That may well be the case but that doesn’t mean that the principle on which H and M were originally denied a little flexibility pre-Megxit, ie no HIHO, has very little basis, because Zara does earn her own money with extremely lucrative sponsorship contracts which take her to the Gold Coast every new year for example, yet she and MT still work for the royal family on occasion eg at the summer BP garden parties. She also attends official events like Ascot and rides in the carriages with guests such as foreign dignitaries ec. That is definitely blending royal work with earning private income.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-01-17/sa-government-silent-on-how-much-zara-and-mike-tindall-were-paid/101863196
https://www.tatler.com/article/zara-tindall-is-radiant-in-blue-at-the-buckingham-palace-garden-party
So there is a degree of flexibility in the system, they just awarded it to everyone else but Harry.
If you reversed it, and applied the same principles, then presumably Harry could earn money in rl then help out at BP garden parties and Ascot and perhaps at remembrance events and be present at Trooping the Colour? What’s the difference?
He wouldn’t have received an official stipend for doing so but he would still have been living in a heavily subsidised house, have his uniform laundered for him, and would be provided with transport and join the rest of the family for state subsidised scones with Dubonnet after each event?
So the whole concept of HIHO is a bit flawed anyway if you ask me. It’s just another smoke and mirror strategy employed by the royals to make us think they have clear boundaries around finances when in fact they do not.
Charles and William for example as monarch and heir are allowed unique exemptions that bypass the obligation to pay standard costs that every ordinary citizen must pay, eg they have inheritance tax immunity and don’t have to pay the 40 % tax on inherited wealth passed down through families.
And KC and W pay income tax voluntarily unlike the rest of us.
And KC and W benefit from vast income from the Duchies while carrying out their roles, which are huge corporate entities which do not pay corporation tax.
Why do those important exemptions not qualify as benefiting financially from carrying out royal duties?
And so many of the working royals wear clothing brands such as Turnbull and Asser and Barbour , drive around in Land Rovers, eat food produced by Fortnums, shoot guns manufactured by Purdey etc; companies which all hold Royal warrants. Do you think that they all pay full price for those?
Do you think they pay full price for anything?
They are ALL mixing personal financial reward with charitable duties!
Prince Andrew famouslly did it for years!
The other so-called official working royals like Sophie and Edward enjoy ridiculously lavish living accommodation for a peppercorn rent totally out of proportion to the job they do, with the benefit of clothing allowances and travel.
So the RF’s so-called principles around HIHO are a bit of a fiction! Harry had every right to be upset that he wasn’t given the same flexilbility as his cousin Zara, given that she is twenty-third in line to the succession, whereas Harry is fifth. The monarchy presumably believe in hierarchy or do they just bypass it when it suits them?
IMHO it’s ludicrous that they are a “royal family” instead of an elected head of state but to have that and then try to give the appearance of putting professional rules in place surrounding HIHO is laughable.
Either have a dysfunctional flawed family fulfilling a professional role where the boundaries separating professional and private are blurred, or don’t!
A bit more careful handling of H&M’s propositions and consideration for the fact that M wasn’t the usual royal bride, she was older, from another country, with an established career, could have averted this entire schism at the heart of the crown and all of the surrounding noise which has made the RF in to more of a soap opera than it was before!
If BP naievely think that issuing this statement will cause the press, and Harry for that matter, to go quiet, then they are deluded frankly! Press organisations and a thousand commentators with podcasts are finding the conflict between father and brothers far too lucrative to stop, and pushing Harry further in to another corner will probably result in him doing something even more rash.
BP are just doubling down on a strategy that didn’t work before, and it won’t work now either. Sticking your head in the sand and not speaking face to face and not confronting the emotional aspects of the rift will make Harry, if anything, even more of a loose cannon bc he won’t be able to earn enough money and he may feel he has nothing to lose.
The only way to resolve this is proper mediation and negotiation with compromise on both sides.
I wish they would negotiate frankly as the good citizens of the UK deserve more weighty press stories filling the airwaves than this one.