Prince Charles has jeopardised his reign. amoneyccepting

Oh, just noticed.

Is Saudi Arabia the same as Qatar DaisyAnne? I think not.

DaisyAnne

So to summarise the consensus of some on this thread.

It seems that Prince Charles:

1) should ignore the fact that so far still legal to use currency in this country.

2) should ignore the fact that Muslims have a very different view of banking based on their religion and that 90% of transactions are still done in cash in Saudi Arabia, although this is slowly changing.

3) should ignore the fact that the UK and Saudi Arabia have a strategic relationship and it is part of his job to forster this.

4) should insult those offering a gift to his charity and tell them to take their money away and bring him a cheque or a bank transfer.

No, you've got that wrong DaisyAnne. Let me help.

Prince Charles

1) should appreciate that donations of millions of pounds to charity are not customarily accepted in carrier bags full of untraceable notes

2) should ask himself if this Qatari was so opposed to using the banking systems of this country that he would have paid for the construction of the Shard in cash. (he part-owns the Shard and Harrods, amongst other things.)

3) should appreciate the fostering relations with other countries doesn't mean disregarding the laws and mores of the land where he is going to be HoS.

4) have developed enough people skills in his 70-odd years to be able to explain to a foreign donor that they are putting him in an unacceptable situation and that they need to be subject to the same rules as the rest of us in the UK.

There, fixed it for you.

and 5) He should not think that a Qatari politician would be mortally offended by being asked to behave in a way that everybody else is expected to in this country, because he's not an extra from Laurence of Arabia but a 21st century businessman.

Prince Charles received bags of cash from a dubious source, which raises lots of serious questions about his judgement, integrity and whether he was expected to lobby on behalf of the donor.

Sheikh Hamad gave more than £2m in cash to Prince Charles. Hamad is a senior member of the Qatari royal family and a former prime minister. He has a dreadful record on human rights and faces serious accusations against him personally and the Qatari regime. He also has huge commercial, financial and personal interests in the UK.

Usually Charles is accompanied by a civil servant when meeting foreign dignitaries. This time he met privately, while being handed bags of cash.

Prince Charles has direct access to government ministers and all cabinet papers, as well as complete secrecy over what he says to who and on what issues he lobbies government. So the obvious question is, what was Hamad expecting in return for this favour, and did he get it?

It is unacceptable and worrying that the institution of Britain's head of state continues to be embroiled in scandal and yet MPs keep looking the other way.

So to summarise the consensus of some on this thread.

It seems that Prince Charles:

1) should ignore the fact that so far still legal to use currency in this country.

2) should ignore the fact that Muslims have a very different view of banking based on their religion and that 90% of transactions are still done in cash in Saudi Arabia, although this is slowly changing.

3) should ignore the fact that the UK and Saudi Arabia have a strategic relationship and it is part of his job to forster this.

4) should insult those offering a gift to his charity and tell them to take their money away and bring him a cheque or a bank transfer.

Good post maddyone.

I agree with you volver so you’re not the only one. I agree with Farzanah too. Just because many Muslims have a different attitude to interest doesn’t mean that other countries need to accept that it is okay to transfer large amounts of cash in plastic bags. Many Middle Eastern countries also have a very different attitude to capital punishment but no one is suggesting that we need to accept and even adopt their attitude to that.

It’s not really logical or relevant to say that this happens in some Middle Eastern countries, as many practices go on in other countries that quite obviously are not acceptable in this country.

It can't be only me who thinks that the constant excuse that "Middle East people like cash transactions because they don't trust credit cards etc so we can't blame him" is a little bit xenophobic?

Credit cards can be a problem in Muslim countries because of the Islamic attitude to interest. They can use bank drafts. In fact they did, as the BBC article says.

I agree that the Prince of Wales has made an error of judgement in accepting this donation in this form but most countries in the Middle East run a great deal of financial transactions on a cash basis as they do not trust cheques or credit cards.

