Is this about Major and Champ going back to Delaware? Why isn’t Oprah interviewing both of them? Major is the one accused in the assault incident, but I’m sure Champ would have something to say in support of his brother.
Oprah has obviously taken sides. It’s a disgrace.
She’s up there, although not at the very top. The Duke of Buccleuch owns perhaps ten times as much land as the Queen does personally, and Anders Holch Povlsen, the Duke of Westminster, Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid al-Maktoum, James Dyson, the Duke of Beaufort, and others also have much larger property holdings. As far as wealthiest woman, it depends on your definition of “British,” but for example Charlene de Carvalho-Heineken, who is a Dutch national but lives in London, is worth perhaps $16 billion, far dwarfing the Queen’s personal wealth.
Oh yes there’s an incentive. Under current rules, a “sovereign to sovereign transfer” from the late Queen to the new King Charles doesn’t incur inheritance tax; a bequest to anybody else does. Charles will get pretty much everything.
Not salary. That’s the Sovereign Grant, most of which goes towards the cost of the royal palaces, which the Queen does NOT own. The current program of repairs/renovations at Buckingham Palace, e.g., are estimated at L369 million over ten years, as decades of deferred maintenance have caught up with them.
Just something that’s been bother me - why the hell do UK tabloids still have so much power? Isn’t print dying? Why is dead tree media still relevant in Britain? Don’t Brits have Twitter and Facebook?
Fine. I don’t really know or care. But she’s certainly not impoverished, is she?
I guess if I cared, I might look into the individual wealth of members of the extended family, what their living situations and earning potential were. I CERTAINLY would look into that if I were marrying into the family.
I imagine there are many people who are title-rich and cash-poor. But I wonder how much that really matters if they do not wish to live at a level commensurate w/ their title. Not sure they are really any worse off than an average working stiff. Meanwhile, I suspect they have considerable advantages - at the very least, in terms of connections.
Plenty of other people and causes for me to concern myself with before I boohoo over members of the British royalty.
You know they have websites, right? The Mail Online (That’s the Daily vomsinmymouthabit Mail) is the most visited english 'news’paper website in the World. May the saints preserve us.
Are tabloids as powerful, and is celeb worship such a thing, in non-Anglo, non-totalitarian states?
I guess I never thought before about how close the US culture lies to the Brit tree in this regard.
Well, it certainly exists to some extent in Europe, although I’m not sure it’s quite as ferocious and all encompassing.
Sad thing in the UK is that the tabloids seem to be the main source of ‘news’ for many people, possibly because our broadcast news media is more constrained in how biased it’s allowed to be and therefore a bit tame/unentertaining for many tastes (Piers Morgan notwithstanding - of course, he started out in tabloid journalism which explains a lot).
Possibly India WRT Bollywood? Tho I imagine that might be more prevalent among the wealthier.
OK. I didn’t know that.
It’s still weird, though. The media world has gone through so much turmoil and so many changes these past couple of decades, and yet, in Britain the tabloids still rule the roost as if it were 1985. How have they managed to hold onto power while their counterparts around the world have faltered?
I think it’s because they were shitty internet click bait before the internet was invented. It was a lot easier to port their brand of “journalism” to the web than it was for legitimate news sources.
Exactly this.
I lived over there for a while and their tabloid culture is huge. They love to see someone knocked off their perch and the role tabloids play in that is massive because they initially build people up in the public eye for the inevitable taking them down at the first hint of a problem. There’s no real privacy. Particularly if you’re a celebrity who initially sought their platform out to get your name out. Then it’s transactional.
Same way Fox does
I think it’s a bit facile and silly for people to tut tut about “oh, wait, there’s an interview? oh, why would people pay attention to those reality show stars? blah blah blah”
People are interested in people. People are interested in people with lives and situations that are different, special and unique. There is a LOT to be interested in in the life of the queen, both in terms of its twists and turns, and its remarkable longevity. Then there’s all the Charles and Diana drama. There’s the fact that they’re of great (if symbolic) import to a rich and influential country.
It’s certainly in no way disgraceful for someone to have at least some curiosity about, and familiarity with, the lives of the British royal family.
And I, using cheap dime store psychology, wonder if this is in reaction to having someone above them who can’t be ‘knocked off’.
In America we maybe lessen this impulse by allowing our head of state (or ruling party) a chance to be knocked off every 4 years. Who knows? But I do think my life would be different if I, as a hypothetical Britisher, viewed the Queen as I, as an American, viewed Trump and knew she could never leave.
Imagine having Trump in the White House… forever. That’s how many feel about the Windsors, apparently. Just worse for the fact that it’s a lifetime appointment, and Don Jr gets the job next. Just because.
As the OP it might surprise you to learn that I somewhat agree with you. However, what prompted this thread was the sheer ridiculousness of the hype. I can understand the interest in the interview (not that I have much myself) but the weeks of prominent headlines speculating and pronouncing upon it before it even happened was just way over the top.
And now the latest crap is not about the interview. Nor is it comment about the interview. It’s commentary about a hissy fit by someone who commented on the interview. Spare me.
IME Americans often overestimate the extent to which Lizzy and brood have (or are perceived by the Brits to have) anything much to do with actual government. For that reason, your Trump analogy falls flat. And in any event, most UK tabloid nonsense involves non-royal celebrities.
I don’t think that’s really a widespread sentiment, at least not yet. Mainly because Queen Elizabeth has carried out her duties with commendable skill, and does garner respect throughout the UK and most of the Commonwealth. There is no comparison with a bottom-dwelling grifter and lunatic like Trump. But in spite of that, the monarchy no longer has the unconditional reverence that it had as recently as a generation ago. Its viability may well be in decline when a relatively unpopular couple like Charles and Camilla ascend to the throne, victims of both their own failings and of changing times.
Anyway, back on topic, I don’t know a lot about Harry and Meaghan and don’t care, but it’s generally hard for me to summon any sympathy for privileged whiners living in luxury who choose to wallow in self-pity. As I said earlier, there are a great many people in this world with real problems.
No, it’s isn’t a fair comparison. The royals don’t run anything, they aren’t going to start WW3, they don’t go around upsetting their allies or starting insurrections, and they don’t shoot their mouths off in stupid speeches. They’re a side show to the real business of government. When they show their faults, it’s entertainment.
Now, our present government are the ones that really scare the life out of me. Not the royals having a tiff.
It’s not just the tabloids. Respectable broadsheet papers haven’t minded their columnists putting the boot in. Here’s a handful from the Times, starting from mid-2019 and working back:
- Fly away, Meghan. Your creepy entourage and Prince Entitled are royally irritating
- Meghan’s ‘woke’ Vogue is shallow and divisive
- Meghan ‘has dropped feminism like a hot potato’.
- Queen ‘warned Harry about Meghan tiara tantrum’
- Celebs, debs and plebs: they’re all invited to Harry and Meghan’s circus
That’s only the ones you can tell from the headline are taking a negative line. It’s paywalled but even the straight news stories tend to paint a picture.