General News for The Prince of Wales and The Duchess of Cornwall 1: Feb 2015-Sep 2022

[Fijiro]

Oh my!! It's getting to be ridiculous.

 

[Curryong]

The Guardian report on this.

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news...-from-family-of-osama-bin-laden-report-claims

Well, IF this is true, and we certainly don?t know that much of Charles?s involvement is as reported, then all I can say is that Charles?s lack of judgement regarding others, which has been truly awful in the past (Ball, Seville, Fawcett the Fence etc) is called into question once more.

Nobody would ever in their wildest dreams imagine the Queen or Prince Philip having private meetings over charity donations with a terrorist?s relatives or accepting plastic bags full of cash. Sadly that isn?t the case with the POW, Britain?s furure King, and although Imo Charles is fundamentally an honest man (at least that is my hope) his actions regarding donations for his charities leave a really big question mark going forward.

 

[Moonmaiden23]

This is exactly one of the reasons Charles needs to pipe down a bit on the harsh stance he has taken regarding his brother Andrew's banishment from public life. Yes, Andrew's own poor judgment and arrogance has merited the treatment he deserves.

But the PoW has image issues of his own, brought about by stubbornness and equally poor judgment.

The bin Laden family? Really?

 

[Alison H]

Not another scandal involving donations to the charities. What were they thinking of?

 

[FigTree]

Charles has exactly zero ability in picking people. Useless and very unwise. Utterly naive with seemingly limited social intelligence. It’s such a horrendous look. Having said all that the Bin Laden family are huge and I remember after 2001 many members living in the UK were put under surveillance but they had nothing to do with Osama.

 

[muriel]

Just a few points:

> The Bin Laden's are a large family, and have publicly disowned Osama Bin Laden many years ago. To paint them with the same brush as OSama is inherently unfair to them, IMO.

> Charles was not involved in the decision to accept the donation. That donation was accepted wholly by the Board of Trustees of the PWCF.

> The donation was accepted after due diligence, and with information sought from a wide range of sources, including government.

> To me, this is a non-story and just an attempt to create a scandal where none exists.

 

[Ladyelena]

This.

 

[victor1319]

Just a few points:

> The Bin Laden's are a large family, and have publicly disowned Osama Bin Laden many years ago. To paint them with the same brush as OSama is inherently unfair to them, IMO.

Hmmm, I am not so sure. What about the Hitler family - They are very discreet... or the Mao family?

It is perhaps bad enough for German eyes, that the fortune of the next Prime Minister's of the UK family might be dependent on the good will of Indian politicians... This is all a tad to dodgy much!

 

[Alison H]

It is perhaps bad enough for German eyes, that the fortune of the next Prime Minister's of the UK family might be dependent on the good will of Indian politicians... This is all a tad to dodgy much!

If you mean Rishi Sunak, and his wife's family, there's nothing dodgy about them at all. They are a wealthy family who have earned their money through hard work. And I'm not sure why anyone in Germany would be concerned about Rishi Sunak's wife's money .

 

[US Royal Watcher]

Just a few points:

> The Bin Laden's are a large family, and have publicly disowned Osama Bin Laden many years ago. To paint them with the same brush as OSama is inherently unfair to them, IMO.

> Charles was not involved in the decision to accept the donation. That donation was accepted wholly by the Board of Trustees of the PWCF.

> The donation was accepted after due diligence, and with information sought from a wide range of sources, including government.

> To me, this is a non-story and just an attempt to create a scandal where none exists.

No one would want to be judged by the actions of a few family members they don't associate with. There are some Osama family members who support terrorist but most of them don't.

I am not sure why people think that charities that need others to help others should turn down contributions. Do those who think that the whole Osama family is evil also think that the family should just keep the money to fund terrorist activities.

 

[victor1319]

If you mean Rishi Sunak, and his wife's family, there's nothing dodgy about them at all. They are a wealthy family who have earned their money through hard work. And I'm not sure why anyone in Germany would be concerned about Rishi Sunak's wife's money .

I don't want to go completely off topic here, but if you think this Sunak dude and his family fortune are out of interest for a German; What would you think about a German Chancellor with a family fortune in Putin's Russia? Totally apolitical, right?

And Prince Charles and his "donations" in Harrod's bags - It is getting out of hand!

 

[HenRach Dominion]

To me, this is a question less on morality and more on optics.

From what I've gathered, the bin Ladens as a whole are pretty average albeit wealthy people, and Osama was a black sheep who even his own family had disowned long before September 11th. Of course, no one should be blamed for the atrocities of their family members, especially ones they haven't had close contact with.

As unfair as it is, however, the sad reality is that it happens all the time. Someone above mentioned Hitler's family. One of his nephews, William Stuart-Houston, immigrated to the United States and actively fought against his uncles regime in U.S. Navy. In spite of that, however, he still had to live quietly, and his four sons independently decided never to have children because the legacy of Hitler was too great to overcome.

