Queen Elizabeth II’s personal finances are largely a mystery, and there is much we don’t know about the Crown’s assets. Those are two different things – the Queen has her own wealth, her own private property, her own portfolio of cash, investments, art and real estate (Sandringham, Balmoral). Then she has what amounts to the “guardian” of Crown assets, like Buckingham Palace, Windsor Castle and Kensington Palace, the Crown’s extensive art collection, all of Crown jewelry, and of course, all of the Crown real estate across the UK. The Guardian has an interesting – and very complicated – story about why people don’t know much about the Queen’s private wealth. It’s because the Queen used her position as head of state to personally lobby the government to keep her “embarrassing” wealth and assets hidden.
The Queen successfully lobbied the government to change a draft law in order to conceal her “embarrassing” private wealth from the public, according to documents discovered by the Guardian. A series of government memos unearthed in the National Archives reveal that Elizabeth Windsor’s private lawyer put pressure on ministers to alter proposed legislation to prevent her shareholdings from being disclosed to the public.
Following the Queen’s intervention, the government inserted a clause into the law granting itself the power to exempt companies used by “heads of state” from new transparency measures. The arrangement, which was concocted in the 1970s, was used in effect to create a state-backed shell corporation which is understood to have placed a veil of secrecy over the Queen’s private shareholdings and investments until at least 2011. The true scale of her wealth has never been disclosed, though it has been estimated to run into the hundreds of millions of pounds.
Evidence of the monarch’s lobbying of ministers was uncovered by a Guardian investigation into the royal family’s use of an arcane parliamentary procedure, known as Queen’s consent, to secretly influence the formation of British laws. Unlike the better-known procedure of royal assent, a formality that marks the moment when a bill becomes law, Queen’s consent must be sought before legislation can be approved by parliament. It requires ministers to alert the Queen when legislation might affect either the royal prerogative or the private interests of the crown.
The website of the royal family describes it as “a long established convention” and constitutional scholars have tended to regard consent as an opaque but harmless example of the pageantry that surrounds the monarchy. But documents unearthed in the National Archives, which the Guardian is publishing this week, suggest that the consent process, which gives the Queen and her lawyers advance sight of bills coming into parliament, has enabled her to secretly lobby for legislative changes.
Thomas Adams, a specialist in constitutional law at Oxford University who reviewed the new documents, said they revealed “the kind of influence over legislation that lobbyists would only dream of”. The mere existence of the consent procedure, he said, appeared to have given the monarch “substantial influence” over draft laws that could affect her.
[From The Guardian]
The rest of the Guardian’s piece details just what kind of lobbying was made behind-the-scenes, especially when the Queen’s private lawyers got involved. The “embarrassing” quote is basically about how the Queen would be totally embarrassed if people… knew how much money she had and where she invested her private wealth. I’ll admit that it’s sort of confusing, but that’s the point. These are archaic mechanisms being exploited by a head of state to keep her double-dealing and enormous wealth a secret. It’s an abuse of power and “meddling” in parliamentary procedures. Omid Scobie updated his post with a statement from Buckingham Palace where they were basically like “nothing to see here, everything is above board, don’t worry!” Yeah we’re not taking your word for it, Petty Betty.
Buckingham Palace have denied the @guardian’s report which claims that the Queen blocked government legislation in the 1970s to hide her wealth, calling it a “purely formal” process.
The newspaper’s investigation was based on memos found in the British National Archives. pic.twitter.com/1ltnNd0Fnr
— Omid Scobie (@scobie) February 8, 2021
Photos courtesy of WENN, Avalon Red.
Its long been rumoured she’s pretty much close to being a billionaire who could fund her staff and repairs to her palaces herself without denting her personal wealth. Chuck is also reportedly worth many millions via the Duchy of Cornwall.
And they have a nerve to bitch about the Sussex’s making their own money.
And doesn’t the queen still lag on repairs to the palaces as well? I think I remember her getting money to fix BP and then a few years later she asked for more money for more repairs that were supposed to fixed. I can’t quite recall the sequence of events.
The original money meant for BP repairs was diverting to the reno of Apt1A for a certain couple who then a few months later did some additional reno’s cause she didn’t like the purple paint she picked.
At one point BP needed repairs for leaking roofs and ceilings and to heat her castles. They rerouted funding from a service that transported them differently abled to and from their jobs. There was a huge protest and security were picking up people in their wheelchairs to remove them from the lobbies.
