Monarchy

[AngryOfTuebrook]

1 hour ago, Strontium Dog said:

 

Yeah, me and my pesky facts, eh.

There are two conflicting accounts: one from rough sleepers and one from the Tory council.  You instinctively take the council's version as "facts".

[Strontium]

26 minutes ago, AngryofTuebrook said:

There are two conflicting accounts: one from rough sleepers and one from the Tory council.  You instinctively take the council's version as "facts".

There's no instinct involved, it's a rational appraisal of all the available information. If we're being told their policy is A, but they say it's not A, it's B, then B is - by definition - their stated policy. Especially when B has been their policy in the past - say, for a hypothetical previous royal wedding a few months previous, when a similar claim was made and very quickly debunked.

[Jairzinho]

I doubt a Tory council has ever lied about anything.

[Strontium]

Ditto tabloid newspapers.

[A Red]

I want the tory council to drag the homeless off some streets,dump them on other streets then dump them back when the rich have finished their celebrations. The fact that this isnt happening makes me mad.

[AngryOfTuebrook]

2 hours ago, Strontium Dog said:

There's no instinct involved, it's a rational appraisal of all the available information. If we're being told their policy is A, but they say it's not A, it's B, then B is - by definition - their stated policy. Especially when B has been their policy in the past - say, for a hypothetical previous royal wedding a few months previous, when a similar claim was made and very quickly debunked.

It's not a question of what the written policy is: it's a question of what happens in practice, at street level. 

[deiseach]

Never believe the rumour until it has been officially denied.

[tokyojoe]

6 hours ago, A Red said:

I want the tory council to drag the homeless off some streets,dump them on other streets then dump them back when the rich have finished their celebrations. The fact that this isnt happening makes me mad.

It's not the 'rich' who celebrate mate. It's the deluded twats who read the S** and the Wail and similar.

[tokyojoe]

Another shitload of cash down the pan.

 

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-45746452

[Bjornebye]

13 minutes ago, tokyojoe said:

Another shitload of cash down the pan.

 

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-45746452

Absolute disgrace. £108,000 on toilets for the fucking sad acts who want to go and get a slight glimpse of the 9th in line for the throne on her wedding day. I hope the homeless in Windsor unite and steam into the rich tea, royal dwelling twats. 

[Creator Supreme]

Another parasite on the way, Harry's bint is up the duff!

 

#Britain'sbiggestbenefitscroungers

[Stickman]

Opens wallet

 

[tokyojoe]

Another session of Mr Wobbly hides his helmet has taken place again I see. Another massive waste of (our) money on it's way.

[magicrat]

Awaits speculation in the Mail about how dark skinned the child will be.

[VERBAL DIARRHEA]

Will that be James Hewitt’s first grandchild?

[Anubis]

1 hour ago, VERBAL DIARRHEA said:

Will that be James Hewitt’s first grandchild?

Ouch.

[tokyojoe]

They just take the fucking piss don't they?

[Nelly-Szoboszlai]

Well, that was a rather short pregnancy. Isn't it normally about a 9 month period? 

[magicrat]

42 minutes ago, Nelly-Torres said:

Well, that was a rather short pregnancy. Isn't it normally about a 9 month period? 

Photo-fit of the suspected Father has been released

 

[Creator Supreme]

41 minutes ago, magicrat said:

Photo-fit of the suspected Father has been released

 

Prince Phillip?

[magicrat]

3 hours ago, Creator Supreme said:

Prince Phillip?

I doubt the Greek has managed more than a puff of dust for the last 50 years,

[Nelly-Szoboszlai]

Is this a Diana admission? 

[Strontium]

Was he driving a white Fiat Uno?

[magicrat]

2 minutes ago, Strontium Dog said:

Was he driving a white Fiat Uno?

No a Nissan Juke

[DJLJ]

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/mar/04/how-prince-charles-stately-home-restoration-linked-him-with-russian-money-troika-laundromat

 

Restoration linked him to Russian money

Ruben Vardanyan, whose bank channelled $4.6bn to the west, helped fund restoration of Dumfries House

• Banking leak exposes Russian network with link to prince
• Q&A: what is the ‘Troika Laundromat’?

Juliette Garside

 @JulietteGarside

Mon 4 Mar 2019 15.00 GMTLast modified on Mon 4 Mar 2019 21.00 GMT

 

 Ruben Vardanyan with Prince Charles at Dumfries House, Scotland.

It was an intimate gathering.

