The Man Who Shouldn't be King

[Music] points to fanfare there's a bloke with in high gears with a megaphone have a loser these moments in the subway and viewing now all of this with their somewhat baleful eye is Graham Smith who's head of the Republic which calls for the abolition of the monarchy and the establishment an elected head of state so when you see the smiles on all these faces around here you hear the joy of those people on the Royal Mile what's not to love two-thirds of the population aren't interested in this wedding a clear majority think the world should pay for the security and policing as well as the ceremony it would appear to be human nature to want a dynasty this even with the American said you got the other Kennedys you know the bushes you almost had that you had the Clintons who nob there'll be another Trump or other probably the pregame electing to use but the difference between the Kennedys and the bushes and the Clintons is they've been elected well how did they start you did you have a bad experience with the Royal when you were five or something what we're saying here today is that we're not gonna get that choice if the Queen dies tomorrow King Charles is on the throne in an instant and none of us get a stay in there [Music] [Music] it has just been announced from Buckingham Palace that Her Royal Highness the Princess Elizabeth Duchess of Edinburgh was safely delivered of a prince at 9:14 p.m. and that her Royal Highness and her son are both doing well listeners will wish us to offer their loyal congratulations to Princess Elizabeth and the royal family on this happy occasion Prince Charles is among our guests of some sensibility and intelligence but even he was wake up occasionally I think the only reason I'm here is as a class to test the first one is you've got born and the second one is you stayed alive that's it it is bizarre he's Prince of Scotland Duke of Rothesay Earl of Carrick great steward of Scotland and Lord of the Isles I have no idea go on hop in I'm guessing his mother became Queen in 1952 he immediately became Jukka Cromwell in 1969 when he was 21 the a surplus accumulated for in journeys minority was given to him five million quid in today's terms from the accumulated surplus never mind the income he's generated since that [Music] the Duchy of Cornwall is a very very substantial organization it has a hundred thirty-two thousand acres including jion's our city in the $30 it owns the free loader call he has the right to royal fish it has the right of rec it has the right to upon bhikkhus in various parishes and they also recommend to on the Isles of Scilly as well many Sicilians find it very annoying Duchy of Cornwall benefits from the fact is called the Duchy of core toffee cream scones and beaches mean all that kind of stuff you're beginning Fisker with their oppressive the threatening people's getting this is a council maintain road taking on some ducks you maintain those in your sector ponies [Music] but nothing nothing absolutely just take they change whether someone to take over the fight yes with some men a business one no mercy because she withdraws did you say now if you are Wow so we can told you on camera [Music] but she owned the Isles of Scilly I mean there are limited pockets of freehold here on some areas but and the odd freehold property on the off islands but the majority of it is ostensibly a Duchy estate yeah we set up in the time of the Black Prince to provide an income for the heir apparent if you take that out of the scheme of things you know is the general taxpayer then going to pick up the tab for you know more more expense towards the royal family I'm not sure that would go down very well it was created by Edward the third now you need to understand that Edward the third had no assurance about his succession his father had abdicated and being killed he had to fight to become king and there was no agreed assumption in those days that the eldest son would inherit from the father so the Duchy of Cornwall was one way of establishing the succession forever with the third the Duchy as we have it is because of the changes made by overt and by Victoria the reality is but on the Duchy funding the heir of the throne is a convenient way of describing office Skating confusing because of the overthrow to us that's the reality because it's a rational policy and ain't question of law it cultivates a convenient mystique it's a chameleon changing its status to suit its own ends and it was secretive and unaccountable [Music] why did I'll go into silly I absolutely loved there I walked around the beaches for a while beautiful idyllic place what a wonderful place to live and I've had a few too many glasses of wine and agreed to manager cafes in the day we had birds there old parents at one time and then we'd never had time to do the parents so we just worked the cafe and then Adam come along and took the cafe on promise and set this up I kept looking at this area evening world waste so what I got into rescuing some mammals who rescued some meerkats from the mopar zoo and had a really good support for local people they loved what we were doing there she families with children I could bring them and see the animals but then literally just as we'd finish the bird park and animal sanctuary where the letter off the dirty Sammy must remove all our mammals immediately he had young Gulch miniature gulps and Molly had every role soldier they didn't have a problem last year when he said that they knew he was something yeah well the ducky chap come up here and walk around this or all this and they change their mind yeah and when we asked for a reason they said you know we you know we don't want to discuss this further they would not give us a reason why [Music] with a crown there's no negotiation if they make a decision that's it you can't negotiate it because they just don't