King Charles cancer update as key aide gives insight into monarch's 'resilience'
The King has shown"remarkable resilience" as he carried on with royal engagement despite still receiving cancer treatment, according to one of his key aides.
James Chalmers, the monarch's new Keeper of the Privy Purse who is in charge of royal finances, said at the annual Sovereign Grant briefing that Charles's approach illustrated his "personal commitment to duty".
The rundown of royal finances - from April 1 2024 to March 31 2025 - covers the months following the King and the Princess of Wales's double cancer diagnosis and the majority of 2024 - the year described by the Prince of Wales as "brutal" and probably the hardest of his life.
Charles made a rapid return to public-facing duties in April, while Kate made a more gradual one after revealing in September she had finished her chemotherapy treatment, and later confirmed at the start of 2025 that she was cancer-free.
Mr Chalmers said: "This year has, of course, seen something of a 'return to normal business' after the health challenges faced by members of the family in the previous fiscal year.
"Indeed, by happenstance, the period to which this Sovereign Grant Report relates correlates almost exactly with His Majesty's return to public-facing duties, in April of 2024.
"In the subsequent months, the King demonstrated remarkable resilience by undertaking a wide programme of public and state duties at home and overseas while continuing to receive treatment, demonstrating not only His Majesty's personal commitment to duty but also the adaptability and resilience of the Royal Household in ensuring continuity of service, no matter the personal circumstances."
Mr Chalmers said the King and the princess's return to public duties had been met with widespread public support "reflecting the profound connection the royal family maintains with people across the country and indeed the world".
"No metric can fully capture the scale of this connection," he added, noting that the royal websites had seen a record 4.2 million new visitors, and the royal family's accounts had almost 400 million views of video content across its digital communications platforms and 1.3 billion impressions generated from its social media content.
It comes as it was also revealed that the King is to axe the late Queen Elizabeth's beloved Royal Train after decades of service in an attempt to save cash towards the multimillion refit of Buckingham Palace.
The locomotive steam train, comprising nine claret liveried sleeper, dining and lounge carriages, was the Queen's favourite mode of transport throughout her reign.
The current train came into service for the late monarch's Silver Jubilee in 1977, pulled by one of two locomotives which use eco-conscious biofuel made from vegetable oil waste.
Spiralling costs of the ageing fleet - including two trips last year which cost a combined £78,000 - has led King Charles to bid the "fondest of farewells" after approving its decommissioning for next year.
The royals spent a total of £2.7million last year on travel by private jet, helicopters and rail, according to the annual royal accounts. One trip by the King and Queen to Australia and Samoa last October cost a staggering £400,000.
As the royal train reaches the end of the line, ahead of the exorbitant maintenance contract ending in early 2027, accounts show Charles and other members of the royal family will rely on two new helicopters to get around - although palace aides stressed trains and other transport will be used.
The Sovereign Grant, which pays for the royal family's official duties and the upkeep of royal palaces, is met from public funds in exchange for the King's surrender of the revenue from the Crown Estate, in exchange for 12 per cent back to run their affairs including travel, engagements at home and abroad and welcoming tens of thousands of people to the royal palaces.
For the accounts last year, the royals cost the taxpayer £86.3 million for a fourth consecutive year. But record offshore wind farm profits have seen the Crown Estate net profits for the last financial year have again hit £1.1 billion - meaning a record-breaking Sovereign Grant of £132million will be handed out next year and the year after.
Palace aides say the extra cash will go towards paying for the £369million refit of Buckingham Palace and the upkeep of other royal residences.
