Prince Charles has jeopardised his reign. amoneyccepting

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?

The fact that people think the heir to the throne could have been involved in money laundering just goes to show what a dreadful situation this is. Even if he wasn't. There is doubt. He could have been responsible for taking money for his charities that is untraceable.

Would it stand up in a court of law? Unlikely, I'm sure.

But he has to be squeaky clean, and he's not.

Some posts are beginning to sound like the English Nationalism we have heard in the past. I am just waiting for someone to say directly, "these people must behave as our culture demands". But why should they? We may find their behavior strange but surely we have learned by now that ours is not the only way to live and many find our behaviour very strange too.

As Germanshepherdsmum said earlier, My husband has done quite a lot of business in the Middle East. He says it's perfectly normal there for business to be done in cash and suitcases full of money wouldn’t cause eyebrows to be raised.

If we accept that this could well be the way of someone from a different culture and read the Clarance House Statement and Sir Ian Cheshire, PWCF chairman's Statement, when they had handled "a rather different way of doing things" nothing, at the time it was first reported all those years ago was found to be wrong.

So maybe this is simply a personal attack from those, writing in newspapers, who have decided they don't like Prince Charles. If so they seem to be very unsophisticated in the ways of the world.

Or maybe, it is an attack by those who would rather not have constitutional parliamentary sovereignty. That is a perfectly reasonable view to hold. However, using this report as an argument simply attacks one man not the system such people want to change. That seems both very odd, inappropriate and a failed argument if that is what it is being used for.

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.

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?

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?

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

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 ?

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 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?

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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!

"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."

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Good post maddyone.

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.