄 The bin was full of Andrew's discarded tissues. The host would have had to pick them up as he doesn't pick up his own 🤮

Never bought the nice little old lady schtick - she came across as a cold hearted cow to me.

This completely. We cant expect them to do anything. Why should they? Someone needs to make the decision for them.

I saw the first one, though had to skip past Cameron's toadying! It was interesting that the people trying to defend the monarchy just looked sheepish - Dimbleby revealed their arguments as nonsense pretty effectively. There should be more of this kind of thing, it's depressingly rare to have the institution properly questioned, especially on the BBC.