This is a cut and paste from an article on Independent.co.uk
*Will anyone give me the rental value on three cottages in Windsor Great Park? Increasingly, the royal family and their living arrangements resemble a high-end car boot sale where anything is up for grabs, and everything has a price.
The latest revelation, courtesy of the National Audit Office (NAO), is that Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor has been coining it from three properties on the Royal Lodge estate. He leased from the Crown Estate and then sub-let them. Nice.
We’re also informed that the King pays the rent for Andrew’s daughters, Princesses Eugenie and Beatrice, even though they are not working royals.
Doubtless, there will be more to come. Because this is where we’re at with the royals: we’re being invited to try to make sense of a steady drip-drip of information that paints a picture of a group of people living high on the hog – and makes the blood boil. While the rest of the population struggles with cost-of-living anxieties, they sail on regardless.
It’s been like this for centuries. For most of that time, we did not shine a light on their finances, regarding them, as we’d been taught, as being above and beyond. Those who did – the occasional inquisitive journalist, author or MP – were treated with a certain disdain; there was a notion that somehow, they were being disloyal and unpatriotic; that even by the act of inquiring, they were intent on bringing down the royalty, one of the historic bulwarks of Britain.
There were occasional rows, but these did not amount to much, and soon passed. The fact that public money was involved was not allowed to weigh heavily. It is telling that this report from the public spending watchdog is the first in 20 years in respect of the royal residences.
The prompt, of course, was Andrew. Without the Jeffrey Epstein scandal and the exposure of Andrew’s relationship with the late convicted paedophile, plus some diligent work by the writer Andrew Lownie, there would not be this NAO probe. We would still be none the wiser, content to let them enjoy lives distant from our own, lives that we are paying for.
So it is that the NAO study tells us that a family of four – Andrew and his now ex-wife, Sarah Ferguson, and Eugenie and Beatrice – had 12 properties at their disposal. Twelve! Even the richest Saudi might gulp at such a number.
As ever, in reports of this kind, there is no asking why. That’s not what the audit office does; it provides the facts as it finds them. The reasoning and justification are left to others.
Princess Eugenie,has a property in Kensington Palace, while Beatrice, right, has one at St James’s Palace (PA)
Similarly, we’re told that Eugenie has a property in Kensington Palace and Beatrice has one at St James’s Palace. They do not pay any rent for these; rather, it is paid by the “privy purse”, which is the monarch’s personal money, to the Royal Household. Fair enough; if Charles wishes to let his nieces reside, like him, amid splendour, that is up to him. He may suppose such a lifestyle befits their status as princesses, though not ones who work at being a princess, as his sister Anne most definitely does.
But those homes are maintained at the taxpayer’s expense through the sovereign grant. They are old, and will require repair and updating. That comes out of the public, as opposed to the privy (a word that says it all about privacy) purse, which, as we know, is desperately thin at present.
Just as no explanation is offered, neither is the rental income Andrew received from the three cottages. That description, by the way, should be treated with caution – a royal “cottage” is usually not a two-up, two-down artisanal dwelling of the sort that farm workers would live in. Likewise, when they say “lodge”, they do not mean the typically small building standing at the gated entrance to a park; their definition is something a lot grander.
As ever, the hat-tippers and forelock-tuggers are quick to say there is no suggestion of any wrongdoing by Andrew or his children, or, indeed, the other family members covered by the NAO inquiry.
Among the details to have emerged is the fact that the Crown Estate paid for repairs costing nearly £400,000 before the Prince and Princess of Wales moved into their “forever” home at Forest Lodge; further, Princess Michael of Kent, another non-working royal, is living in a property in Kensington Palace paid for by the privy purse.
They say they want to be open, but only so far. Where public money is concerned, we have the right to know. Then we, not they, can decide if the arrangement can be allowed to continue
But no one said they were behaving illegally (what Andrew may or may not have got up to with Epstein, or in his role as an official trade envoy, is another matter). They didn’t need to. Why would they, when the booty was presented to them on a plate?
That’s what is highlighted: the overwhelming sense of entitlement. While other young people struggle to find
accommodation
in the expensive London and South East, they have no concerns.
The palace press machine has, as usual, gone into overdrive, stressing that it is “grateful” for the report, which is “in line with the Royal Household’s commitment to transparency”.
A spokesperson went on: “We hope that the findings will help correct, clarify or contextualise a number of points regarding royal properties. As the report notes, arrangements for properties managed by the Royal Household vary based on a number of factors to ensure residences are filled appropriately, depending on their location, tenants and purpose.”
To which the answer is yes, but. The palace wants us to know that Andrew rented the cottages to staff or retired staff, and the amount was only enough to cover running costs.
It’s their word. That’s the trouble; it always is. Whatever he received, it went to him and not to the Crown Estate, which remits its profits to the Treasury.
They say they want to be open, but only so far. Where public money is concerned, we have the right to know. Then we, not they, can decide if the arrangement can be allowed to continue. The balance of power has shifted – Andrew has seen to that – and the palace, King Charles, Prince William and their hangers-on must respond accordingly.*