Don’t fund royals, says Kensington MP
BRITAIN: The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge are ‘‘ridiculous’’ and should lose their public funding, their Labour MP has said, drawing fire from other figures in her party.
Emma Dent Coad criticised the couple, whose home at Kensington Palace is in her constituency, and ‘‘the whole system’’ of the royal family at a pro-republican event this week.
’’Their MP thinks the system is ridiculous,’’ she told delegates at a Labour conference fringe event entitled Reigning in the Monarchy. ‘‘We should not be funding them.’’
Dent Coad said it was ‘‘disgusting’’ that the duchess had bought jumpers at an estimated cost of £150 (NZ$280) each when ‘‘that’s a food bill for a family of four’’, adding: ‘‘That’s absolutely outrageous.’’
She attacked Prince Harry’s military service, saying: ‘‘Harry can’t actually fly a helicopter . . . He tried to pass the helicopter exam about four times and he couldn’t get through it at all . . . so he just sits there going ‘vroom vroom’.’’
The prince, who rose to captain in a decade of army service and was twice deployed to Afghanistan, was a qualified Apache helicopter pilot and served as the gunner.
Dent Coad won the Kensington seat in the general election in June. Her majority of 20 gave Labour its first win in the constituency.
John Woodcock, the Labour MP for Barrow, said: ‘‘As the chair of the Parliamentary Labour Party’s backbench defence committee over the last parliament, I want to make clear that the highly inaccurate comments reportedly made by one of our colleagues which disparage Prince Harry’s military service, in no way reflect the views of my party.’’
’’I am really sorry this has happened,’’ Woodcock added.
Dent Coad also accused Prince Philip of having affairs.
During the election campaign Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, a noted republican, rejected suggestions he would abolish the British monarchy.
In an interview he said ’’it’s not on anybody’s agenda, it’s certainly not on my agenda and, do you know what, I had a very nice chat with the Queen’’.
The interviewer countered: ‘‘You don’t like her, do you, you don’t like what she represents?’’ Corbyn replied: ‘‘We got along absolutely fine . . . I don’t think she should be brought into political discussion.
‘‘I believe in a democracy and we live in a democracy. We have a titular head of state as the monarch but without political power.’’ –