Conversely...

If the Times hadn't run the article, none of us would have been aware of a potential issue of probity in the handling of the PWCF, so serious that the Charity Commission think they should review it.

A commission spokesperson said: “We are aware of reports about donations received by PWCF.

“We will review the information to determine whether there is any role for the commission in this matter.”

I agree with Maizie, as the Times has run the article, there was nothing else they could do but look at whether they need to follow up on this. When they have "determined", it will either not be something they look at or we will have to await the report.

Either way that would be a good thing it will cease to be rumour, guesswork and unfounded opinion.

"Charities are required to be independent, yet Charles appears to be making decisions without the knowledge of trustees while at the same time personally benefiting from the charity's funding of his Scottish estate."

Germanshepherdsmum

How can you possibly say it’s money laundering? Do you have some special knowledge about its source or are you just making unfounded assumptions and stirring the pot, like the press?

Oh for goodness sake Germanshepherdsmum didn't you 'see' my tongue firmly in cheek!

get over yourself!

MaizieD

^The Charities Commission are considering investigating. It was on the news at tea time. You best take it up with them whether they think there is something worth investigating.^

They can hardly do otherwise with all this hoo ha about it, can they?

I await their report.

Indeed.

Or if it was instantly obvious that there was nothing to worry about, they would have said "there's nothing to worry about". But they haven't.

I haven’t read every post, so hopefully not repeating, but when I went to Prince Charles’ very large gardens at Highgrove, I was astounded by how many of the individual gardens were donated by wealthy business people from other countries or by other people and organisations.

Prince Charles is a very, very wealthy man and it seemed to me that he could really pay for his own gardens and allow the donated gardens and resources to be given to charities and others including schools, local estates or others who need this help.

The Charities Commission are considering investigating. It was on the news at tea time. You best take it up with them whether they think there is something worth investigating.

They can hardly do otherwise with all this hoo ha about it, can they?

I await their report.

Yes I do think the cash in bags looks sleazy although not illegal, but I am looking at the bigger picture.

Perhaps given in cash because the Sheikh doesn’t want paper trails.

I quite like Charles too. I said at the weekend on here that I might even vote for him if he stood for president . But wouldn't you rather know if the Charity of our future head of state wasn't being run properly?

Oh, by the way - some money was paid directly into bank accounts by bankers draft. That's being considered for investigation too.

If people are donating millions you don't just say "thank you very much" and then move on. It's not like putting a fiver in the tin.

I’m no fan of the RF but I quite like Charles, and wonder if he’s becoming rather too “woke” for those who ultimately call the tune in this country ie the media.
He’s apparently been advocating teaching more about the transatlantic slave history in schools, and in addition apparently doesn’t agree with the government’s policy on sending asylum seekers to Rwanda.
Bit of a coincidence me thinks ?

People get suspicious about all sorts of things. It's not necessarily a particularly rational or justified suspicion. some people are just suspicious.

The Charities Commission are considering investigating. It was on the news at tea time. You best take it up with them whether they think there is something worth investigating.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-61952106

And yes. People in this country need to behave not as our "culture" demands, but as our law demands.

But does our law say that not donations to charity can be made in cash?

What law was broken in this transaction?

If there wasn't a suspicion of a problem, we wouldn't be having this conversation.

People get suspicious about all sorts of things. It;s not necessarily a particularly rational or justified suspicion. some people are just suspicious.

The donation was checked out. So, basically, based on suspicion alone, people are implying that the trustees didn't do their job properly and that something underhand was going on. On the basis of no evidence at all.

But people can be suspicious because we're British and bags full of cash is not the way we do things...

This, to me, is on a par with suspecting that all the asylum seekers crossing the channel in rubber dinghies are terrorists...

If the money had been paid via a bank account would everyone have been happy?

Well that can't be aimed at me. I don't think anybody could call me an English Nationalist ?

And yes. People in this country need to behave not as our "culture" demands, but as our law demands.