Should Beatrice and Eugenie voluntarily give up their titles if they want any public respect ever again?

[Sweetiedarling7]

Just that really.
I think the only possible way forward for them is to choose to give up the princess thing, make a brief public statement in support of victims and to end their middle east business jaunts.

No! It’s not their fault their dad is a disgusting human being.

This.

While we know he's a drunken, groping lech I don't suppose that's what you're trying to get at.

Edward's kids are titled although I'm not sure if they use them. They're styled as nobility rather than royalty though.

It seems that you have missed the point that I was making.

I am not talking about whether the titles are meaningless or not.

I am simply pointing out that hereditary titles, by their very nature, are not supposed to be based on merit. So it seems rather odd, to my mind, to remove them because of a perceived lack of merit.

It would be better to acknowledge that the monarchy, and indeed the aristocracy, are not based on merit, and so it shouldn't really matter whether or not the individuals deserve the titles that are conferred on them by accident of their birth.

If we are going to go about removing titles from people who we think no longer deserve them, then why not go a step further and say that nobody gets a title in the first place without having actually done something worthy of it?

They are rich. The rich have options not available to the rest of us. If I were rich I wouldn’t be commuting etc etc
Neither would I still be doing any kind of work in my 70s/80s/90s-I can’t be bothered to Google exactly how old all the working royals are but they are significantly older than me except for Edward/Sophie/William/Kate and I’m past retirement age ( though still working) .

Agree with a PP - stop with the nasty witch hunt. No need to hound the whole family.

People are allowed to point out B and E own bad behaviour and want change. If they don’t want it pointed out, they shouldn’t do it.

I'd like to think that my disgust would match that of the public, and that I'd renounce my title(s) and call for a republic if I found myself in their position -but I have no integrity. 😀

There is absolutely no way B and E will become working royals!

I grew up with FOG and took until mid 20s to break out. So I am pretty forgiving on them tagging along with their parents to events in their late teens/early 20s. I also know you can seriously disagree with your parents choices whilst loving them. I don’t think I’ve seen anything that makes me think they should somehow be ostracised. I think they’ve probably had quite a hard time in their own very privileged way. Just look at “stately homes” thread to see how wealth doesn’t equal great childhood.

I’d sooner we concentrated efforts to deal with the men who trafficked and abused young women first.

I’m not fussed one way or the other about B & E - this is all a distraction from the very serious crimes which were committed for which only thus far, another woman is (rightly, in her case) banged up for.

B & E have done nothing wrong as far as I know, they don't deserve being hounded by the press as is happening at the moment.

Neither of them need to be 'working royals', they are both married to wealthy men and no doubt have money in their own right, can be independent of the family.

They had good childhoods and love their parents, this is awful for them and the media are vile.

That's why they all need to go..

I quite agree,

However I do feel Ghislane Maxwell's sentence is too severe, twenty years is far too long, I'd have thought five years sufficient.

Epstein manipulated everyone and her most of all, she got away from him eventually, thought she'd left it all behind but it caught up with her many years later.

Keeping her in gaol is not doing anyone any good, it will be four years this June, She was moved to a minimum security unit last year but even so, she's no longer a young woman and common sense would tell anybody that incarcerating her much longer is out of all proportion. The Americans dish out some ridiculous sentences sometimes.

I totally disagree. Yes it is wrong that she is the only one in prison, but she is evil and was a key player in procuring girls as young as 13 for Epstein. She facilitated Epstein. 5 years would be a joke. Having read court notes from her trial and witness statements about what they went through, I think she got away lightly

Hardly.

I got your point. But inherited titles are different from titles conferred because your grandmother was the constitutional head of state. That’s why their father was stripped of his titles. Which can’t be done to members of the aristocracy.

They have far more meaning and are directly linked to our democracy and identity as a nation.

This family commercialised those titles and exploited them. They continue to grift off those titles whilst tarnishing the national identity.

There are questions to be asked about other relatives, the Tindels, the Parker Bowles and Middletons. They seem to be all making coin out of their connection and they all seem well connected to the tabloid media. Time for some rules and some proper organisation and governance for our constitutional monarch. No more patronage, soft and unaccountable power.

I've listened to more from Andrew Lownie and I think Beatrice and Eugene need to be investigated over their financial dealings, if not by the police then at least by the Charity Commission. There needs to be far more transparency over their dealings. Certainly nobody should be giving any money to their charities unless they are happy for that money to go on the family's lavish lifestyles.

Have you ever bothered to research them?

Yes, but I don't use the same anti-royal media as you to do so.

You're really clutching at straws there. Beatrice's background is perfectly typical. Many humanities grads do something 'inexplicably' unrelated afterwards.

And many charities have cash reserves in bank accounts.

I don't know that many humanities graduates who have been asked to advise their mother on her dealings with a paedophile.

Perhaps they are victims of their parents, but the family funds have certainly been enriched by some very dodgy dealings and the Yorks have not distanced their daughters from those arrangements. They were part of the package being sold.

You realise the money your relative was stealing was other people's money. I think you are choosing to minimise what he did. There aren't really any victimless crimes and he will have harmed people even if you can't accept that.

As for B&E I think the legal advice is for everyone to wait for the investigation to be over. If they have useful info they should be sharing it with the police not the general public.

I think you might still be still missing the point.

The point of Royalty is you get what you get. If Charles had died before William was born, Andrew would be King.

If you start introducing standards and merit into the equation - treat them like normal people - then why not have any other normal person as head of state?

If you say to George, 'You are on the King list, but first you have to agree to all this and if you slip up you are out', why not have a longer list?

I thought the Yorks had no money. Wasn't that why SF was looking for money from Epstein and if AMW was passing on information wasnt that so he got money because he's always broke?

During her lifetime the Queen paid Andrew millions and provided housing for the family. They were never going to face the ordinary money problems of her subjects.

Their problem was their spending.