Buckingham Palace’s reaction to Harry and Meghan’s Oprah interview

LONDON – All eyes are on Buckingham Palace on Tuesday after the explosive interview given by Prince Harry and the Duchess of Sussex to Oprah Winfrey making allegations of racism within the palace and lack of Royal Family support over mental health issues and burglary in the media.

So far, there has been a wall of silence from the Royal Family following the interview, which aired on CBS on Sunday and the British broadcaster ITV on Monday evening, drawing millions of viewers from both sides of the Atlantic.

According to reports in the British media, including the BBC, the palace is said to have held ‘crisis talks’, with senior royals reportedly having urgent discussions on how to mitigate the fallout from the interview, with Harry and Meghan claiming that a member of the The royal family had wondered what skin color their then unborn child might have.

Meghan, the first mixed race member of the modern British royal family, refused to reveal who made the comment, saying, “It would be too harmful for them.”

The palace declined to comment on the interview when it was contacted by CNBC on Tuesday.

Oprah Winfrey later clarified that the royal who made the comment was not Queen Elizabeth II or Prince Philip. The two-hour interview, expertly handled by veteran broadcaster Winfrey, was watched by 17.1 million viewers in the US More than 12 million viewers watched the UK broadcast, according to figures released by ITV on Tuesday.

In addition to allegations of racism, the interview included damaging claims that the palace had failed to support Meghan when she developed mental health problems that left her feeling suicidal.

Speaking of the pressures of royal life, the Sussexes also said they were incited to leave the UK and step down from their role as working royals early last year, due to animosity from the British tabloid press that they said the palace had failed to defend them against.

Nonetheless, the couple also said the royals welcomed Meghan when their relationship began in 2016. Meghan also said the queen had always been “wonderful” to her.

The British press responded on Tuesday with a mix of acknowledgment of how damaging the interview had been, as well as being a little defensive.

While many newspapers reflected on the ‘bombshell’ allegations that had “ shaken ” the palace, others said the interview was selfish to the couple and disrespectful to the queen. According to the Daily Mirror headline, the interview had triggered “the worst royal crisis in 85 years,” while the Daily Express’s headline read, “So sad it came to this,” alongside a photo of the Queen. The Daily Mail, meanwhile, headlined its newspaper this morning with the words, “What have they done?”

The interview has left commentators and royal correspondents wondering how damaging the charges are to the royal family, an institution that has worked to maintain a public image of duty and decorum and has always tried to tear internal family affairs, let alone tear and controversies. from the spotlight.

After the interview was aired in the US, there was widespread public support for Meghan among commentators and friends of the couple. In the UK, a country where most people hold high esteem for the Queen, if not always the wider monarchy, the response has been more mixed.

In a live YouGov poll on Tuesday after the interview, the public was asked “who are your sympathies the most” and current results showed that 40% of respondents had sympathy for the Queen and the Royal Family, with 24% more sympathy for Harry and Meghan. Perhaps another 24% said “neither.”

Whether the revelations will shake a lasting fascination with the British royal family at home and abroad remains to be seen. However, the dispute will rekindle the debate about the value of the monarchy and republican sentiment.

It has already sparked discussion in Australia, part of the Commonwealth and where the Queen is still head of state, as to whether it is time for a change, with former Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull reportedly telling ABC TV on Tuesday that “ our should be head of state. an Australian citizen should be one of us, not the queen or king of the United Kingdom. “

New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern, meanwhile, said on Monday that the country is unlikely to stop having the Queen as head of state any time soon.

There has long been a debate about the value and cost of the monarchy, which brings tourism revenues to the country as well as costs to the UK taxpayer.

The royal household receives income from what is known as the Crown Estate – land and properties of the Queen such as Buckingham Palace and Windsor Castle, which are open to the public during normal hours and provide income – as well as what is called the Sovereign Grant. .

The only grant is money paid by the government to enable the queen to “fulfill her duties as head of state,” the government says, but it also supports the official duties of other senior royals, such as foreign visits, hospitality. and public commitments.

In exchange for these public funds, however, the Queen must hand over income from the Crown Estate to the government, which in turn calculates how much money the grant constitutes.

Explaining how the Sovereign Grant works, the government noted last year, “In exchange for this public support, the Queen will hand over revenues from The Crown Estate to the government, which amounted to £ 343.5 million for 2018-19. The Sovereign Grant for 2020-21 is £ 85.9 million, which is 25% of £ 343.5 million. ”

The state grant for 2018-2019 was £ 82.2 million ($ 107.1 million), compared to £ 76.1 million in 2017-2018, which equates to £ 1.24 per person in the UK. Currently, the Royal Family costs every Briton (of a total population of 66.8 million) £ 1.28 per year.

That’s not much considering the Royal Family draws visitors to the UK, with tourism agency Visit Britain reporting in 2017 that tourism linked to royal residences like Buckingham Palace and Windsor Castle accounts for 2.7 million visitors a year. However, it is difficult to pinpoint how many visitors come to the UK specifically because of the monarchy.

Royal weddings, including Prince William and Kate Middleton in 2011, and the wedding of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle in 2018, were also seen as a boost to tourism in the UK, with hundreds of thousands of visitors and a boost to gross domestic product. Both princes’ weddings have been a boon to tourism and the UK economy. Again, weddings bring additional security and expenses that ultimately fall on the shoulders of the taxpayer; Harry and Meghan’s wedding reportedly cost about $ 42.8 million with much of the budget spent on security and additional police, while William and Kate’s 2011 wedding reportedly cost taxpayers £ 20 million, or about $ 27 million.

The anti-monarchy campaign group Republic contests the idea that the monarchy is a boon to tourism in the UK and says there is no evidence to support such claims.