have to [Music] for the last 20 years I are actually been pursuing why I cannot enfranchise my property we've had various acts over the years the last one in 2002 which gave the right to ordinary people to buy their landlord out and so they owned the land which their property stood on so whether your own two houses or one heirs or whether you own a thousand houses the law applies equally across except when it comes to the Duchy or the Duchy exempt themselves from that there's a famous jurist called Edward cut floor cook no they were cooked he called the Duchy of mystery it's been called a strange species of inheritance and that's why William Blackstone our painting complex that was the Law Commission very maturely I've met even anomaly that was Austin which your funeral Roman that's what I call it there's a wonderful communist core Austin Green who refers the Duchess the notorious Institute of royal exploitation although that does she say they acquired the islands in 1337 though there are no records what is on the garrison is Elizabethan it was the then Ministry of Defence of Elizabeth the first who built the castle who built various houses for ammunition so it was really a military installation so how he got from the crown ie a Ministry of Defence to the Duchy is very unclear they've created this myth that they've owned the arse of Scilly since the time of the Black Prince have they we don't know [Music] it is secretive people find it intimidating people on the other city in particular will tell you but for example they will go to the other City Council and saying we want to do X and the other City Council may say no and they said well we're only here to courtesy we can do anyway the islands I think Charles considers as his personal fiefdom if you decide you'd like to let your house even have a lodger in your house the don't you come along and say we one part of that thank you very much they apply what the locals now call a bed tax so for a fourteen weeks on a house on a garrison here the Dutchie are taking 1,500 pounds every year just for the permission to let the house we do survive here by letting second homes out and and to discourage that is probably not a great not a great thing already the other thing they've done is grant theses for the child's lifetime and that means that yes they can build a house at their expense but if they die everything reverts to the Duchy so even if they have children they have a wife it all goes to the Duchy its feudal I think they think were almost serfs than the way they do things and the way they communicate with you really belongs to a different era [Music] there are no for a fact on selling people won't find a G they won't because they're worried that their rents are they look faster just makes you not want to live there they are very reluctant to appear or be quoted because they fear there'll be some repercussions maybe of quite subtly but the repercussions aren't possible that could be very damaging to them and so there is an element of fear of trust if you like which you know in terms of the monarch in waiting is that this is the man we should be respecting and do you respect people who don't trust the present value of the Duchy does 877 million its would you believe the 4th largest landowner in the country and would you also believe it's one of the biggest house builders in the country its income to Prince Charles is twenty point five million for those of you who actually take a surfing lesson and Watergate Bay then part of the money goes to the Duchy okay for those of you parking car parks in Paul's F Beach need go go all these are significant sources of income [Music] [Music] the duchies cashflow is really all out of the islands what comes back is grants not grants from the Duchy but grants from the EU heritage bodies the house next door the windows were changed on the front if they were PVC and they were changed to wood the Duchy didn't pay for that it was a grant they owned the harbour they charged all the cruise ship passengers for landing they take all the pilotage charges they take all the mooring charges both for residents and for visitors I ran 16 million pounds has just been spent on the key which is owned by the Duchy but the money is actually European money example my god when Prince Charles has come over he's open something that she made sure that the roads were tarmac just before he came but they did really bad jobs they just tile mats over really bad roads and we've been probably a week or two weeks after didn't she left the roads were just as bad as they were before he spends about a million pounds a month on his official duties but he still left with around 20 million pounds a year which I described as pocket money and the 20 million allows him to participate in his various vanity projects [Music] I've always thought that some of the Queen's popularity is accounted for by the fact that she's been there so long that she's become a sort of grandmother of the nation it's put her in a position where even the mildest criticism is treated as a cruel personal attack but that's all about to change even diehard Royalists know that Charles is immature solipsistic and thin-skinned and while he overestimates his capabilities he regards himself as an expert in many fields from the environment and medicine to architecture and education a few years ago he was listed as co-author of a book called harmony a new way of looking at our world with characteristic modesty he wrote for more than 30 years I've been working to identify the best solutions the array of deeply entrenched problems we face having considered these problems long and hard my view is that our outlook in the westernized world has become far too firmly framed by a mechanistic approach to science this approach is entirely based upon the gathering of the results that come from subjecting physical phenomena to