The money was misdirected for years so parts of BP started falling off, one nearly taking Anne out. What did the govt do in return? Uphold the freedom from information about the Sovereign Grant AND voted 300+ million in additional funds to restore Buck House. They are partway through that restoration now, but are calling for 80 plus million in new funds to fix *one side* of Clarence House.
This! And from everything I read, her staff don’t get paid that much. It’s not lucrative to work for The Crown, it’s just considered prestigious. And maybe there are unofficial perks. It’s like how in Hollywood the pay for most behind the scenes people is terrible but they do it for the experience and the connections or as a stepping stone.
These people are super cheap and hoard everything for themselves.
The Duchy of Cornwall does not belong to Charles personally. Nor does Duchy of Lancaster, although some will try to argue it does. That is why Charles has also lobbied to government to TRY to get them to hand those two Duchies over free and clear to be Windsor private property – no taxes paid. In return, Charles promised to end the Sovereign Grant and self-fund the monarchy (minus enormous security costs). Thankfully no ministers have fallen for that idea yet.
my God! Grateful for this site, so I can read in precis what the hell is actually happening behind the scenes.
Yep. Not to mention that the British RF is the MOST expensive one in Europe in terms of public money where they are twice as expensive as the second most expensive one, the Dutch RF. The fact that QEII is one of the most wealthy monarchs in Europe (the Grand Ducal family of Lichtenstein is more wealthy) in terms of personal wealth makes this extra galling. Add to that the she clearly hasn’t done anything with the upkeep of her own residence until it is practically falling down – and then has to ask for more money amounting to some £300 million to fix up her official residence! The British public is being scammed big time.
The Liechtenstein royals own their own bank, are estimated to have around 4 billion.
The Luxembourg royals, the Grand Ducal one, no one is quite sure. At different times they’ve been estimated to have a billion, other times far less. They were able to successfully keep Tessy the Messy from getting a 10 million payout against her ex-husband’s father. She kept arguing she should get to use her father-in-law’s wealth for her divorce settlement instead of her husband’s net worth. Now that she’s remarrying, the Lux royals may exercise the option to throw her out of the London home with six months notice.
@ArtHistorian, is the Dutch royal family not wealthier than the BritishRF?
@Nota, I need to do some research on this because it sounds delicious. Can you give me a starting point? Who is Tessy the Messy??
They keep all the entrance fees charged to tourists for the palaces, which are supposedly owned by the State.
I’m old enough to remember when Messy Bessy of House Petty tried to scam the government’s heating-support-for-pensioners scheme, to cover Buckingham Palace.
This whole family is so shady, they need to forever keep Meghan’s name out of their mouths.
So we should be hearing from the political police right? This is the royals meddling in politics, changing laws to benefit themselves so where is the outrage?
Right!! LOL. The Queen is deeply, intrinsically even, political. She will interfere with anything she wants to, and her servile little sycophants will find an excuse for her. The double standard is amazing.
I mean, Charles has to get his meddling tendancies from somewhere.
I personally equate this with Trump hiding his tax returns. I have no doubt this woman has numerous shady dealings and probably a ridiculous amount of private wealth that would shock her subjects. And maybe she used the government purse to enrich herself like the Trump’s used their position at the White House to do so and grift off of the American tax payer.
And they’ve already come out and denied it! Pretty quickly, wouldn’t you say? So I’m inclined to believe this. Hell, they denied this even faster than they denied that Andrew knew Virginia and that Kate had botox and hair extensions.
Wasn’t there something called “The Panama Papers” that showed Old Brenda and a TON of other politicians and mega-riches hiding their money in some not too above board places, esp,. to avoid taxes?
Yes, there was. There was an online archive of the papers themselves, which you could search. May still be available.
Eat the rich, and #AbolishTheMonarchy
It’s starting.. Pass me the popcorn
Sauteed lightly in a lot of butter. Bring it on. I look forward to seeing the dissolution of the monarchy in my lifetime.
OriginalLala, absolutely! and I for one, can’t wait. Will behind the counter at Nando’s Chicken lol
Yes. Let’s get this moving please. Why do I fund these people?
Wasn’t there something by Richard Kay saying this is much ado about nothing….let’s look at the Sussexes instead. Gah!
Even the Daily Heilers are now calling for a Republic. In their THOUSANDS.
