The powers
I find these discussions very interesting. It speaks to the assumptions about how the Royal Family, essentially a family business using taxpayer money works. We have made assumptions on what a “full time” working royal means. Is it the number of hours spent working for the Royal Family?
Is it the location/property where the duties are carried out? Is there a full that someone who works “full time” cannot undertake any other personal engagements? Example as an NHS worker, could you not own a private business on the side generating separate income?
It is naive to think that the way the Royals work is set in stone. It is not. It boils down to money and control. Basically prince Harry wanted to earn his own money and still work for the Queen. Which normal person wouldn’t want that? Earning his own money came with issues.
Would he be funded only for royal engagements? He would need security for both private and public work, was there an option to split this? Especially if he was going to be at another location. More importantly he would be making his own rules regarding media involvement.
We all know prince Harry’s intention was to not work with the Rota. Was all this possible? Hell yes! Any business person would have negotiated the hell of that deal before letting Harry, “chief impact officer” go. An entire cash cow, your money maker, your key player. Nah. They fumbled.
They played to the gallery. The Queen was busy shielding Andrew, the media were crying out for blood and they fed prince Harry to the wolves. Then the media coined this “half in, half out” terminology to convince us that prince Harry was asking for the moon to do the work he was already doing.
They said he wanted to have his cake- this same cake that they were all eating. Nah. Because Harry and Meghan eating that cake, being free to roam the world, doing good would make them unstoppable. And in so doing, open the Firm to further scrutiny with respect to funding
If Harry can do it- make his own money, make impactful changes in the world, work for the Firm, then why not all Royals? The public could want more financial transparency. The media would descend again. And ofcourse there’s the argument about “popularity envy”
The palace indeed fumbled and have been trying to pick up the pieces since then. They lost a key player and cannot really justify why.
You would need to look at the palace diaries. Each household has its own, in there will be scheduled and future planning of events. The telegraph and the times both list Royal engagements they day after on who is where doing what. In 2017 the Times said “Princess Anne was confirmed as the busiest member of the royal family, clocking up 455 appearances at charity events, dinners, receptions and other engagements around the country this year, with a further 85 overseas events” That is a working royal.
Cutting ribbons and opening plaques and dressing up work means show up for PR a few hours a month then go on holiday