So, personally, members of the BRF can say, I know our donors better than the average joes on the street, I know they're good people, and that's that. The BRF, however, have shown themselves to be very image conscious, especially to those average joes. They will do things that seem cold but ultimately preserves their image among their constituents e.g. George V encouraging the British government to rescind its offer to offer asylum to the Romanovs partly because the average British citizen at the time resonate with Russia's new government, and he feared a similar uprising may occur in Great Britain.

So yeah, some may roll their eyes and say that once again, HRH The Prince of Wales is being attacked for no reason, that he's followed due process and that all of his donors are on the up-and-up, that anyone who thinks otherwise is uninformed and/or looking for drama. All of that is probably true...but I suspect, as an American looking from the outside in, that the average British citizen is not someone who knows the inner workings of charity work; it's someone with a 9 to 5 who maybe hears the name Osama bin Laden every September 11th. For better or worse, that is the proletariat that the BRF has ascribed their image to.

In that regard, if it would have been in bad faith to refuse the donation out right or at least push the bin Ladens towards a charity that was more similar but less intimately connected to the BRF, then I would have tried to run that money through several different companies and organizations before it came to the charity. That was, the bin Laden would have still donated, but not in such a direct way.

 

[US Royal Watcher]

...

In that regard, if it would have been in bad faith to refuse the donation out right or at least push the bin Ladens towards a charity that was more similar but less intimately connected to the BRF, then I would have tried to run that money through several different companies and organizations before it came to the charity. That was, the bin Laden would have still donated, but not in such a direct way.

You make excellent points and I agree that appearances matter. But this is less of an issue than accepting bags of cash - which may have been legal but looked horrible. I disagree with the last paragraph of your post though. I am not sure that running the money through other companies and organizations is legal in the UK - it isn't legal in the U.S.

 

[tommy100]

I agree, this is all about what it looks like and can be spun by the media as rather than actually what is morally/ethically right or wrong.
The bin Laden family is massive. There are over 600 members of the family and they publicly disowned Osama Bin Laden in 1994. It was always going to look bad, any good PR advisor should have pointed that out, but that doesn't mean it necessarily was a bad thing to do. Was it stupid, well it certainly could create problems s good advisors and Charles himself should have recognised that and decided the potential issues outweighed the actual issue.
Honestly it feels quite narrow minded to judge a whole family with so many members because of one member (and some of his descendants). Yes those actions were awful, the worst ever, but not sure how that makes everyone in the same family evil.

 

[Curryong]

Why were the Bin Laden relatives donating this huge amount of cash to Charles’s charities, though? Because they thought Prince Charles was terrific? Out of the kindness of their hearts?

One would hope that none of Charles’s aides, assistants or others associated with the charity suggested greater access to Charles if such a sum was given. The suggestion has, after all, bobbed up previously.

 

[US Royal Watcher]

Why were the Bin Laden relatives donating this huge amount of cash to Charles’s charities, though? Because they thought Prince Charles was terrific? Out of the kindness of their hearts?

One would hope that none of Charles’s aides, assistants or others associated with the charity suggested greater access to Charles if such a sum was given. The suggestion has, after all, bobbed up previously.

I think it is unfair to the family, most of whom are very good people, that people would assume that a donation is not out of the kindness of their hearts or because they admire the charity. I would rather see them donate money to charity than buy a yacht.

 

[SirGyamfi1]

I don’t think that it was the best idea for Charles to accept charitable funds from them because of the optics, even though the truth has been laid out that the family has mostly renounced Osama. But it is telling after so many years this story is being brought out. Why? I can guess. It is simply an attempt to question Charles’s judgement and leadership skills as a future monarch. Plus remember after he criticized the Rwanda issue by the government, a story about receiving money from one of the gulf rulers from 2011 comes up. I don’t think Charles is perfect, but these stories are just deliberate and non stories.

Why were the Bin Laden relatives donating this huge amount of cash to Charles’s charities, though? Because they thought Prince Charles was terrific? Out of the kindness of their hearts?

One would hope that none of Charles’s aides, assistants or others associated with the charity suggested greater access to Charles if such a sum was given. The suggestion has, after all, bobbed up previously.

What would the Bin Ladens want from Charles? They have mostly been private and have always been wealthy, I don’t think they needed Charles for anything or wanted anything from him. No one knows why they donated money to his charity but it is their personal matter and anyone can donate.

This is exactly one of the reasons Charles needs to pipe down a bit on the harsh stance he has taken regarding his brother Andrew's banishment from public life. Yes, Andrew's own poor judgment and arrogance has merited the treatment he deserves.

But the PoW has image issues of his own, brought about by stubbornness and equally poor judgment.

The bin Laden family? Really?

Charles is not perfect, but comparing him to Andrew in that regard is way off. The money is for the charities not for an expensive lifestyle or himself. Andrew has done far worse than Charles. Plus most of the family don’t support Osama, but the optics look bad though because when people hear the name Bin Laden, they only think Osama.

 

[muriel]

It is perhaps bad enough for German eyes, that the fortune of the next Prime Minister's of the UK family might be dependent on the good will of Indian politicians... This is all a tad to dodgy much!