scientific experiment it's an absolute mass of highly reactionary obscurantist conservatism off the type that believes the world started to go wrong when the harmony of traditional society in the Middle Ages was broken by Galileo so you know in the conflict between the Pope and Galileo he's on the side of the Pope Catholic Church doesn't even hold on to that position developers of an exclusive site in the city of blaming the heir to the throne of England Prince Charles for the collapse of a high-profile planning application [Music] clearly what he says as the heir to the throne carried influenza carries influence with civil servants it goes in close with government ministers it carried influence with them overseas investors and so clearly his words are weighed heavily these barracks were due to be transformed but in June last year the planning application was drops the court heard how Prince Charles had written to the Qatar royal family and their development company asking them to reconsider the plans even submitting some new ones with an architect's that he prefers after growing up in an atmosphere of servile flattery Charles considers himself to be one of the world's great thinkers all of his ideas on architectural design class structure aesthetics and ecology are here and what he sees as the future looks very much like the past an 18th century village adapted for the 21st and that's a convenient storage and very proud of which everybody said wouldn't work that's the part which again nobody wanted to touch but now was the Bernese again an open earth problem is not the type of interventions that he makes it's the fact that he makes them what if we discovered that he was incredibly keen on the death penalty or he wanted to criminally criminalize homosexuality it is absolutely fine essentially to defend those Besson Buddhist and Syrian Christian but the people he does defend are always believers in traditional faith and one notices that that can be combined with the most lush and lavish and friendly relationships with the most powerful reactionary Monika's [Music] he will very happily go to Saudi Arabia and he took part in a ceremony with the then crown prince and they dressed up in Bedouin robes and they took part a little sword dance what seemed to me extraordinary about that was that what swords are usually used for in Saudi Arabia is cutting people's heads off and that seemed to me the most extraordinary bad bad taste and my guess is that he sees them as part of his kind of gang they're all Royals they're all princes you know they exist in the same kind of atmosphere the same kind of world for men's privilege and he doesn't apply this he simply doesn't apply the same standards to them as he does to say the government of China [Music] Charles is an inveterate and mostly undeclared lobbyist over many years he's used his position to raise a whole series of causes expecting in the most cases getting a respectful response from elected politicians good morning sir are you worried about these letters are you still writing to minister's letters like that The Guardian fought this case for 10 years so we saw just a small sample of letters over a period of about eight months and we could see just how prepared he was to intervene and put pressure on politicians Britain's Prince Charles said UK troops are under resourced during the Iraq war according to a letter he pens a former Prime Minister Tony Blair in 2004 I fear that this is just one more example of where our armed forces are being asked to do an extremely challenging job particularly in Iraq without the necessary resources I remember a friend of mine who became a minister and he'd only been a minister for three weeks when he got his first letter from Prince Charles others range from the scourge of badgers to the plight of the albatross - well the tooth fish there is a sort of sense that he is a bit eccentric you know got all these green obsessions and so on but on the whole quite harmless but I think that does a disservice to the rest of us because he does have this extraordinary influence he is choosing ministers who are relevant to his particular pet issues with its environment or education or health he's completely ignored the Treasury whilst we're going through financial crises I completely ignore the Justice Department so clearly he's you know meeting ministers said he can pursue his own political interests [Music] successive governments fought for 10 years to keep Charles's letters private and it was explicitly said that one of the reasons why the government and the Attorney General kept going to court using a huge amount of public money to try and stop publication was that they said it would Eitan the letters might give the impression that Charles was not politically impartial well that's absolutely clearly what they did do the Duchy of Cornwall is an aggressive assertive organization that intimidates people and if you take them on then you would have resources thrown at you which you can not hope to match when people like Prince clowns abuses for all the people they're targeting are in the very exposed position because their colleagues are saying of the power that Maliki has means that we shouldn't really take take him on there have been examples particularly the very good and very learning friend of mine heads are turns he's certainly been meddling in my life and he's certainly been meddling in in health politics and his most certainly been meddling in alternative medicine everything a humane scientist and as a proper scientist he said well yes because it's alternative medicine doesn't mean it doesn't work and he went to X to the University and says that set up an international school to study how we have it medicine which after all millions upon millions of people take it's worth a hundred billion dollars a year when I came to Exeter and noticed with delight that