>charmless King William's reign of sterile okayness
Well said. Was there ever a time when he allowed himself any kind of gaffe that would have tarnished his standing in the public's view? It's like all of the crazy went into Harry, and William only got the bland stuffiness traits from Charles and Philip.
The worst we've seen of William were self-deprecating jokes that didn't land. Which is one way to reign when his time comes, I guess.
Allegedly, Kate doesn't like to strap it on so he has to go elsewhere to get his bum pleasured. Allegedly, she doesn't mind this arrangement. Allegedly.
I mean, of all the preversions you'd expect from someone of such high social stature, pegging is really getting off the hook lightly. Never thought I'd have something in common with a royal either.
>>454341 Savile worked painstakingly on his relationship with Prince Charles, first through his charity work and then more informally. Astonishingly, he even managed to involve himself in Charles and Diana's personal affairs and defy the normal rules.
Richard Kay, former Royal Correspondent, says: "He inserted himself into their marriage in the way that he was someone who made himself available. And Charles liked having him around. He would turn up, Diana told me, at Kensington Palace, where she lived, uninvited and would manage to persuade the police on the, on the gate, who never let anyone in without an invitation, to walk in. She said he would sort of come and say, 'well, I'm just here just to check up on you'. And she said that Charles used to sort of quip, that If there was a problem that needed sorting out, they'll get Jim to do it because 'Jim'll fix it''. I think she found it slightly unnerving."
According to Kay, Savile would "walk in and drift around Diana's apartment", while also going into the office to kiss the hands of the secretaries, sometimes "rubbing his lips" up their arms. This is something he even carried out on Princess Diana," adds Kay. "He licked Princess Diana's hand and she recoiled from that. As she told me, it was something very creepy."
Arbiter describes some of Savile's acts as "unsavoury" and explains he didn't like the "ghastly" man from the start.
"I did voice it at the time saying it's not really on and I did say that man is dreadful," says the former Royal Press Secretary. "But he was pretty well established in government circles, with prime ministers of the day. And by being pretty well established, he was fairly untouchable."
In 1990, despite resistance from Whitehall, Savile finally got what he craved when he was given a knighthood. "It was a gi-normous relief when I got the knighthood," said Savile at the time. "Because it got me off the hook."
Paedos like Savile have a habit of inserting themselves into families because that is one way they acquire victims.
My dad was friends for decades with what could benignly be described as a lifelong confirmed bachelor who was a bit on the camp side. Apparently, he never talked about his sexuality, at all, and even after many years, my parents still had no clue if he was straight, gay or just asexual.
It wasn't known to us that he had a prior conviction for getting into his godchild's undies (this was before there were registers and SHPO orders). Anyway, he made himself available as the endearing family friend who was always there when needed, and who was somehow very good with us kids. It wasn't until he spent the night at our hose one time that he showed his true colours, because my dad caught him in the middle of unmistakably attempting to fondle my older brother late at night while he thought my parents were asleep.
My dad kicked him out right there and then in the middle of the night, telling him that if he promised we'd never see him again, he'd call him a cab, but if not, he'd call the police right away.
I guess my point is, paedos can be crafty. Always keep an eye on somebody who displays that kind of behaviour and tries to become the "family friend".
>The Crown Estate and royal duchies oversee total assets of about £18.2 billion ($21 billion) with their values rising about 70% on average over the past decade, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. That largely mirrors rising land and property prices.
These assets are nominally owned by the Crown, but no member of the royal family can sell them or directly benefit from their ownership - the profits from the estate all go directly to the Treasury. The royal family receives an annual payment through the Sovereign Grant, nearly all of which is spent on maintaining and staffing the royal palaces. We have, in effect, nationalised the Royal Family.
If we decided to stop paying them the Sovereign Grant and make the royal family fend for themselves, we'd all get about £1.43 each per year. Much as I enjoy a Greggs sausage roll, I'm not sure that it represents a life-changing sum of money.
If we confiscated the lot and sold it off to Saudi princes or Russian oligarchs or whatever, we'd get a one-off payment of about £300 each. Again, hardly a life-changing sum. There are obvious risks attached to flogging off massive amounts of Britain to the highest bidder, especially considering that the Crown Estate includes practically all of the sea floor in our territorial waters.
You're welcome to argue that we should just get rid of the legal fiction of the Crown Estate and allow the government to take direct ownership, but I'd ask you to consider the probability that it'll all get flogged to Liz Truss's mates at a knock-down price.
Never tear down a fence unless you understand why it was built.