Just to be clear:

> Rishi Sunak grew up in Southampton. His father was a doctor, his mother was a Pharmacist. He went to Winchester, then Oxford and after a stint at Goldman Sachs, when to Stanford.

> His parents-in-law started and built up Infosys, one of the world's largest outsourcing and IT services business. The business operates in most corners of the world. The shares of the company are listed, and is run by an independent management team.

> Not quite sure how this is "dependent on the good will of Indian politicians" or is "tad to dodgy much"?

 

[muriel]

To me, this is a question less on morality and more on optics.

From what I've gathered, the bin Ladens as a whole are pretty average albeit wealthy people, and Osama was a black sheep who even his own family had disowned long before September 11th. Of course, no one should be blamed for the atrocities of their family members, especially ones they haven't had close contact with.

As unfair as it is, however, the sad reality is that it happens all the time. Someone above mentioned Hitler's family. One of his nephews, William Stuart-Houston, immigrated to the United States and actively fought against his uncles regime in U.S. Navy. In spite of that, however, he still had to live quietly, and his four sons independently decided never to have children because the legacy of Hitler was too great to overcome.

So, personally, members of the BRF can say, I know our donors better than the average joes on the street, I know they're good people, and that's that. The BRF, however, have shown themselves to be very image conscious, especially to those average joes. They will do things that seem cold but ultimately preserves their image among their constituents e.g. George V encouraging the British government to rescind its offer to offer asylum to the Romanovs partly because the average British citizen at the time resonate with Russia's new government, and he feared a similar uprising may occur in Great Britain.

So yeah, some may roll their eyes and say that once again, HRH The Prince of Wales is being attacked for no reason, that he's followed due process and that all of his donors are on the up-and-up, that anyone who thinks otherwise is uninformed and/or looking for drama. All of that is probably true...but I suspect, as an American looking from the outside in, that the average British citizen is not someone who knows the inner workings of charity work; it's someone with a 9 to 5 who maybe hears the name Osama bin Laden every September 11th. For better or worse, that is the proletariat that the BRF has ascribed their image to.

In that regard, if it would have been in bad faith to refuse the donation out right or at least push the bin Ladens towards a charity that was more similar but less intimately connected to the BRF, then I would have tried to run that money through several different companies and organizations before it came to the charity. That was, the bin Laden would have still donated, but not in such a direct way.

I agree with your broader point on optics. That said, in this case, enhanced due diligence measures were carried out by the Trustees of the PWCF, and infoirmation sought from a number of sources, including the government.

 

[muriel]

Why were the Bin Laden relatives donating this huge amount of cash to Charles’s charities, though? Because they thought Prince Charles was terrific? Out of the kindness of their hearts?

Might they have wanted to support the charities?

 

[Alison H]

I don't want to go completely off topic here, but if you think this Sunak dude and his family fortune are out of interest for a German; What would you think about a German Chancellor with a family fortune in Putin's Russia? Totally apolitical, right?

And Prince Charles and his "donations" in Harrod's bags - It is getting out of hand!

Are you comparing Russia and India? I don't get that at all. Russia is currently an international pariah state waging war on Ukraine As Muriel said, his wife's family's money has nothing to do with politicians.

What exactly is "getting out of hand"? Accepting large sums of money in cash is questionable, but I don't see why people are connecting this to Rishi Sunak's wife's perfectly legitimate family business, which has nothing to do with either Indian politics or Prince Charles.

No idea why the Bin Ladens would have made a big donation to Prince Charles's charities. Maybe they did genuinely want to fund good works, but there are a lot of other charities about.

 

[muriel]

No idea why the Bin Ladens would have made a big donation to Prince Charles's charities. Maybe they did genuinely want to fund good works, but there are a lot of other charities about.

If we started to question the motives behind every donation, none of the Rockefeller's, Gates, Bezos or Cook's of the world would be able to make any meaningful donation.

In this situation, the Bin Laden family ought not to be tainted by the actions of Osama. They distanced themselves from him, and condemned his actions long before the events of Sep 11th.

 

[irish_royalist]

If you mean Rishi Sunak, and his wife's family, there's nothing dodgy about them at all. They are a wealthy family who have earned their money through hard work. And I'm not sure why anyone in Germany would be concerned about Rishi Sunak's wife's money .

https://www.theguardian.com/politic...t-relevant-to-say-where-she-pays-tax-overseas

 

[muriel]

https://www.theguardian.com/politic...t-relevant-to-say-where-she-pays-tax-overseas

Not quite sure what point you are trying to make, but Akshata Murthy's tax affairs were fully compliant with prevailing UK law.

 

[Hallo girl]

We cannot help who we are related to. Accident of birth as they say , just because you share the same surname does not mean you share the same values or behaviours. You might not even see them for years.
Neither does it reflect how close a relationship you have, I am closer to and see more of my friends than I am to some people who share my family name.

Because they share Bin Laden as a second name does not tell us the full story.

 

[JessRulz]

Please see the new thread below:

https://www.theroyalforums.com/foru...en-camilla-part-1-september-2022-a-49533.html