New Book: And What Do You Do? What The Royal Family Don?t Want You To Know

[wannable]

And What Do You Do? What The Royal Family Don?t Want You To Know, by Norman Baker, published by Biteback on Tuesday, priced ?20. Offer price ?16 (20 per cent discount) until November 12, 2019. To order, call 01603 648155 or go to mailshop.co.uk. FREE delivery on all orders ? no minimum spend.

Extracts from the Book with permission to the Daily Mail

Guess who pays for coins the Queen gives away?
There is even a scheme to offload most of the costs of the Maundy money the Queen hands out every year.
This ceremony, held on the day before Good Friday, is inspired by the actions of Jesus in washing the feet of the poor. By the 18th Century, British monarchs had decided that handing out specially minted coins was preferable to washing feet.

The Royal Household pays face value for the coins that the Queen distributes, which, given that the coins in question are pennies is hardly going to break the bank. The taxpayer, however, pays for the full cost of the specialist minting, which will not be cheap. Talk about a good deal.
In 2002, I asked the Treasury for the cost of manufacturing the coins, but was unconvincingly told that this was commercially sensitive.

A dizzying array of freebies... that can all be kept secret
The Committee on Standards in Public Life has set out a series of tests for those holding a public position.
MPs rightly have a tight code of conduct when it comes to accepting gifts, for example, and Ministers a yet more onerous one.
But the Royal Family seems to have exempted itself.
There is a culture of accepting freebies and exploiting the Royal name for personal gain, which clearly violates the requirements of some of the tests applied to others in public office.
Instead of acting with financial integrity, there are some in the family who seem to use their status as a way of enriching themselves.
Royal supporters will argue that the Windsors receive this largesse in a private capacity.
But individuals employed in public roles elsewhere are required to declare private activities where this might affect their public roles.
Councillors, for instance, have to withdraw from discussions on planning matters if the application being considered may affect their private position.
Members of Parliament are required to register any income from whatever source above a low threshold, whether or not it has any obvious connection with their parliamentary activities.
But the Royal Family can accept any free holiday, free use of a castle, the use of a private jet, a luxury car or designer clothes... all without any requirement even to record these gifts (although official gifts are recorded).
In my view, as a basic step, each member of the Royal Family should be required to register anything worth in excess of ?150 unless it is genuinely from close friends or family.
They should also be required to register gifts in kind with a value greater than the ?150 limit, where there is a public aspect to this, such as clothes lent to be worn on official engagements.
We have a right to know who is buying favour with those who comprise one leg of our constitutional structure, namely the monarchy, and they should have a duty to make that information public, just as others in public office have to.

Still raking it in from Windsor fire scheme
Windsor Castle required major restoration after the fire in 1992 and it was agreed that, to fund it, Buckingham Palace would open its doors to tourists for a few weeks every year.
It was a neat solution that avoided spending public money and allowed a peek inside the Palace for those who wanted to pay for the privilege.

Windsor Castle required major restoration after the fire in 1992 (pictured)
And it was successful. In the five years from 1993, ?25.9 million had already been raised towards a total repair bill for Windsor Castle of ?36 million. But hang on ? more than 20 years later, in 2019, the doors of Buckingham Palace are still open and money is still flowing in. The restoration of Windsor was paid for long ago, so what is happening to the money now?
It transpires that it was diverted to pay for the restoration of art works in the Royal Collection. A worthwhile cause, maybe, but the public might have expected this money instead to be used to keep down Royal calls upon the national purse.
After all, it is public money that is footing the entire bill for a no-expense-spared ?359 million revamp of the Palace (a scheme waved through the Commons by a small group of MPs who took just 13 minutes to approve the plan in 2016.)

Where did Princess Margaret get ?20m and how about the Queen mother's ?70m legacy? | Daily Mail Online

It sounds very interesting.

[Princess Cassandra]

I definitely plan to acquire this book. From the excerpt it sounds like it was written from a negatively biased point of view, reminding us that we must always keep an open mind no matter what we read.