The funeral hasn't started yet, but it's been pretty cracking so far with all the interesting celebrities taking their seats. Rose Hanbury, the woman who bummed our next King, is there. Angela Rayner is there, and they've put her next to Iain Duncan Smith which must be exciting. Gordon Brown's wife would still get it.
"My own arrest was in 2011, on the day of William and Kate’s royal wedding. I had gone to Soho Square to ‘report’ on a Royal Zombie Flashmob I’d heard about, for a friend’s blog. (I was 25, had an extra day of bank holiday, and it sounded fun.) I wore a flower crown, misapplied some makeup for dark circles under my eyes & a gory mouth, & went into town with my camera and notebook to interview some ‘zombies’.
There were only five of us eejits in fancy dress, maybe 20 press people and countless police. When the police seemed to be forming a kettle, me and my four new friends left Soho Square, using the one road which was still open, and went into a Starbucks. We were still getting our drinks when two police vans turned up, sirens on, and around 20 cops came out. We were stopped and searched, held against the Starbucks window for ages, then eventually arrested and handcuffed for a ‘breach of the peace’."
An interesting article on the experience of a journalist arrested for dissent during the royal wedding. Key quote:
>The police will do what they want to do on the day, come up with a justification later, and the state machinery of courts and judges tends to agree with police arguments.
https://netpol.org/2022/09/19/anti-royal-arrests-the-after-effects/
>You're welcome to argue that we should just get rid of the legal fiction of the Crown Estate and allow the government to take direct ownership, but I'd ask you to consider the probability that it'll all get flogged to Liz Truss's mates at a knock-down price.
So it'd go from one set of posh cunts who had the right breeding to maybe a different set of posh cunts who have the right friends. That's a risk I'd be willing to take, though really besides the point, as the obvious implication of this sentiment, which you're failing to address would be that they'd remain state owned.
>That's a risk I'd be willing to take, though really besides the point, as the obvious implication of this sentiment, which you're failing to address would be that they'd remain state owned.
No, that's not the point at all. Currently, those assets aren't technically state owned, but the state has effective control over their operation and the state enjoys full benefit of their ownership. Posh cunts might own it in theory, but they don't actually enjoy any of the benefits of ownership.
If those assets were actually state-owned, they could be sold off and therefore cease to be state-owned; that sale wouldn't necessarily be at a fair market price and wouldn't necessarily be in the interests of the public. I'm sure you can think of plenty of examples of stuff that used to be state owned that is now very much not state owned.
I've watched at least a few hours of funeral coverage today, and they didn't play Abide With Me at any point even though it's the best funeral hymn.
Meanwhile, that music that has been in the background for most of the day is, interestingly, called the "Beethoven Funeral March" despite not actually being by Beethoven. It's by Johann Heinrich Walch, who is unknown enough that people just assumed his funeral march was by Beethoven.
I honestly doubt there'll be as much faff when Charles kicks it. His popularity was iffy at best for a long time, and while there will no doubt be many royalists who won't care, he's not going to be that decades-spanning constant in people's lives.
If he takes after his mum, then he'll be a good 20 years on the throne still, but it won't be the same.
It also means that William will be 60 when he becomes king. Many people who are alive today will never know anything other than geriatric queens and kings for decades.
>>454381 I predicted above that Charles will eventually abdicate to give his son Prince William a chance to be king before he reaches retirement age. But if William will be in his late 50s when Charles is 90, that's barely worth it for bringing in young blood. I think maybe it would be better if they just skipped William altogether when the time comes, and go straight from Charles to Prince George.
Elizabeth's unexpectedly long reign did screw up the arithmetic a bit. If she'd died 20 years ago at a reasonable age of 76 as a lot of people do, then Charles would already have been on the throne for 20 years today, and could have gone into retirement by now and left the kingship to his still slightly youthful son, whereas the role he has really trained all his life for only now begins as he's 73.
We'll probably need another scandalous early abdication or another untimely death to have a truly young king or queen again down the line. Both in conjunction were what gave us a 25 year old on the throne the last time around.
>>454159 >Nobody has been cancelled yet for being insufficiently respectful, so everyone's starting to get a bit paranoid.
It looks like Phil and Holly will be the sacrificial lambs. Kind of funny that it isn't the alleged grooming that takes Schofield down, it's a bit of queue jumping.
>Kind of funny that it isn't the alleged grooming that takes Schofield down
He did maintain that whoever he groomed was 17 at the time. That's not an age for somebody like him to mess about with if we're being honest, but 17 is above the age of consent. So he's a bit of a wrongun, but what he did was not illegal.