Fun days ahead.
Good. Thanks for the update and sacrifice. I can’t bring myself to click on anything from that hellpit.
Seconded. I refuse to give them the clicks or expose myself to them!
Annnnnd eventually they’ll get around to blaming THAT on M&H, too.
This is very bad optics, not only for QEII, for the whole House of Windsor-Mountbatten.
I know it gets talked about here a lot, but every royal watcher should read the Norman Baker book that ArtHistorian recommended – “and what do YOU do?” He goes into quite a bit of detail about the Queen’s consent and their finances and how shady it all is. I know he’s a republican so his take is different than a royalist’s would be, but even so it was really interesting.
His overall point with this kind of stuff was that the royals HAVE to hide their wealth for their own existence so to speak – why should the public fun upkeep of Buckingham Palace when the queen is sitting on hundreds of millions? It’s in the royals’ best interests to hide their wealth so they do.
I’m just glad that a newspaper is running this story. Maybe the next time people want to talk about the frugal queen who takes the train to Sandringham they’ll remember this.
Yes, I read that book after seeing it recommended here and came to post exactly the same thing. What the Guardian is reporting is just the very tip of the iceberg – the Royal family, especially QE II has frequently intervened and applied political pressure to protect their wealth and to hide it from the public. It’s shady as all get out. After reading it I was very much in the ‘abolish the monarchy’ camp.
In 2013 it was revealed that the Queen and Prince Charles can veto any bill that goes against their own interests.
https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2013/jan/14/secret-papers-royals-veto-bills
And the Panama Papers, I think, revealed she had investments in offshore accounts. There’s so much shady financial stuff around this family, I hope a serious journalist does a deep dive into it all one day.
Correction: It was the Paradise Papers, my bad.
I had the same confusion, but found this re the Paradise Papers, another dark connection too beyond Epstein to Trump — https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2017/11/06/paradise-papers-reveal-how-the-wealthy-and-even-the-politicians-are-still-hiding-their-wealth-from-the-taxman/
And that’s just the financial stuff. What other kinds of bills have they influenced reflecting their own prejudices and beliefs? I’ll be interested to see what else the Guardian discloses in the coming week.
OT
The Asian woman that use to be on ‘Loose Women’ complaining about Meghan, got the boot, now she is saying Meghan’s fans were right about racism in Britain. 🤣
She was viciously awful to Meghan. I don’t wish any human the horrors of racism directed at them because I personally know how awful that is. Having said that, POC who cape of racist when it’s directed at others are a special breed of awful and I truly do not understand how they can do it. I know these people focus on the paycheck, but it’s reprehensible to help with the kind of abuse you personally know. She and her like just makes me so angry that I can’t really find the words to describe my grievance with them.
This viper deserves everything she gets, you lie down with dogs, you wake up with fleas
Did she say Meghan fans were right? I saw one of her posts and she didn’t seem to even acknowledge Meghan’s plight and her own hypocrisy. I loathe her. A complete coward who threw another woman of color under the bus and rolled over her twice, all to keep white folks off of her brown back. Pathetic.
Now that Meg and Harry have put themselves out of reach, they’re feeding on the closest meat – I’m not from there, but it feels like something is up that they are biting the hand that feeds them by running reports about the Queen that aren’t flattering. There must be a robust market for it or they wouldn’t.
This is coming from the Guardian though, not the tabloids. The guardian has shown more willingness to confront the monarchy and regularly drags Andrew over the coals while the tabloids remain silent.
Around the time of the Jubilee, they also published stories about how political and meddling QEII has been in The Commonwealth.
The problem with the leftwing Guardian is that it has no financial and political powerbase in Britain unlike it’s American counterparts and unlike the UK tabloids that are mouthpieces of the pressbarons, the Tory-government, the royal family and the Brexiteers.
The Guardian does excellent research to uncover scandals. But as long as the UK liberal and Labour factions remain weak political change will not happen. This scandal will soon be covered up and forgotten like so many others.
Unless Boris Johnson reinvents himself as the savior of the nation and first president of the UK, with Rupert Murdoch’s help.
2cents, you’re exactly right. Nothing is going to come from this. There is no center-left establishment in that country to speak of. They haven’t an ounce of power. Honestly, it’s going to take American media to really put a dent in their reputation. How I wish Ronan Farrow would take interest in this.
