Prince Harry and Meghan

Diana was no longer HRH, courted the press and used them to her advantage in her divorce. It then became a monster she couldn't control. That's what I actually think might happen here - by doing away with the existing model (that actually offers a large amount of privacy) they're creating an open season: they'll become 'fair game'. Just because they might opt to work with certain publications of their own choosing, doesn't mean the rest will leave them alone... far from it. The more you try to control the press the more of an animal it will become. 

Why do people keep going on about the Frogmore cottage renovation? This has been answered a million times.
It's part of historic royal palaces, owned by the Queen, she has a responsibility to maintain it, and the maintenance was due anyway.
They didn't get £2m spent on them, the Queen spent it on routine maintenance.

Then then paid for their own redecoration, fixtures and fittings.
They are tenants of the Queen - the Queen still owns the property.

As for the wedding - can you imagine the howls of outrage if it had not been a big public affair? If they'd eloped and married in secret? (The only way to avoid it costing a fortune in security arrangements). The press would have been livid.
We certainly had a massive boost to visitor numbers due to it, and a whole bunch of British business made money out of it.

We didn't 'pay for them to get married', we paid for a huge public event that promoted the country around the world.
It's really, really stupid to claim that was a benefit to them - I'd bet anything they'd have had a lot more fun if they could have had a private wedding.

I’ve looked this up and everything Ive found says that the sovereign grant is what the government pays to the royal family, and that this amounts to about 65p per uk tax payer. 

Yup. Crown owns Crown Estate. Crown hands the revenue of Crown Estate to the government, government hand a percentage of those revenues back for upkeep of monarchy - including all the historic Royal Palaces (at the moment it’s 25% because of the cost of Buckingham Palace being renovated, it would usually be a lot less than that), art collections, funding the offices of the working Royals and covering their living expenses. Harry and Megan only ever had 5% of their office expenses covered by Sovereign grant - but that meant they could not make private income from work. The rest covered by Harry’s inheritance from Princess Di and the Duchy of Cornwall - which is private wealth the same as any other aristocrats, generated by rents and business activities.

Tax payers cover security separately. Total cost of the monarchy is £1 per taxpayer per year.

The monarchy generates considerably more than that to GDP via tourism and business opportunities, etc, not to mention the international ‘soft power’ influence that they have. Particularly important for political links with the Commonwealth.

If the monarchy were ever abolished there would be a very nasty legal fight to be had over the Crown Estate, because of there’s no Crown then who owns it? The government would have no claim legally on any of the Duchy revenues - legally it is private property.



This is why I am confident they could earn more from professional work than they are getting from SG - they weren’t getting much to start with. They can’t personally do anything about their security cost other than take practical steps to keep it low - they are not going to stop being at risk. If they were successfully attacked, e.g. by terrorist organisations looking to make a statement, there would an absolutely massive fall-out. I mean, can you imagine? It’ll cost a lot less to provide security for them at Windsor than at any private residence they bought for themselves elsewhere, so Frogmore is actually very practical and cost-effective from that point of view.

Exactly where have they said they’re doing this because they’re suffering though? They dislike the press commentary, but they’re going to get that no matter what.

The photo thing has been happening for a number of years now and is part of Charles’ vision of a slimmed down monarchy. But no one wanted Harry out and the slimmed down monarchy was/is an attempt to shift focus from the Queen’s family, but to Charles’ as the next monarch.

When Charles becomes king there’s a lot of changes to work through. Most people in the UK haven’t had a king or seen a coronation before, William and Kate will (I’d have thought quite quickly) become Prince and Princess of Wales, and little Archie I believe automatically becomes HRH Prince Archie because he’s a grandson of the monarch.

Then we have to see how the idea of Queen Camilla goes down. When they married they said she wouldn’t become Queen, but there’s no real mechanism for her not to be (in the same way she is actually the current Princess of Wales whether she uses the title or not). Plus Camilla’s popularity has soared over the years in ways I don’t think they expected it to.

I don't really get the fuss, I mean are these people in prison or something?

They should be able to do whatever they want.

Frankly they seem like the only 2 remotely normal people out of the lot of 'em.

I wish them the best of luck x

Not if the press are destroyed. I just had the misfortune to read, second hand, some of the stuff in today’s Mail, Times, Mirror etc., it’s even worse than I had imagined. Foam flecked rantings that are solely designed to provoke outrage in the unfortunates who read that sort of thing. It’s not ‘freedom of the press’ that they are engaging in, it’s hate speech. Pick a victim, play on popular resentment, sit back and watch the fires burn. It’s probably the thing that disgusts me about our nation more than anything else, it’s a national embarrassment. 

It would be a good thing for the nation to take this as an opportunity to draw a line under the division and hate that has been propagated by these unelected, poorly regulated media barons and their underlings. Problem, is that politicians are completely scared of them and what they might do in the meantime (plus, of course, many, including our dear Prime Minister, have fortunes partly gained, at least partly, through these same organisations). 

The issue I have is not what they are doing but the way they have gone about it. Not having more detailed announcement due to not discussing their wishes in detail with the family and now the fact the Meghan has gone back to Canada to see Archie. This does seem to have been rushed without too much thought to the complexities of their wishes and the situation.

The rest of the royal family did know it was going to happen at some point, they’d been in discussions about it for months and Charles had requested a full detailed breakdown which they provided but which wasn’t acted on. The senior royals were sent the actual statement shortly before it was made public. Harry and Meghan certainly jumped the gun (possibly due to the news leaking to the press a few days ago) but it’s not like the royals found out they were planning to step down from Twitter.

According to the Evening Standard Harry had been requesting a meeting with the Queen for weeks (the Queen certainly was fully informed that he wanted to leave and knew about all the discussions) but she refused to meet with him until he and Charles had worked out all the details and finalised all the negotiations. The ES also claim the courtiers had blocked Harry from being allowed access to the Queen.

Hmm.

Sounds a little bit like the Palace was hoping to talk them out of it or kick it into the long grass, and so were deliberately dragging their feet.

Going public made it a fait accompli. It's not the preferred option, for sure.

What's that quote - 'it's easier to ask forgiveness than get permission'?

Their statement said they plan to continue to carry out royal duties in support of the monarch as requested. Harry's particular focus is on the Commonwealth. The fact that Canada is a Commonwealth country is likely to have been integral to the plan.

They're not actually quitting the Royal family, despite what some of the more hysterical press coverage says. They are seeking more independence from the established way of working and funding their work, mainly because of the press.