New series on the royals with Dimbleby

[MeNotMyselfAndI]

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

I didn't like the way that hard left/communist types were brought on as if they were representative of the kind of people who don't believe in the monarchy. Plenty of ordinary, moderate people across the country also think the monarchy is ridiculous, but this is never conveyed in the media.

Probably because the BBC is still the go-to broadcaster for Royal events and they don't want to jeopardise that.

Well, that and the Tories stuck their own people in the top positions - don't tell me they're not influencing matters.

Very true - and when they interviewed the Republic protesters they had that awful bystander going on about them being “nutters” without a trace of irony at the people stood there with their flags 🙄

The BBC is also under a cloud because of the Diana 'Panorama', the trickery used to secure the interview and the subsequent lying to cover up what they had done.

Thanks to the IHT exemptions she still did alright though (a £20m ker-ching) even after paying off Mama's booze and gambling debts.

I don't think the trickery (reprehensible as it was) was actually necessary to secure the interview.

Bashir has been made a scapegoat but the opportunistically inclined, media savvy Diana was gagging to tell her side and saw a very credible (Panorama! BBC!) platform to do so.

She went on to stand by her words.

What Bashir did was pretty unforgiveable though.

Says a lot about how toxic things had become within that family, and between Diana and Charles, that she spared no thought for her sons when did it. Very sad.

I’ve just watched the second episode and I was pretty gob-smacked by the following:

**how the Guardian journalist had to dig around and estimate so much to probe in to the RF’s finances in the first place! Surely a state-funded institution should be transparent about their accounts full stop? We wouldn’t accept such unclear definitions between private and public wealth in any other public body, so why are the RF an exception?

**the fact that Queen Victoria and other monarchs prior to King George VI, paid tax like everyone else! So when the late QE2 volunteered to pay a relatively paltry sum of taxes after the Windsor fire debacle, she should have been doing so anyway as a matter of course! And she had the temerity to stand up and speak about “modesty in all things” and we believed propaganda about Prince Philip turning off the lights at Buckingham Palace and QE2 eating cereal out of Tupperware! The phrase “Oh we like sheep!” springs to mind!

**the privately bought Monet casually hanging on the wall behind Camilla

**the King’s Consent which allows the Crown to get an advance look at any legislation going through Parliament likely to impact upon the RF and its finances; ahead of politicians! How very handy! And there was me thinking the Crown could not interfere with proceedings in Parliament!

**that it was Sir Michael Peat in combination with Charles who turned the Duchies in to massively profitable enterprises which nonetheless don’t pay corporation tax. And KC3 has profited personally and substantially from becoming monarch. That can’t be morally right surely when the point is to serve the country not serve themselves? Especially as he doesn’t even have to pay rent or any expenses!

When I think of my family member who works as a civil servant paying 12.5% of his take home pay just on train travel to get up to London and back to do his job, and not being able to afford a flat to house him, his wife and child, it makes me seethe actually!

**How the key members of the RF are funded to attend Buckingham Palace Garden parties and state dinners and other state duties. In which case, why do they need such large incomes from the Duchies? Why can’t the profits from the Duchies go directly back to the Treasury who can in turn allocate them to look after our historically significant state buildings? The Duchies should be returned to state ownership.

@Restlesslimbs54 I completely and wholeheartedly agree

I am impressed by Dimbleby I must say! He has sufficient gravitas to ask the difficult questions and not be fobbed off.

@Restlesslimbs54 yes, I did not like the former Palace comms woman!

I haven’t watched BBC news since the days of Jennie Bond!

It’s a total grift. The crown estate owns and maintains all the official royal residences while the royals and their paid for staff (2/3 of total staff) and paid for security occupy them.

The Duchies produce a private income for the Monarch and the Prince of Wales. There’s nothing preventing the Duchies claiming any and all Government grants and subsidies available but they do not have to pay tax. They can also get new laws rewritten to favour them as and when they chose.

Despite having their homes and staff paid for, and millions a year from the Duchies they also collect over 130 million a year from the Sovereign Grant.

Then there are whatever “gifts” slide into personal possessions under the loose rules of what is an official gift. The official gifts which apparently have no accurate historical records.

Capped off with whatever they inherit, which was acquired how exactly? Could it be property and possessions bought using money from the sovereign grant and the Duchies given because they are the Monarch/Prince of Wales which then become personal wealth they can secretly will to whoever rather like a magic trick. Which of course they can use any and all tax dodges to maximise except they don’t need to because the Monarch is exempt from Inheritance Tax.

But they pay market rent, and some tax? Pay it from the money they receive from the Duchies and the Sovereign Grant and have plenty left and I doubt they ever have to dip into any inheritance so it just keeps growing.

No wonder second royal sons all seem to go a bit peculiar. No Duchy for them, they get what they are given, or inherit, after tax. Can you imagine the AIBU?