The tabloids have been relatively quiet on this story and have chosen to toe the Royal line. There is no call for scrutiny or criticism that the Queen was meddling in politics.
I’m so excited that the Guardian has done this. It’s a big thing for a British paper to come for the crown like this. They’ve been critical before but they’re rolling this out the way the NYT rolled out Trump’s tax returns, as someone mentioned above. I hope that the the British public isn’t deterred by the boring legal aspects of this and pays attention #abolishthemonarchy
Where is the carnival of so call experts when you need them to shout how dare she do that.? Strip her, she is meddling. Nothing? Nothing at all? Guess that noise is only reserved for the colored one. Plus the greedy petty bitch is a criminal. I can only imagine the shady unethical, stuff she invested in. Bet she still collecting from slavery. It’s seriously time now for the people of the uk to say off with their heads .
the relative silence from the uk tabloids and royal pundits is deafening. every newspaper and journalist mobilizes to sensationalize every move meghan makes or is speculated to have made, but an actual scandal breaks, and they have virtually nothing to say.
only the millionth piece of evidence that the smear campaign was sanctioned by the palace.
Sure would like to know just how much of that are and jewelry is stolen. Ah, who am I kidding, all of it is.
That are straight colonizers. Always and forever.
Andrew Morton does a very deep dive into the jewels and wealth in a book called Theirs is the Kingdom. It’s available online at open library.
Fun fact: the Queen’s holdings grew by a billion pounds in 1988 alone.
The only meaning of the word Empire in British Empire is that Britain colonized tons of other countries. First Normandy (William the Conqueror) colonized Britain and later Britain colonized Ireland, the northern Americas, much of the Caribbean, the South Asian subcontinent, lots of parts of SE Asia, and f–ked with China, too (see: Opium Wars)!!!!!!! The only power and wealth the British monarchy has comes from violent wars and regimes to extract resources from, and dominate, tens of millions of ppl who were just living their lives and minding their own damn business.
What was that about royals can’t be political again? The economical tupperware Queen lobbying her government to amend a law so her private wealth can be hidden seems VERY political to me. Trump wished he could- no wonder he admires her so much.
BP denied that she blocked legislation which isn’t what the Guardian report said- it said she lobbied for legislation.
She is the Teflon queen though & the free and fair royal press only seem to be reporting the denial so this will blow over. I look forward to the rest of the Guardian’s series though.
I was thinking about the contrast with Trump reading this article. One is basically in hock to his neck whilst trying to pretend he is v. rich and the other is v.v. rich whilst pretending to be a Tupperware, only light one bar on the fire thrifty, old lady.
ETA if the Guardian keeps digging this will be amusing – there’s plenty of evidence of multiple times governments have been pressured or manipulated by the Palace to financially benefit the RF.
But I’m supposed to be mad at the biracial American girl for the crime of leaving with her husband and them making a ton of their own money. Right…
The Guardian has the receipts–lots of photos of letters from her men typed on an old Smith-Corona that needed a new ribbon stat. So BP lying and calling it a “purely formal process” is a hoot. The whole point of The Guardian’s article was that there was a Parliamentary process regarding the introduction of new laws that the Queen and her men bypassed in order to keep her finances secret.
In addition, today The Guardian has another article about how the crown estate just auctioned off its seabed license so new windfarms can be built. The proceeds will be split with the Treasury but the deal will net the royal household/soveriegn grant approx. 220 million pounds a year and up to 2 billion in the next decade.
William is positively drooling at the prospect of having control over all that money.
I was thinking Carole would be pretty excited about the influx of cash over the next decade and is taking notes in case Kate needs some leverage should she be cast off with a lame settlement.
ah so, these new windfarms are part of Charles’ Terra Carta? His environment initiative to put the planet first? by putting themselves first? How convenient for them
absolutely insane. and this on top of the sovereign grant?
They are so outdated. UNICEF donated to the UK to help feed our children and we still think it’s appropriate to have monarchy who only live to reinforce social class inequality.
BP’s denial is so weird because it doesn’t get to the heart of what the guardian was claiming: that the queen had her lawyer lobbying behind the scenes. They’re talking about a separate which i expect the carnival to fall in line to focus on.
Is that so surprising when they can’t even issue an exact statement about Archie’s BC but gave 4 different excuses? #AbolishTheMonarchy
This doesn’t surprise me. Of course the monarch wants to hide their wealth. If people found out how much they really have, they’ll start asking why taxpayers need to fund them to such a large extent.
