Tag Archives: monarchy

Royal Tour: Prince William Beats Duchess Kate in Boat Race

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The Duke of Cambridge beat his wife – who used to belong to the Sisterhood boat crew – by 10 lengths as they each joined a team to race across Dalvay Lake on Prince Edward Island in Canada on the fifth day of their tour of the North American country.

Before the contest the prince was asked who he thought would triumph, and he joked: “We are of course.”

But Kate quipped: “He’ll be lucky.”

The royal couple – who tied the knot in London’s Westminster Abbey on April 29 – hugged and congratulated each other following the race.

Kate steered her team’s boat, while William’s boat led from the start and it was clear from the beginning his vessel looked more likely to win.

The duke and duchess arrived at the event via horse-drawn carriage and were greeted by thousands of supporters, and some had camped overnight to get a glimpse of the royal couple.

Earlier in the day, the prince – who flies Sea King helicopters in the RAF (Royal Air Force) – took part in a dangerous helicopter manoeuvre on the lake, landing a Canadian military helicopter on the water for the first time.

The couple – who will leave Canada for California on Friday – also took in Province House, where the idea for the country was born.

William said in a speech, which he partly spoke in French, it was “quite a moment” to be stood in front of the building where the “Canadian federation was forged”.

Kate Middleton and Prince William Heckled by Protesters in Canada.

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The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge are going to St Lawrence River on the third night of their tour of Canada.

The royal couple are going up river on board HMCS Montreal, a City Class Frigate of the Canadian Navy.
They will be surrounded by a crew of 225 for the 11 hour journey to Quebec. Although they have been given the most comfortable quarters, it seems incredibly unromantic for the newlyweds.

The couple will arrive in Quebec at 2pm BST and have been briefed about possible protesters and republicans.

The Quebec Resistance Network, which wants the province to become independent, have threatened to disrupt the visit where the couple will be given the freedom of the city. Previous royal visits have fared no better, being marred by violence between demonstrators and riot police. The Queen has not returned to Quebec City since protesters turned their backs on her and booed in 1964.

This comes after the Duke and Duchess facing their first organised protests against their visit to Canada on their arrival in Montreal on Saturday night.

Demonstrators had placards calling the couple “parasites” as they arrived at the world renowned Sainte-Justine university hospital. There were also lots of supporters to cheer the couple on. One of the main protesters, Guillaume Martin, told reporters: “We think the monarchy is something from the middle ages and we don’t want to pay for the trip.”

The Canadian government will be paying the £950,000 to host the couple, this amounts to only a few cents a head for the country’s population. The couple ignored the protesters and spent more than an hour chatting to child cancer patients inside the hospital.

Prince William welcomed the Canadians with; “Bonne fête, Canada, happy birthday,” in his speech.

Catherine Middleton had never been to Canada before, or America, which is also part of their tour.

Have you paid for the Royal Wedding?

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It’s the Royal Wedding soon – 29 April 2011. Have you bought your tea towel? Have you paid £3 for a bottle of Kiss me Kate from your local Weatherspoons pub?

If you haven’t yet then you need to be quick, the economy needs you! If conservative estimates are correct, £1bn could be injected into the economy as a consequence of this wedding, but it needs you, the consumer, to get out over the bank holiday weekend and spend like your children’s centre or maternity unit depended on it.

Of course that doesn’t matter much because the wedding will cost £5bn to the economy anyway, making the whole occasion a loss to the tune of £4bn – hey but it’s worth it, right? It’ll be the most expensive day that the nation has taken off for a long time but who hasn’t taken a sneaky day off before at the expense of a day’s wages (and a taxation loss of a few hundred frontline police staff)?

I suppose it would be a bit rich to ask either of the families to pay up. The Middleton’s, despite much fuss being made of Kate’s maternal family lineage, which includes coal miners from Byker (as in Byker Grove, I cannae believe that man), are worth £30m. True, that wouldn’t be able to re-pay the loss to the UK economy for an extra bank holiday, but it could’ve at least contributed to the cheesey pineapple sticks and cocktail sausages.