sir Prince Charles took an interest in what I was doing he even asked for a copy of my inaugural lecture and I was delighted because I thought he was going to support me hope its chance has a be under his bonnet about alternative medicine and he thinks that the NHS should pay for it but the NHS should pay for what is evidence-based not for what Prince Charles happens to like and I think we should investigate it properly he devised trials and of course every single trial to homeopathic remedies fails [Music] Prince Charles had personally charged Christopher Smallwood with doing a cost-benefit analysis of alternative medicine within the NHS and that was just unbelievable the methodology was unbelievable the conclusions were just plainly wrong didn't it all coincide with my research so I told him and our humans got more and more sloppy and finally we fell out in criticized him he spent four times with also criticizing him saying quite wrongly the prince was overstepping his constitutional role in this interview with The Times I said that I fear that he's overstepping his mark in terms of what is supposed to be doing as as the heir to the throne on the same day I got an email from Christopher Smallwood that he would make sure that I would regret that an official complaint from Charles's office reached my vice chancellor and my vice chancellor started 13 months investigation into my dealings in this affair at the end of this I was pronounced innocent but all support at Exeter broke down contracts were discontinued and eventually I had to go into early retirement he loses call his team's broken up and they can't allocate they can't say we believe knack of academic freedom our researchers are paid for by the public and it's precisely to have an informed public debate and we have him here at X University now that says he doesn't seem to tolerate anybody who has the slightest difference in opinion to his own [Music] I have this romantic rather naive believe in equality before the law and the fundamental provision that be you ever saw hi the law is above you apparently those principles apply except if you're the Duchy of Cornwall and Duke of Cornwall the Duchy of Cornwall Eton is not it says it's a private estate except when it's part of the crime and it's part of the crime that comes with tax and crowd immunity but it's a private estate if you want information the Duchy choses to be in the private or the public sector depending what the question is [Music] there was an issue over an oyster fishery in Cornwall somebody called John Bruton said the Duchy should have done the environmental impact assessment before they put into those cages to grow oysters in the river because the Duchy was in the public sector John Bruton won the case largely because the Nazis representative said that in their opinion they were above the law and they could do what they liked and this didn't go down very well with the tribunal in the meantime the Duchy decided that they had to demonstrate that they were in the private sector by turnings and there is Harbor into a trust port and they wouldn't own the port and they couldn't then be accused of being in the public sector so that she appealed and with the Duchess solicitors running it and Bruton lost as soon as bruton lost his case they gave up any pretends to want to turn the harbour into a chess port if it suits them to be in one there being one and if it suits them to be in the other there'll be another the Duchy calm is a probably statement it's beneficial part of the crime when it's convenient a truss when convenient and not a truss was not not a person except mutism was a department of state but no longer permit you to break the law and veto acts of parliament we're supposed to live in a democracy in this country and democracy implies that people are actually voted for and if they don't come up to scratch they're removed so it is rather peculiar to have an arrangement whereby those who are a head of state and and those close to the head of state are not elected but they are by some accident of birth it's extraordinary in the 21st century that one family can decide what legislation to wants and doesn't want for his own financial interests these arrangements go back centuries but they've been amended in the last century to benefit the royal family even more go to the national archives and look at the correspondence between the lonex and the treasury in terms of paying tax when it comes to tax avoidance these people have gotten married I've been terribly Republicans estimated the total cost of the monarchy had 334 million pounds every year that's including security cost to local councils and lost revenue from the Dutchess they don't pay tax on up a corporation tax our capital gains tax how do I get away with that it's a shadowy as as any of those massive in multinational corporations who don't pay tax where it's earned [Music] the royal family doesn't pay inheritance tax the queen mother died and should have paid a big inheritance that's built nothing that was paid there's a whole lot of voluntary arrangements for income tax which doesn't apply to anybody else why is that the case when we got people struggling on very low incomes the idea that very rich people who have to be mows the royal family can write the laws themselves effectively or stop laws being passed in order to protect their own interest is frankly indefensible [Music] we've got people in Kensington you can't afford to eat we're opening our fourth food bank I don't think we should be paying for the royal family out of people's text when they can hardly afford to put food on the table they shouldn't have to do that it's outrageous that 1/3 per billion goes through our family it's outrageous that we're going to pay for repairing Bucky and Pallas another third of a billion at least when we won't even have access to all of it I don't