That being said, I believe only the monarch is the one with some wealth (liquid wealth rather than assets/name). Everyone else (except maybe the first in line) is probably cash poor unless they’ve got an inheritance. There’s a reason why one of the queen’s grandson is selling milk in China.
Well, the Queen Mother is reported to have left millions of pounds through a trust to *each* of her great-grandchildren, Peter Phillips included. The most went to Harry and William, but all of her great-grandchildren were included. And I believe he lives on Anne’s estate, so no money tied up in real estate, and has a high-paying job in finance (or am I thinking of Frederick?).
Let’s be honest, their lives are pretty expensive to maintain. Whatever millions they got from the QM will diminish with every generation it’s inherited by unless they’ve made some very very wise investments (which they may have tbh).
You don’t shill milk in China purely for the shits and giggles. And once their parents pass and the leases are inherited by their parents, they’re going to have to open the properties up otherwise they’ll run out of money affording the upkeep.
Anne’s house is personally owned, not a Crown Estate lease. CE money was illegally used to fix up that private property as part of her wedding present. If Zara and Peter live on that estate long enough, and are listed as the property caretakers? They may inherit it tax free.
Beatrice, Eugenie, Louise, James are the ones who will be up a creek. They will inherit leases on CE property and have no funds to afford to live there.
Edit: I meant to say inherited by their kids.
Can they sell the lease or rent the place out? Bagshot as an AirB&B?
As long as the majority of the wealth passes from monarch to monarch, there is no tax paid. That’s why Charles will inherit most of it, no matter how much mummy loves her rapist son Andrew. In order to keep the estates and wealth intact, majority goes to Charles because he’ll pay no tax. That is one of many things that needs to be changes before Liz passes; remove the tax-free monarch-to-monarch wealth transfer.
Elizabeth, the Queen Mum did put millions of her private wealth in trust. The Gamble that Foiled the Taxman (Guardian) is the title an article about it. As long as she lived X number of years after it was put in trust, it would be inherited tax-free.
Louise and James lost out because they were not yet born at the time. She also left around 50 million in assets to her eldest daughter. In spite of the fact that Queen Mum was not the ruling monarch, they still applied the tax-free monarch-to-monarch wealth transfer.
People have pointed out that the Palace response is a non-denial of the story as in their statement they changed the word “lobbied” to “blocked”. Thus in the 1970s and 80s the Palace did lobby politicians on behalf of the Queen when a law was going to be enacted that affected her but apparently didn’t block any law. There is an issue right now where the Government is attempting to change the laws to allow people who live on ducal lands to have greater ownership of the lands. It is being proposed that the Queen and Charles be exempted from this land reform. It has been touched on by the Daily Mail but there has been little outrage about the Royal Family being exempted from this law.
Well, we’ve already learned that “formality” and “protocol” is whatever they need it to be at the moment. So…yeah…terrible denial.
So somebody remind me. What is the value of the monarchy for British taxpayers? Explain it to me like I am a 5 year old.
I don’t know if this is helpful, but the value is ceremonial by design. The reason is constitutional. She is the head of state because of how their constitution is written. She is still given certain legal privileges, and thus has more power than average citizens, but she’s not an absolute or “executive” monarch/ruler.
That’s kind of a roundabout answer, isn’t it? The question is why does the constitution state she’s the head of state?
All the Brit, pro-monarch opinions I’ve come across offer tourism and cultural value, which makes little sense to me. The UK royals are very expensive for a cultural and tourism campaign!
Any constitutional RF is pretty much a very expensive national symbol, in a nutshell They may have some constitutional duties but since they don’t govern that is basically a fig leaf.
There isn’t (for the UK anyway).
I lived and paid tax there for years btw.
The main arguments are
1.) Tourism – that the palaces and the royalty themselves bring in tourist dollars. Utter rubbish since nobody goes to see the royals themselves, and if the palaces were all opened up so that they could become full-time heritage sites with admission, the tourist dollars would skyrocket. Furthermore, the art of the Royal Collection that the monarch “holds in trust” for the nation would actually be allowed to be seen in its entirety by said nation instead of many pieces collecting dust.
