Thursday, August 23, 2012

Those Prince Harry photos

Sigh, so let's all ignore the 'reputation of the family' rubbish or even 'reputation of the country' the chances of Harry becoming monarch are rather slim. Instead what this has once again put the spotlight on is "Who paid for this?".

If Harry was over in Las Vegas on some sort of trade mission paid for by the government then his actions were inappropriate. If he paid for it himself... well he does earn around £38k a year as a Captain in the British Army Air Corps so he could have paid for the allegedly £4,750 a night suite himself, but I doubt it. Much more likely is that it was paid for out of the £300k a year he's getting in interest alone from the Trust from his late mother.

So it's quite possible he could have paid for it himself and not out of 'our' money in which case he can do what he bloody well likes.

2 comments:

Dan H said...

I agree with your claim that if he paid for the trip himself it's only his concern what he gets up to. I'd also go further than that.
I recently went on a business trip to one of the gayest cities in the world, during gay pride. As you'd expect, my employer paid for the flights, the hotel, and all my food while I was there. I was visiting a customer, so in the daytime I was on best behaviour, and nobody could say I acted anything less than professional. Some of the people I was visiting were going to the Pride Parade, and were kind enough to invite me along. It was a social occasion, so I tried to be a little less business-like, but I was still on my best behaviour, because I knew I was still representing the company in front of our customers.
But when I was there in the evenings, away from customers, and I could have been any visitor to the city, well, of course I let my hair down. As I said, it was one of the gayest cities of the world, and I set out to enjoy the experience. Those naughty photos could easily have been of me - or even naughtier ones. (Let's face it, the Prince's photo is pretty tame by today's standards. Most of today's teenagers have pictures naughtier than that on the internet.) To me, the fact that work was paying for my stay doesn't make that a bad thing, because it doesn't give them control over my whole life.
So, I'd go further than what you've said, and say that even if he was in some kind of trade delegation, it's still his own business what he gets up to "off the clock".
I think that if I had a problem with it, it would be for the reason you dismiss: that he's a famous name associated with our country, with a reputation to uphold. The same way I complain when (say) a famous footballer is in the news for drug abuse or fighting in nightclubs.
But as I've said, I think it was pretty tame. I can well believe it was expected behaviour for the company he was in, trade delegation or no. We've had worse-behaved royalty than that, and I don't think our Kingdom's reputation is quite so fragile.

FlipC said...

I have to disagree a little. Sure if it's a business trip you shouldn't sit in your hotel room and try to pretend you don't exist once you're off the clock, but at the same time it's not a holiday; so shouldn't be treated as one.

Unless your employer is cool with that and states as much.

It's just keeping between the two 'extremes' of work and holiday - a paid for trip is more towards the work side than one you've paid for yourself and behaviour should reflect that.

Hmm think of it as the office party - it may well be held out of office hours and away from the office itself, but would you really treat it in the same way you would if you were just out with a bunch of mates?

That's my view anyway.