understand the basic inequity of that how can that be right it's not right it's immoral [Music] we now have a situation where it's 12 members of the royal family get free travel on royal duties that he can debate what a royal duty is it includes going to a pony club Gymkhana and then taking a helicopter to another pony club Gymkhana well that's good value for taxpayers money we can debate but they always go by helicopter the Treasury is supposed to keep an eye on where the money that they spend but of course they don't because they're frightened ministers are frightened and officials are caught even more frightened of upsetting them we love sort of obfuscating these things but it's too difficult to discuss and we're worried that one of the tabloids mites they were being unfair and some of the other but really needs sorting out because again it's feudal there nauseam we need to have a proper debate where people can actually speak their minds look at the evidence get the freedom of information information that we need and have a debate based on facts [Music] the problem with monarchy which champaign identified is that sooner or later the hereditary principal will end up with someone wholly unsuited for the job and it's at least arguable the world Charles Windsor is that wholly unsuitable man he's certainly a monstrous form British monarchs are for life not just for Christmas fact it's hard to think of anyone less suited by temperament or upbringing to take a major role on the world stage except Donald Trump like Trump he can't bear criticism especially from experts I think the two of them resemble big children were used to living in an atmosphere where no one dares challenge them Charles has actually wasted his entire life to get the job that he wants so I think he's going to be a king in a hurry and he's made it clear he's you know let it be known which is which was how the rules always do it that he will go on making what he calls interventions what I call interference [Music] if the Queen was his I next week he will become molecules a time of huge chaos mistrust in politics doubts about what Britain is even Britain will survive who we are where we are in the world everything's just going downhill so bad a lot of lies a lot of misconceptions they have these indicative boats and we still can't make up my mind as the whiteout and let us leave the EU on time that is not a time when you answer some bullish ranting remarkably stupid now as head of state we're just committing suicide I've totally lost faith in democracy the decision to advise her matters date to her apartment was unlawful [Music] [Applause] did you lie to the Queen absolutely not Parliament has a sovereignty but it's really through the Queen and we're not citizens with subjects historical divisions that we have in this country are based on inherited privilege and I think that's perpetuated by a monarchy not by the Queen herself as I respect her very much but I love the Queen I hate the monarchy subjects very controversial because if maybe if we maybe if you didn't have the Queen we wouldn't have enough tourists but then again she didn't she doesn't do anything she's the queen of England so she doesn't do anything for us she does she's the queen of England even quite Monica's papers like the daily mail have run pieces saying this man is dangerous to the monarchy and the question would be if Charles turned out to be a really bad King and he's damaging the institution who would turn on him who would support him and how would they get out of the problem in the sense that if he didn't agree to go then they're stuck with him one of the reasons I think Charles is such an opportunity for us is that friends of mine who for years I haven't really talked to about these things because they always say oh but the Queen does a marvelous job when I mentioned Charles they all got quite annoyed and they were say Oh Charles well that's a very different matter and so so that's why I think I think the atmosphere changes and I think we need fairly simple slogans because you know his tax dodging and all those kind of things are very important but I think it has to be about how out of touch he is and how he lives the lifestyle of the 19th century colonial monarch [Music] after swearing allegiance to the Queen the Prince took his seat on the cross papers signifying having waited so long I don't think he'll build to rein in his his his interfering instincts so I think everything changes when the Queen dies and he becomes king I think all bets are then off at that point we would finally have the conversation I've been waiting for all of my life which is why does this country have an unelected head of state and when can we actually move to something more modern revolution I'm not a radical I'm not a revolutionary but the more I've done the more radicalized I've become and frankly the angrier I've become so much of it is opaque you know they're convenient calls behind closed doors there are convenient conversations there's pressure to bear you know which we're not aware given the cuts that are now having to be made to the National Health to cancel services for libraries for people's care you must ask is this fair and is it equal unless they behave more openly I can't see people tolerating it I think that we people turn against the Dutchie [Music] [Music] it's all city of your monarchist a huge worry it'll be your Tom Paine moment of your own ologist because you then say well actually someone who is wholly unfit to be constitutional article written and of a dozen other countries has finally got here and we are in trouble [Music] you

Channel: Republic Campaign

Views: 238,900

Rating: 4.3397741 out of 5

Keywords: Prince Charles, monarchy, British monarchy, royal family, duchy of cornwall, Republic, leasehold

Id: TGamLrHlikc

Length: 43min 1sec (2581 seconds)

Published: Fri Mar 27 2020