Some of the great myths about the Windsors is that they are somehow benevolent, philanthropic and hard-working. The Royals do run-of-the-mill everyday things and get praised to the skies for it; they reach milestones in their life and there are celebrations across the country – weddings, birthdays etc. And then when they breed (Royals don’t give birth, or have kids, or start a family – no, they breed), the collective glorification is something to behold. An indictment on our society if ever there was one.
Prince Charles is usually dubbed ‘the hardest-working Royal’ by the media – if attending parties and schmoozing with foreign diplomats at expensive dinners constitutes ‘hard work’. While we’re measuring such things, we should also have a league table for the biggest-spending misers or the most fragrant halitosis. This is a man, by the way, that has his shoelaces ironed every morning and sends for his butler from another room to pass him something just out of arm’s reach. And this is the hardest-working of the lot!
A spokesperson for Republic stated ‘There’s 4,700 engagements last year – if you divide that between all the Royals, that’s less than an hour a day each, it doesn’t add up to a lot … When William left the RAF, we worked out that he does about 47 engagements a year, so he’s not a hard-working person’. To help them with their heavy workload, one MP kindly offered to buy Harry and Meghan a yacht ‘to sail around the sea’ (with our money, of course). Very nice of him, I must say, to volunteer other people’s hard-earned money for such a worthy cause.
In any case, who cares how much ‘hard work’ the Royals do? Any work they do is to further their own interests and the interests of the British ruling class – to the detriment of ordinary British people and people suffering under the jackboot of British imperialism around the world. It’s like with a relative you can’t stand: you might slag them off for never sending you a birthday card, but you’d be even more vexed if they suddenly started involving themselves more in your life.
There is, I suppose, a sense in which the Royals work hard – it doesn’t involve the usual things we associate with it: sweat, grit, determination, or perseverance. It doesn’t involve very much of an aptitude, at least for anything of value. The skill required for their job, is simply having Royal DNA, which is held in high esteem among elites in certain parts of the world, and being associated with such heritage encourages them to part with their money for all things British – particularly the apparatus to kill and maim people with.
Thus, the Royals are intimate friends with the headchoppers of the House of Saud, and with the Al-Khalifas of Bahrain who torture and brutally suppress peaceful protests under the tutelage of British advisers. For example, King Hamad of Bahrain was an honoured guest in the Royal box at the Royal Windsor Horse Show for the Queen’s 90th birthday. The relationship between the families goes back decades.
The Royals also have their stolen wealth heavily invested in the arms trade, for example with BAE Systems (formerly British Aerospace), who are one of Saudi Arabia’s biggest arms suppliers. Again, the Royals help sweeten deals with their personal relationships with various brutal dictators and their regimes. Prince Charles once flew to Riyadh to take part in a sword dance with Saudi princes, the next day they bought 72 Typhoon fighter jets. CAAT commented ‘it is clear that Prince Charles has been used by the UK government and BAE Systems as an arms dealer’.
It’s not just the arms trade. There’s also the plunder of Third World resources and use of child slave labour – as in the case of Lonmin (formerly London and Rhodesian Mining and Land Company or Lonrho, infamous for its ‘Royal Buccaneer’ chief exec, Tiny Rowland from the ‘60s-‘90s). The Royal Family is up to its neck in the filthiest extremes of capitalism and imperialism around the globe – it profited from Britain’s destruction of Iraq, particularly through its use of depleted Uranium, which is against the Geneva Convention because of its devastating effects on people and environment where it is deployed. Both Elizabeth and Charles exerted pressure on the government for better equipment for the British military in Iraq.
It is clear that the Royals cannot be considered separate and aloof from the murky world of business, they are immersed in it and exploit it to the fullest. And it is clear that they are not politically neutral either. Non-partisan, maybe (all governing parties are pro-monarchy in Westminster anyway), but fully on-board with the broader interests of British imperialist capitalism, and viciously gung-ho and militaristic.
