re: #155 The Very Reverend Battleaxe of Knowledge

Unless he comes down with something and homeopaths himself to death….

And he’s doing quite well, in the quasi-privatization of the royal family

“When Britain’s Conservative-Liberal coalition government announced its austerity budget in the fall, there was a small clause that essentially privatizes the Royal Family and turns them into uncontrollable profiteers who are almost obligated to take a political role.

(snip)

“This was Prince Charles’s idea. As a future monarch, he doesn’t take money from the Civil List but has turned his own gift, a 650-million land package known as the Duchy of Cornwall, into a hugely profitable enterprise. His company’s high-end sausages, sauces and herbal “medical” products, produced on public land for which he pays nothing and by a company that’s exempt by charter from corporate tax, fill the supermarket shelves of England; and his investment and property-development portfolio has become a powerful force.

“Charles received 16.5-million from the Duchy in the year ended March 31, 2010, according to its annual report; the organization also pays his personal staff of 110 people, including his valets, his servants and his wife, as salaried employees. When he takes over the throne, he will inherit (without paying any inheritance tax) his mother’s estate, the Duchy of Lancaster, which paid the Queen rental incomes of 13.2-million last year. And, of course, he’ll be able to expand his business empire into the Crown Estate.” More

theglobeandmail.com