To secure their new royal-ultralight life, the Duke and Duchess of Sussex have agreed not to use their royal titles and to pay back the $4.5 million cost of renovating their cottage within the grounds of Windsor Castle. Not only that: they are going to pay rent.
But don’t feel too sorry for them. There are loads of projects on the horizon, with Netflix announcing it’s officially interested in a deal with the couple.
Money isn’t exactly going to be an issue for the pair, so here are a few other things Crikey thinks they should repay:
- Australia tour (2019), $468,243. Between flights, transport, photography and hospitality, the newlyweds’ trip cost Australian taxpayers almost half a million. Something for the bushfires?
- Fiji and Tonga tour (2019), $153,000. Surely our Pacific nations could use the money on a bit of infrastructure.
- Wedding (2018), $58 million. Given that the royal wedding is now significantly less royal, it’s only fair.
- Prince Andrew’s visits (2018-19), $73,000. Ok, so this one might not be on the Sussex tab but we’d like a refund regardless. The disgraced Prince Andrew, who has stepped into royal limbo land over his links to convicted paedophile Jeffrey Epstein, visited Australia in 2018 and 2019. It’s not entirely clear who paid, but surely a taxpayer somewhere felt the pinch. We’d also like some cash for reputational damages.
- Prince Philip’s various trips. While we’re at it, let’s request a part refund for Prince Philip’s travels given his main job seems to be causing offence and confusion — from calling a child too fat to be an astronaut to refusing to pat koalas. We’ll be accepting cash only.
Slow news day Amber?
Extending the polite observation of Rais, for a rag that recons itself ahead of NewsCorp, those that write for Crikey do not appear to possess any capacity to identify trends or instances of history repeating itself.
As to the weddings and the tours there OUGHT to be an entry in the credit column for the increase in retail
and ancillary features. The palace does quite well out of the tourism alone.
No : I’m NOT a Royalist (strict Republican in fact) but a more accurate assessment might have been to make the point that when the (unilateral) announcement was made M&H were already financially independent. At the time there was only one choice : play the game or abdicate. Nice to know that they are not going to draw their entitlements for nothing in return (which, apparently, was the original plan).
Notwithstanding Harry being 6th in line there are remarkable similarities with Edward VIII whose father (George V) predicted on his death bed that “the boy will ruin himself within the year”. Self indulgence seems to run in the family with notable exceptions being Lizzy and the Duke of Cambridge who actually does (more so than his father) have some concept of duty.