Furthermore, the Royals, from Elizabeth to Charles to William, stretch their formal powers as far as they can go and beyond. Royalists will insist that the monarch has purely symbolic powers and so it doesn’t matter that having a hereditary head of state is undemocratic. But the monarch retains much greater power than is commonly known. And just as importantly both the Queen and her heir have hugely disproportionate influence. Because they have formal powers (for example, veto over legislation that directly impacts them and their assets), from individual MPs to cabinet ministers and even the Prime Minister, politicians know which side their bread’s buttered. The Royals have influence in a wide variety of important British institutions, some of which they are patrons of. Their names carry great weight. They have international connections that include family among the ruling elites of other European countries. They have enormous wealth. That alone is often enough to get you a seat at the table. They also carry personal prestige inflated by a fawning media, particularly the BBC, that spends its days finding more and more unusual ways in which to blow smoke up their arses. And they exploit both their formal powers and their informal influence to the fullest extent in order to promote their own interests. A quick example: Charles lobbied for climate policy change while having a financial interest in a company that profits from sustainability projects.
The thing is, the Royals are not even suitable for the thing Royalists claim – having a relationship with the ordinary people of Britain. Prince Philip is a notorious bully and snide (he told one 13 year old boy he needed to lose weight if he wanted to be an astronaut). Heir to the throne, William, has attended fancy dress parties mocking working class youths, in the height of snide upper-class snobbery and chauvinism.
Furthermore, not even the finest education money can buy (£23k a year at Eton) has been able to produce anyone with any personal competence or ability for high office. The supposed marzipan layer, the ‘upper crust’, are in fact more like a cross between the Addams Family and the Brady Bunch. Academic grades are not even remotely fit for purpose in revealing such competence, however, they are considered so by the Establishment. So, even by their own standards, with every advantage imaginable, the Royals are unable to exhibit any merit. But then again, why bother when you get the job regardless? (And that, dear reader, is exactly the point). Prince Charles got 5 O-levels and 2 A-levels (a B in History and a C in French), somehow got into Cambridge with that and got a 2:2 in History. Prince Edward got a C in English, a D in History and a D in Politics at A-level, also somehow got into Cambridge with that and got a 2:2 in History. Prince Harry got 2 A-levels, a B in Art and a D in Geography, then went into the military where he was chaperoned and mollycoddled, and repeatedly failed his helicopter exams. His B in Art wasn’t even his own – his teacher got him on tape admitting that the teachers basically did the coursework for him. She was later sacked for whistleblowing.
Continuing an endemic British tradition, they’re also corrupt as hell: Andrew’s ex-wife, Sarah Ferguson, was taped demanding $821,000 in return for business access to Prince Andrew (fourth in line to the throne and abuser of teenage girls). Britain’s special representative for international trade and investment. Fergie said ‘you’ll get it back tenfold. That opens up everything you would ever wish for. And I can open any door you want. And I will for you’.
Finally, the Royals are praised for being philanthropists. Again, even if they were incredibly generous souls, it wouldn’t justify the institution of monarchy. But none of the wealth they donate is deservedly theirs to give. How can it be generosity or benevolence if they’re giving away stolen or confiscated money (and a mere fraction at that)? And when they do involve themselves in charity work, it is little more than PR. The Saxe-Coburgs, young Wilhelm und Heinrich, cost more public money in security than they raise on charity missions (junkets) across the world. And it’s sheer hypocrisy anyhow: these avid hunters of innocent prey involved in animal charities? Give me strength. Harry followed in the family tradition posing over the body of a one-ton water buffalo after killing it on a hunt in Latin America. William went deer and boar hunting in Spain a day before he launched an appeal to stop illegal hunting.
The so-called People’s Princess is another good example; Diana didn’t leave a penny of her great wealth to charity. But the Queen herself exposed the Windsor’s famous ‘benevolence’ best, when she had the effrontery to ask for a further contribution from the government’s cold weather pot, set up to help poverty-stricken pensioners with rising fuel costs, to help heat her bloody palaces! These people don’t give a toss about the suffering of ordinary people, they just want to seem as if they do.
https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2011/08/prince-andrew-201108
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1531553/The-family-qualifications.html
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1489700/Teacher-did-Prince-Harrys-exam-paintings.html
https://www.caat.org.uk/get-involved/act-now/petition/bahrain-royal-whitewash
