I'm afraid these girls may be trying to be royals in the compassionate and humanitarian Diana mould, but they need to remember that the post-divorce (and even the post-separation) Diana was in a different position from the position they're in. After the divorce she wasn't an HRH with a need to tread carefully in political areas, whereas Beatrice and Eugenie do have those restrictions, however inconvenient that might be for Sarah.
At the moment it's really hard, though. A lot of members here have said that the princesses should be spending more time doing royal sorts of things and be seen more with Andrew and the rest of the royals rather than being used by Sarah to give her charities a higher profile at glitzy events. Yet when Eugenie accompanied Andrew on a recent trip it was immediately criticised as a boondoggle and an unnecessary extra expense. If these girls start realising that whatever they do, it'll be wrong, that's asking for them to stop trying to do the right thing on the grounds that they can't do it right for a lot of people (including the good old Mail) regardless of what they do.
I think part of the problem is that most people don't really know what the York girls will be doing in the future where royal duties are concerned, so nobody really knows what, if anything, they're being trained for and there are all sorts of rumours flying around. So whenever the girls are out doing anything, a lot of people are second-guessing them and trying to figure out what their position actually is, and there are just a lot of mixed signals being sent. Since Sarah makes her own money, she has a degree of independence from the royals and can go out and do her own thing if she wants to, which makes her daughters' position even less clear. I know it's been said for a long time that the Queen is rather hands-off with her family, but I think there are some dangers in letting these situations with the York girls and William just meander along with nobody really knowing what's happening but suspecting that they aren't giving value for money and are undermining the royal family in the process.
At the moment it's really hard, though. A lot of members here have said that the princesses should be spending more time doing royal sorts of things and be seen more with Andrew and the rest of the royals rather than being used by Sarah to give her charities a higher profile at glitzy events. Yet when Eugenie accompanied Andrew on a recent trip it was immediately criticised as a boondoggle and an unnecessary extra expense. If these girls start realising that whatever they do, it'll be wrong, that's asking for them to stop trying to do the right thing on the grounds that they can't do it right for a lot of people (including the good old Mail) regardless of what they do.
I think part of the problem is that most people don't really know what the York girls will be doing in the future where royal duties are concerned, so nobody really knows what, if anything, they're being trained for and there are all sorts of rumours flying around. So whenever the girls are out doing anything, a lot of people are second-guessing them and trying to figure out what their position actually is, and there are just a lot of mixed signals being sent. Since Sarah makes her own money, she has a degree of independence from the royals and can go out and do her own thing if she wants to, which makes her daughters' position even less clear. I know it's been said for a long time that the Queen is rather hands-off with her family, but I think there are some dangers in letting these situations with the York girls and William just meander along with nobody really knowing what's happening but suspecting that they aren't giving value for money and are undermining the royal family in the process.