A select group of Russian businessmen assembled for a black-tie dinner at Dumfries House, the stately home restored for the nation thanks to a major fundraising campaign by the Prince of Wales. The heir to the throne wanted to thank his donors in person.

One of them was Ruben Vardanyan. 

A well-known philanthropist, he ran an investment bank, Troika Dialog, an independent arm of which moved vast amounts of private wealth out of Russia into Europe.

Troika is under the spotlight because staff from this independent division administered a network of shell companies that appear to have mixed legitimate and illegitimate money.

Vardanyan didn’t know anything about this. Neither did Prince Charles. There is no criticism of either of them.

But leaked banking records underline once again the problems created by opaque transactions that allow vast amounts of money to flow from Russia into the western banking system.

The relationship between the prince and the financier began in November 2009, when Vardanyan made a charitable donation of $100,000 to the Prince’s Charities Foundation – then a key fundraising vehicle for Charles’s charitable work.

 

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 The Prince of Wales at Dumfries House, Scotland. Photograph: Royal Collection Trust/PA

 

The payment came not from Vardanyan’s personal account, but was transferred from an account at Ukio Bank in Lithuania belonging to a shell company registered in the British Virgin Islands – Quantus Division Ltd.

Via Lithuania, Quantus moved over $700m into the global banking system from its creation in 2006 until Ukio was declared insolvent and closed down by the authorities in 2013.

Two more payments to the foundation followed, from the same source. Quantus sent £38,000 in January 2010 and £25,000 in May 2011, with records showing the last donation was received at a branch of Coutts in the Strand, London.

In total, the foundation received $200,000.

Vardanyan says the payments were in support of a programme to “preserve architectural heritage in England”.

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Explaining why they came from Quantus, he said: “I instructed my office to transfer funds to the Prince of Wales charity fund. I did not go into detail about which financial and settlement centre the transfer would be made through, but my office was in charge of these details.”

The prince’s foundation had been left with a big financial hole to plug. The cause? A £20m loan it had taken out to buy Dumfries House.

In 2007, after hearing it was to be sold to a private buyer, Charles stepped in. He raised £45m for the stately home, which contains a unique collection of Chippendale furniture. His intervention came not a moment too soon. Lorries were already carrying the antiques to the auction house. One day, at 1am, they were stopped on a Cumbria motorway and turned back.

The battle to rescue Dumfries did not end there. Soon, there were questions over whether the loan could be repaid.

In a documentary about the rescue, the prince told ITV: “You know you wake up in the middle of the night thinking, help … having done the actual deal, then a year later or two years later the bottom fell out of the market, didn’t it? … overnight, the value of everything went right down.”

 

Charles redoubled his fundraising efforts. In February 2010, he hosted Armenian dignitaries at a dinner at Windsor Castle. In 2013, Armenia hosted Charles on a private visit.

The networking paid off.

Through his UK registered charity, Vardanyan raised a further £1.5m to refurbish The Mains, one of the estate’s outbuildings, providing 16 luxury rooms that could be rented out to visitors. The money came from his own pocket, and those of other Russian donors – though not from the Troika Laundromat.

By then, Troika had been sold, with Vardanyan taking his share of the reported $1bn price.

In return for his generosity, the structure has been renamed The Dilijan Building, after a school in Armenia sponsored by Vardanyan. A 10-year partnership was created, with students from Dilijan attending regular courses at the estate.

 

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 Prince Charles in the Dijian Building, Dumfries House.

Vardanyan’s website lists the Dumfries donors. Their photos are there too, shaking hands with the prince, presenting him with a gift, and later in tuxedos and evening gowns for the formal dinner Charles hosted in 2014 to mark the completion of the project.

 

It is understood Troika Dialog had never been fined by any regulatory body or law enforcement agency and had at all times observed international standards of transparency and compliance.

Vardanyan was never involved in the operations, management or activities of the independent arm of the bank that administered Quantus and other offshore companies. This division was, he said, created to help manage family money for private clients.

He did have an account and his own funds at the division, and it is understood he paid fees for the service set at a commercial rate.

“The Prince of Wales’s charities operate independently of the prince himself in relation to all decisions around fundraising,” a Clarence House spokesman said.

In a statement, the prince’s charities said they apply “robust due diligence processes” in accordance with Charity Commission and Scottish Charity Regulator guidelines and money laundering legislation. They said the donations in question had raised no “red flags” when checks were being made.

It was not unusual for donations to be sent through offshore accounts, the charities stated, adding that they would not rule out such payments in future – provided they adhere to all relevant guidelines.

Additional reporting by James Oliver.