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Daily Mirror
14 hours ago
- Daily Mirror
'Royal family doesn't cost taxpayer too much - tourists want monarchist power'
The annual royal accounts have revealed the Firm cost the taxpayer £86.3 million last year, as King Charles derails the Royal Train in a bid to save cash - and we asked Mirror readers to share their thoughts The royal family spent a staggering £2.7 million on travel last year, including journeys by private jet, helicopter, and train, the newly released royal accounts have revealed - and we asked Mirror readers if the Firm is costing the taxpayer too much. Last year's accounts show that the royals cost the taxpayer £86.3 million for the fourth consecutive year, while the King and Queen's trip to Australia and Samoa in October came with a hefty £400,000 price tag. Following the publication of the annual accounts, it was announced that King Charles plans to derail the Royal Train after nearly 125 years of service in a bid to save cash. The nine-carriage locomotive, which was once Queen Elizabeth II's preferred mode of travel, was only in action twice in the last year but cost £78,000. It comes as the King attempts to "modernise" the Royal Family, as Keeper of the Privy Purse James Chalmers said: "The time has come to bid the fondest of farewells as we seek to be disciplined and forward-looking in our allocation of funding." The Sovereign Grant, which pays for the royal family's official duties and the upkeep of royal palaces, is met from public funds in exchange for the King's surrender of the revenue from the Crown Estate. The royals then in return get 12 per cent of this revenue back to run their affairs including travel, engagements at home and abroad and welcoming tens of thousands of people to the royal palaces. Record offshore wind farm profits have seen the Crown Estate net profits for the last financial year and hit £1.1 billion - meaning a record breaking Sovereign Grant of £132million will be handed out next year and the year after. Palace aides say the extra cash will go towards paying for the £369million refit of Buckingham Palace and the upkeep of other royal residences. However, former Minister of State for Home Affairs Norman Baker slammed Buckingham Palace 'pretending to be prudent' as 'utter hogwash'. He wrote in the Mirror: "Reality check: the Crown Estate has in effect been a public body since 1760, and until 2011, 100% of its profits went to the Treasury to pay for schools, hospitals, defence and, yes, disability benefits. This 12% is a new royal tax on the public purse." We asked Mirror readers if they think the royal family is costing the taxpayer too much, and 62 percent said 'No'. Around 3,169 people took part in our poll, and 1,955 selected the option 'No - I don't think so'. Voicing their thoughts in the comments section, one user said: 'The RF are the head of the UK and I love what we have, I am a royalist and I'm very proud to say so. I think the RF bring a lot of tourists to our country. King Charles has scaled down the working royals and has been scaling down on some ceremonies and Prince William has plans to scale back even more and wants to modernise the RF and make it less austere, it seems William and Catherine are doing that already.' Another echoed: 'Westminster Abbey, one of the most popular attractions for oversees tourists, a symbol of British history & the final resting place of revered monarchs, including Queen Elizabeth I & her half sister Queen Mary & famed British icons (Charles Dickens). An unprecedented symbol of hierarchical succession & constitutional monarchy with every coronation conducted there & all monarchs anointed. Tourists want to see symbols of monarchist power, influence & status.' 'Many presidents of other countries are costing a lot more. If you don't take my word, do your research. On top of that tourists don't go visiting countries wanting to see any president, but they may do to see a king. Also The cost isn't only about the king head of state, but other working royals doing complimentary work for the king,' wrote a third. Another added: 'If the Royals bring in more from tourism than is spent on them, that has got to be a win." However, 38 percent said the Firm is costing the taxpayer too much, as one reader fumed: 'All of the information out there and people still believe we aren't giving these over privileged people too much money, throwing millions at them each year doesn't make them any better.' Get Royal Family updates straight to your WhatsApp! As the royals get back to their normal duties after a difficult year, the Mirror has launched its very own Royal WhatsApp community where you'll get all the latest news on the UK's most famous family. We'll send you the latest breaking updates and exclusives all directly to your phone. Users must download or already have WhatsApp on their phones to join in. All you have to do to join is click on this link, select 'Join Chat' and you're in! We may also send you stories from other titles across the Reach group. We will also treat our community members to special offers, promotions, and adverts from us and our partners. If you don't like our community, you can check out any time you like. To leave our community click on the name at the top of your screen and choose Exit group. If you're curious, you can read our Privacy Notice. A second wrote: 'It is absolutely ridiculous to believe anyone is coming to the UK to catch a glimpse of the King! or the Royal Family! They aren't in a zoo and they aren't magical beings from Fairyland. How absurd. No matter how you feel about elected Heads of State, at least they aren't automatically put in office just for coming out of the womb, and getting oiled up while pals hold up the sheets. Nobody's spending money and wasting time coming to Britain for that.' Another voiced: 'The monarchy supporters distort the figures. Vastly over estimate any money they bring in (if any), under estimate what they cost. If they were abolished the country would benefit from the companies they own and the taxes they don't pay.' Do you think the royal family is costing the taxpayer too much? Let us know your thoughts in the comments section below and you can still vote in our poll HERE to have your say. Please note that the poll is still live, so these results may change after the article has been published.
Spectator
17 hours ago
- Spectator
Is it time to put Margaret Thatcher on our banknotes?
