Not known for sycophantic reportage, I celebrate ‘young’ Anne for her diligence: 179 days’ duty in 2016. The PoW has put in 139, also highly creditable.
So what? I hear. Well, by sad contrast, the totally dependent Crown Prince of DK has managed to get out of bed barely 50 times and unlike Prince William, has no day job.
By ‘dependent’ I mean the local royals have no family wealth at all. They receive state funds every year to conduct their lazy lives and sponge on ‘friends’ who include them in their luxurious life-styles, here and abroad.
Boadicea's Chariot 
Maybe they all ought to be forced to get a job.
The British royal family are entirely self-funded. The sovereign grant is the sliver of their wealth that Parliament deems meet to return. So has it been since the days of George III. Even the much-maligned refurbishment of Bucks Cottage is being paid for by a temporarily allowing them to keep 25pc of the proceeds from their estates.
CO: In Norway royals do have day jobs. I’m not as boffered by a taxpayer-funded royal family as others. After all, the true parasites of the world — ceremonial presidents like Germany’s — are utterly useless and cost even more.
On the few occasions I have read the Court Circular in the Times, I have been amazed at the number of engagements members of the royal family can pack into a day. So if Edward is in Newcastle for something or other, a whole collection of other engagements in the vicinity is organised and most of them seem to be very dull. I don’t envy the royals at all.
I have no problem with the Royals. As Christopher says, they keep a fraction of their real wealth, And as Sheona said, most seem to be called upon to do the most incredibly boring jobs – and have to keep a smile on their faces at the same time!
I wonder what the legal position would be were the UK to decide to do away with the monarchy… would the revenues of the Duchy of Lancaster revert to the family, and the revenues of the Duchy of Cornwall revert to the Duke of Cornwall, and all the other monies and appurtenances, actually owned by the family but ‘taken over’, revert to them? The Treasury might have one or two problems there!
One of the effects of ‘The Fixed-term Parliaments Act 2011 is that the Monarch no longer has the prerogative to dissolve parliament. On the face of it one might think. “Well so what, why should Elizabeth II have the right to dissolve parliament purely by accident of birth ?”
But of course the right is vested in the Crown and not Elizabeth as a person and I would find some comfort in the though that if parliament went doolally (that is more than usual) then nanny could step in and send them all home.
In the past I have been pretty critical of the Queen but I was confusing her with the Monarch or Crown which is a different thing and an institution that we definitely do not want to lose.
Jazz, on this red letter day, I find myself agreeing with you! A potent distinction indeed! 🤓
Boadicea: Yes, the royal family do have the option of keeping the proceeds from all their properties. The current system is merely a polite agreement.
Jazz: The power to dismiss parliament was one of those murky, undefined parts of British tradition. The monarch could, in theory, do so but in practice simply wouldn’t as such isn’t done. Still, it’s better than the odious German system in which the president has the right to dismiss parliament simply by virtue of having been indirectly appointed following dubious back-room deals.
Christopher: The fact that it was murky, undefined and never used isn’t the point. It was there and if push ever came to shove we’d have a constitutional means of getting shot of an incompetent government in short order without causing undue chaos.
Jazz: I do not disagree with you, Jazz. The Fixed Parliament Act was, as with really everything Cameron touched, an absolute dog’s breakfast that Britain would do well to expunge.