Yes, about the “whatever” gifts; I heard Lownie on a podcast the other day, saying that a lot of money is “acquired” through gifts of jewels, say from the Middle East, which are then “laundered” through some rather grand London jewellers.

And funnily enough one of my comments to dh while watching episode two was “no wonder Harry is livid”. He was always destined to be much poorer than William obviously, but to have such a vast, vast disparity in wealth and circumstances between two siblings is bound to introduce a high degree of resentment and toxicity in to their relationship.

Edited: just remembered Lownie also said that “the royal way of doing things” was as far as possible never, ever forking out for anything themselves, that there is an expectation that someone else will always pay.

Remember when she apparently said 'My childhood nickname is all I have for myself' about Harrys DD being called Lilibet? I cant quite believe even she was so tone deaf as to say that. Let alone what a mean minded nasty person that makes her sound about her own great grandchild. People were saying ' oh poor Queen. They've taken away the only thing she has for herself'. Despite the thoroughbred racehorses, the millions squirreled away in tax havens, 20 homes, ' gifted' jewels, acres of private estates etc. Shows how deep the grift is that even a story that makes her out to not only be tone deaf but actually not a particularly pleasant person had people fawning and feeling sorry for her because 'all she has is her name'! Why should they change anything when they know their subjects will swallow whatever bullshit they churn out to the masses?

Yes RainbowBagels
I was thinking the other day that even the most self-disciplined and humble person would find it impossible to remain uncorrupted by the level of wealth and privilege that the RF enjoy.

It’s not just about smelling fresh paint wherever you go. Imagine growing up from an early age, through all of your formative years, and then for decade after decade as an adult, never having to cook, clean, wake yourself up for work, find an outfit to wear in M&S, do your own laundry and supermarket shopping, worry about an important job interview, think about what you are eating for dinner that night, wonder if you can afford to go on holiday, get yourself on the bus anywhere, make your own bed, hang on the phone to the DVLA, take the car in for a service and all of the things that ordinary people do every day.

And imagine the enormous tracts of time that not doing all of the above must open up for them! And yet they are all so busy!

Their life is just so completely removed from 99% of the population, that:

(a) I think it would be impossible not to grow up with a fair degree of entitlement and
(b) this imho doesn’t make them particularly credible or effective heads of state.

They also get to decide what is a tax deductible expense in their accounts.

I keep saying it but read Norman Baker's book, And What Do You Do. It's a complete eye opener. I wished I had highlighted the WTF stuff in it, there was a lot, my blood pressure wasn't great reading it.

And imagine the enormous tracts of time that not doing all of the above must open up for them! And yet they are all so busy!

Busy my arse! Of course they are not busy. They will prioritise their dog walks, swimming, lunch with friends, tennis, hobbies, gym, all the stuff that most of us haven't got time for. And when they do have an appointment someone will hand them a piece of paper with bullet points on it and in the luxury car on the way there they will read and digest ready to shake a couple of hands

@RainbowBagels- after she died, there were lots of stories about the corgis, her love of them, her faithful fluff balls at her heels etc. what struck me was the stories told in amusement that were anything but. She didn’t train those later dogs. They pissed and shitted all over the palace, and some ran along cleaning it up. One had a particularly nasty temperament- again posed as “amusing” and had a habit of going for people. It was not destroyed or trained as a responsible owner would do.

Many of these corgi stories were repeated as amusing anecdotes by royal watchers after her death, I just thought how selfish it made the late Queen sound.

This is a great article.

Just to give you a taste... (this it is about the huge yearly payouts to C & W from the Duchies. There's more than that in the article)

Never mind the stamp albums and horses, this is where it feels appropriate to call it out for what it is: greed. £72m represents the hypothetical cost of keeping the monarchy on the road. The rest is avarice. These two men have their royal snouts in the ancestral trough. They have done absolutely nothing to deserve these eye-watering riches. But the carcass is there, and they intended to pick it clean.

The article pulls no punches!

https://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/world/monarchy/71828/the-king-and-prince-william-must-open-the-books-on-their-enormous-riches

Ah I meant the comms woman who used to work for the palace & was interviewed in the documentary :)

I've never reallt watched any news - am of the digital generation!

Yes, I've thought this for a while. I 100% have no sympathy for him complaining his father cut him off financially when he is independently wealthy, but it is something when billionaires don't share their wealth more with their family.

Still...family & finances, gets complicated

I totally agree. Which is why the people we elect as our representatives should be acting in our best interests. Not the interests of the Monarchy. As should the courts and the press. They both have a role holding truth to power yet they will all do the bidding of the Palaces in return for a slap up meal at Clarence House and a knighthood.

To add: if the argument for not financially supporting Harry out of 'private' funds is that he's not a working royal, then it rather undermines their right to the Duchies in the first place.

Sadly, this is all too true! We have been badly let down by lily livered MPs, far too many of whom are waiting for a gong!