2.) Constitutional “safety” or whatever – the idea that the queen can act as a check on power-hungry politicians, which again is utter rubbish since whenever a power struggle DOES arise she’ll do nothing on the basis that if she does anything it’s a “constitutional crisis” (very often it’s NOT a constitutional crisis, but she hides behind this smokescreen because if she DOES get involved, then in retaliation a lot of MPS will question why they should fund her and her family and she wants to avoid that discussion at all costs).
3.) As a symbol of patriotism – another piece of rubbish since the Queen has no qualms about asking about defunding social programs to get more money for the palaces and deposits her funds in shady offshore accounts, and her family members can’t even be held to the same legal standards as anyone else, so where’s the respect for the institution and laws and people of the United Kingdom? It’s important that nobody know where her money comes from or goes, so that 100-year-olds like Captain Tom Moore can spend their retirement raising money for charity instead of the monarch actually doing something for her people for once.
I could go on. But at this point, the diamonds and the press bending to their will are all they have left.
Great overview, thanks, Maria.
I am very interested to see how far The Guardian takes this.
Exactly. I would love for them to dig up Apartheid-era investments in South Africa that remained under wraps while the rest of the world was divesting.
How nice! Get to pillage black and brown countries and your progeny live off the colonial spoils. Such a leader !
Exactly.
How does she have personal wealth, when she has been in the family of the monarchy for her whole life? It’s not like she “married in.”
I understand Meghan, Diana, Kate, etc., having family or personal money that was earned prior to marrying into their royal lives. But the queen is a direct descendant of the monarchy.
“Hiding her wealth” while wearing that tiara and having an honest to goodness GOLD piano!!! Just imagine.
Information about the Queen’s finances is not embarrassing, more like “endangering”.
She didn’t even start paying income and property taxes until 1992 and that was due to a lot of public pressure and embarrassment. Miserly old beyotch…
They’ve been robbing us all blind and sacrificing our lives for centuries. It’s the whole point of their existence.
The more these stories come out, the more I’d love to hear from people who commented here when the Brexit vote went down about it being a good thing. How’s that working class impact feeling now, y’all? Increasingly, closer and closer to the tipping point America is at.
Lizzie Windsor took to stealth.
Looking round to hide her wealth.
Monarch’s henchmen saw it done.
See the little people fawn.
Ain’t royalty grand?
Ooohhhh there is more and more coming out. And after all the bomb dropping of her in leaked Panama papers that was so hushed quickly by the Palace, i hope this is getting more loud
Didn’t the BRF pop up in those Panama Papers regarding their financial maneuvers, too?
Let me see if I understand. This queen has been blessed with gobs of money, a very long life, worldwide goodwill and very little oversight, and she has barely any results to show for it. Imagine the things she could have achieved. Imagine the good she could have done. What a waste.
Instead we have someone who hides away at Sandringham through February every year grieving over a father who smoked like a chimney yet “suddenly” died. She hides away at a different castle every summer for a few more months. She doesn’t maintain her properties unless the taxpayers chip in. She uses her position to control the members of her family. So little ambition. So little gumption. So little moxie. So little to emulate.
Probably the most unimpressive public figure ever. This woman did nothing with her platform. Nothing. In her almost 70 years on the throne, she has not done a damn thing to change anyone’s life for the better. What kind of trash human being do you have to be to accept a 60 million dollar bailout from the government while British children starve so badly that UNICEF has to come in and feed them?
Since the Sussexes stepped down, the Royal Reporters and their carnival of experts have argued that they have the right to examine (criticize) any and all of Harry and Meghan’s commercial projects because they might reflect on the monarchy. Yet, there is no transparency with regard to how, where and with whom the monarchy invest its personal wealth. So as usual massive hypocrisy and duplicity on the part of the British media.
Well said.
When their defence to lobbying for a law to hide the Queen’s private wealth is to state that she has a royal prerogative to change any laws that personally affect her, they are stating that she is above the law. I would think most Britons might have a problem with this.
I don’t believe she’s worth anything under a billion. She’s a multi-billionaire at the very least. She has been the largest non-institutional shareholder in Rio Tinto for decades. Australian Prime Minister Gough Whitlam was possibly ousted at the behest of the UK royals or at the very least with their prior knowledge and agreement (see the Palace Letters controversy) and he was set on buying back the farm and rejigging the Australian mining sector with super profits taxes or sovereign (read: not British but Australian) ownership structures so the profits could go back to Australians, including First Nations people, in the form of a sovereign wealth fund, for example.