BLOGS by Richard Palmer
HOW MUCH PRIVACY SHOULD PRINCES WILLIAM AND HARRY HAVE?
Thursday January 8,2009
By Richard Palmer
Don't we have a right to see pictures of Harry and Chelsea?
PRINCE William and Harry travel the world protected by taxpayer-funded police officers but they are increasingly resorting to legal threats to stop the public knowing what they do.
The latest one landed in the offices of British newspapers when Harry and his girlfriend Chelsy Davy started a holiday in Mauritius just after Christmas. Anyone wanting to see pictures of the 24-year-old Prince and his Zimbabwean girlfriend on their holiday only has to do a Google news search to come up with dozens of photographs. They have been published by newspapers, magazines and websites in America and other parts of the world, including British-based websites dedicated to the Royal Family. But you will struggle to find the same pictures in British newspapers because the Royal Family’s lawyers asked Fleet Street not to publish them and, deciding that it was not an important enough issue to fight over this time, the media here complied. Harry and Chelsy’s complaint was they were being harassed by photographers. Given the way the Prince’s mother died, we are all highly sensitive to such cla
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END THE SCANDAL OF OUR CRUMBLING ROYAL PALACES
Wednesday December 10,2008
By Richard Palmer
Clarence House: A national treasure, but not cheap to run
THE Queen and the Government have been tacitly rapped over the knuckles for failing to sort out the scandal of Britain’s crumbling royal palaces.
In a timely intervention by Britain’s public spending watchdog, the National Audit Office, the monarch and her ministers have been ordered to come up with a comprehensive plan between them to maintain the royal residences amid mounting concern over a £32 million backlog of essential work and a further £20 million of other earmarked projects. It’s about time that something was done about the state of Buckingham Palace, Windsor Castle, St James’s Palace and some of the other residences. They are among Britain’s biggest tourist attractions – half of all visitors to London go to Buckingham Palace to see changing the guard, for example – and help to bring in billions of pounds in revenue. But they are falling apart because of a lack of maintenance cash. Falling masonry, leaking roofs and other problems are starting to threaten priceless treasures and the safety of those who visit, live and work at the palaces. Among the £20 million of work classified as less urgent, there is a need for the electrics to be rewired and the State Apartments at Buckingham Palace to be redecorated for the first time
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WE SHOULD RESPECT PRINCESS DIANA'S MEMORY
Wednesday December 3,2008
By Richard Palmer
Diana's memory should be respected
PRINCESS Diana's name has been used and abused by many people in the 11 years since her death but this surely is one of the strangest tributes to her memory.
An American film maker has announced plans to publish a new version of the Old and New Testaments in which God says it is better to be gay than straight. He's named it The Princess Diana Bible. Max Mitchell, the US film maker who came up with the controversial idea, named it after Diana because of the way she became the first prominent person on the world stage to offer support to HIV/Aids patients at a time when they were shunned. He also claims that the gay Bible is divinely inspired. "There are scholars who say that, like many priests, Jesus was gay. In Biblical times homosexual relationships were so commonplace that no one gave it a second thought. It was heterosexuality that was considered sinful," he says. "There are many different versions of the Bible. I don't see why we can't have one." Others, however, disagree. Douglas Howe, writing on Christian blog site Idol chatter • Read Full BLOG
IS OUTSPOKEN CHARLES DAMAGING THE MONARCHY?
Wednesday November 19,2008
By Richard Palmer
Prince Charles is respected for his outspoken views. But should this continue when he is King?
REPUBLICANS campaigning to topple the monarchy are gathering at Parliament tonight, buoyed by suggestions that Prince Charles wants to redefine the role of King.
Claims by the Prince's biographer Jonathan Dimbleby that the heir to the throne wants to be free to speak out on major issues if and when he assumes the throne have given succour to those who think it is time for Britain to have an elected president as head of state. Republic, a campaign group that counts prominent actors, MPs, writers, lawyers and others among its members, claims that Charles wants to take the country back 400 years. "The time is fast approaching when the future of the monarchy is going to become a major political issue," says the group's spokesman Graham Smith. "It is clear Charles will not settle for the traditional role of King." The Prince is already walking a tightrope by speaking out on the issues that he does while heir to the throne. His plans to use billions of pounds of taxpayers' money to help protect the world's rainforests, for example, could affect the Government's fiscal policies, as I pointed out earlier this mon
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ROYAL ROW THREATENS JOBS AND EXPORTS
Friday November 7,2008
By Richard Palmer
The Duchess of York and her daughters in a publicity shot for the programme
WHEN are the fifth and sixth in line to the throne not members of the Royal Family? When they're embarrassing the Queen and threatening Britain's strategic and trading interests.
Viewers watching ITV's Tonight programme this evening will see an extraordinary programme featuring the Duchess of York and her daughters, Princesses Beatrice and Eugenie, exposing the mistreatment of children with learning disabilities in Romania and Turkey. It's a hard-hitting programme that reveals disabled children in those countries are often restrained and kept in conditions that have not been regarded as acceptable in Britain for at least a generation and, if some are to be believed, 80 years. But it has caused a diplomatic incident and upset Turkey, which has accused Prince Andrew's ex-wife Sarah Ferguson and her daughters of smearing the country and trying to damage its attempts to join the European Union. It is a very worthwhile investigation and it makes compelling viewing but my question, when Fergie and Beatrice held a press conference and screening yesterday, was is it right for members of the Royal Family to be doing this? Fergie, who since her 1996 divorce is no longer a member of the Firm, and her daughters, who are fifth and sixth in line to the throne, certainly think it was and some w
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