And the other family, the Royal Family, the most Royal of all UK families. They have a bit of cash lying around to see that Kate and Bill’s special day is, er, special, don’t they? Prince Charles, through entrepreneurial ventures, is worth something close to £36m himself. And if that’s the case, why does it matter that in 2009 the Royal Family cost the taxpayer 7p more than in 2010. It’s not a saving, it’s an insult.

The Civil List, which effectively is the Government subsidy for the family (around £38m a year), pays for Royal staff and transport. The Crown Estate says that 70% of that sum goes on staffing costs. But how much do they cost, if you consider that it cost the taxpayer £14,756 for the Prince of Wales to take the Royal Train from London to Cumbria to launch a Red Squirrel Survival Trust. Or consider that it cost £85,700 in charter flights to get him and the Duchess of Cornwall to Italy and Germany in 2009.

Those are some significant staff costs.

But – a big but – they are worth every penny for the money they bring to the economy. The Crown Estate estimates £304m. It doesn’t say exactly how, and I’d love to see some breakdown figures. I’ll give it a guess though: tourism and trade. Though France doesn’t have a Monarchy, and they’re doing okay aren’t they?

Not just okay. France is the second largest economy in Europe, fifth largest in the world and has been growing consistently since 2009. Wow. France attracted 78.95 million foreign tourists in 2010, making it the most popular tourist destination in the world. Their tower – the Eiffel tower – is the most visited paid monument in the world.

So France can do international trade well, and receive tourists without making losses literally all over the place. I’m not liking the sound of this, but perhaps there is no point having a Monarchy. But how do we tell them that?

The Gall of Prince of Wales {Carl Packman}

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Have you ever said out loud: oh my, how have they got the gall to say that? Occasions arise when the gall of your heroes can come back to hurt you. I’m on the political left, and as such I quite like the words of Polly Toynbee, she’s very well skilled in saying things that I want to hear, but she does have some gall.

There was the time when the lads at Though Cowards Flinch noticed that Polly was writing in support of outsourcing to ‘improve standards’ instead of supporting workers’ rights in the public sector. Then there was the time on Question Time when Richard ‘why bring up the world war, just actually why, why‘ Littlejohn outed Polly for her fancy foreign houses (Littlejohn hates foreign houses).

Toby Young, Tory boy of such popular cultural hits as How to show Cameron in a bad light and still love him to bits, pointed out that Toynbee had gall for criticising free schools when sending two of her three own children to private school for part of their education.

When someone finds this out on twitter, I believe it is shortly followed by the hashtag #fail.

Toynbee is someone who ought to represent my political viewpoint, but by night she illustrates a perversion of that view. And it hurts those to whom she writes for the most.

Now that I’ve shown myself to take this approach to people I used to respect, I can now turn to people I have never had respect for, and show them to be gall-ish too.

Prince Charles, it turned out, earned £271m in property deals in 2008, making an estimated £43m in profit.

The Mail reported back then that:

“The Prince’s income from the Duchy [created in 1337 by Edward III for his eldest son Prince Edward to provide an income for the heir to the throne] in 2007 was £16.3million or £12.8million after tax.”

This was after a massive £1m pay rise the year previous.

Yet he now comes out in support of ordinary people against property developers.

As the Guardian puts it:

“It is an unlikely claim for a prince who enjoys a £17m private annual income and employs 16 gardeners but Clarence House today said that Prince Charles believes it is his duty to defend “ordinary people” against profiteering property developers.”

This emergency budget is set to make 1.3 million people unemployed. My suggestion for him showing his support for all ordinary people is by contributing to the cuts, by getting his Mother to wave ta-ta to Edward IIIs outdated financial model, and giving up the Duchy. Then campaigning for the abolition of the monarchy, while throwing support at the scheme to nationalise all ex-royal buildings, thereby safeguarding tourist money to the country.

Until then, the man has some gall.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2010/jun/29/prince-charles-planning-property-developers