The Bank of England wants to rethink banknotes and has announced a public consultation in order to generate suggestions about what to put on them. 'Banknotes are more than just an important means of payment,' declares Victoria Cleland, the Bank's chief cashier, whose signature is on notes. 'They serve as a symbolic representation of our collective national identity and an opportunity to celebrate the UK.' So, who should we put on our next banknotes? My vote, 35 years after she left office, would be to put Margaret Thatcher on the ten pound note. The 'Maggie' would become the go-to note. How better to celebrate a free-marketeer and our first woman prime minister – a committed monetarist at that – who also helped defeat Communism, than with a note of her own? Talk about putting money where her mouth was. Putting Thatcher on our banknotes would ensure that we continue the tradition of being able to gaze upon the scrunched-up visage of a noble or great personage from our past, every time we reach into our pockets to pay for something, however mundane. Consider Sir Christopher Wren, bewigged and magisterial on the old, enormous, copper-coloured fifty (from 1981 to 1994). Or what about Charles Darwin (2000-2018) on the less recently out of date tenner? Then there was Wellington (1971-1990) on the old grey fiver, the one that had the Queen in seventies Silver Jubilee pomp. These were banknotes that fizzed with pride and self-assurance. In the years since, our currency has worn Charles Dickens, Elizabeth Fry, Turner and Churchill. Every one of them made you feel slightly better about the world, one financial exchange at a time. So good they have been, in fact, that you might argue that choosing who to put on the banknotes is one of the things that the Bank of England has actually got right in recent decades. But now they think we might want something different – not necessarily people, though they are good enough for our American friends and their precious Greenbacks. Is this a desire to ape the bland architectural motifs of the euro notes? Or is it that in our modern times, since so many figures of English and British history have been 'problematised', it's simply easier to do without them at all? Erasing the past is easier than understanding it. After all, if like public museums our notes need to be 'decolonised' that poses problems for figures such as Sir Francis Drake or even good old Sir Winston – and just remember what he did to the French navy, too … tut-tut, that's no good for Anglo-French relations either. Then there's the inevitable issue of diversity that comes from history. It was back in 2013 that people were upset about the lack of women on our notes – except for the Queen, of course, who was on all of them. So that got fixed, thanks in part to Jane Austen, who arrived on the tenner in 2017. But still, women are represented in proportion to the demographic reality. And what about representation from Britain's ethnic minorities and the disabled? The problem is that, with only four notes to go with, you can't possibly tick every box, so someone gets let down, unlike – say, the casting of EastEnders or the television news where you can scrupulously try to enforce a quota so everyone feels included. There are, however, potential solutions without resorting to bland pictures of road and rail infrastructure: you could introduce more notes, such as a £100 note to account for inflation (about which I've written on Coffee House). Perhaps even a £200 note; that way you have more notes to go around to represent different groups. Or you could, of course, just retreat altogether and decorate banknotes with something else, like Mini Metros or pictures of new towns like Harlow or Milton Keynes, or public buildings, or HS2 or even ships. The Titanic would be popular. The fact is that none of it quite floats the boat like the human connection with great individuals and inspiring lives. 'Things' are not what make our nation great, it's the people – the statesmen, artists, scientists, the writers, the businessmen. So, who should join Thatcher on our banknotes? Would it be acceptable to adorn the £5 note with Mahatma Gandhi? He's a pretty different successor to Sir Winston in the fiver slot, wouldn't you agree? He was, after all, a British subject for 77 of his 78 years, and if we wish to appropriately cleanse ourselves of our colonial past (which, of course, we do), then who could be better than the visionary who successfully drove the British out of India, armed only with a spinning wheel? It would surely also be popular with many Britons of south Asian descent, too. And if we want to celebrate the role of women in our society, why don't we put JK Rowling on the £20? She isn't just a global literary phenomenon, but she's a philanthropist of the highest order. She is also unarguably a determined champion of women's rights. It would be a positive move for the union, too, for the Bank of England to go for a Scot. That leaves us with the £50. My vote would be the Queen. Not the current Queen, much as I like her, but the Queen that made us and whose reign still defines us. A 'QE2′ would be a fine fifty. But whatever we end up doing with our bank notes, we shouldn't resort to profiles of bridges or the outline of buildings, drawings with all the soul of architects' models. That's what you do when – unlike Britain – you don't have a unified national story to celebrate. The faces on our banknotes are like those on Mount Rushmore. The good news is we can change them from time to time. Like them or not, these are the people that made us and that made us great – and sometimes angry. If we take the people from our banknotes then, know this, we'll De La Rue the day.
Times
2 days ago
- Times
The royal gravy train must be halted
The news that the royal train is to be retired to a museum by 2027 was the public relations equivalent of a tethered goat: an enticing morsel designed to distract attention from less palatable aspects of the royal finances. Faced with the royal family's booming income at a time of hardship for many Britons, officials who guard the royal image clearly decided something had to be offered up. Consigning the train's nine carriages to history was an obvious choice, a painless sacrifice. Costing some £1 million to maintain annually, it was rarely used, enjoying just two outings last year, costing £78,000. It will come as news to most taxpayers that such an extraordinary vehicle still exists, and that they have been shelling out seven figures for it to mainly languish in the sidings. But the royal financials released this week are concerning for the information they do not contain. • King Charles net worth — Sunday Times Rich List 2025 Two sets of figures were released, one relating to the monarchy as a whole, and another to the income of the Prince of Wales from the Duchy of Cornwall. In contrast to the rest of government, where balancing books is a neuralgic issue, the royal finances are in rude health. Since 2011, when David Cameron concocted a ludicrously generous funding formula for the sovereign grant, the annual payment to the monarchy, its value has soared. From £31 million in 2013 it will be £132 million in each of the next two years. Even when money for the £369 million refurbishment of Buckingham Palace is subtracted there will still be tens of millions left to fund royal operations. The sovereign grant formula is bizarre. Some 260 years ago, George III surrendered the earnings from the crown's hereditary lands in return for a stipend. Those assets became the Crown Estate which, despite its name, has nothing to do with the monarchy. Under the Cameron arrangement the grant is calculated at 10 per cent of Crown Estate profits, with a 2 per cent temporary uplift for the palace works. Licence earnings for offshore wind farms on the estate-owned seabed have seen profits rocket to over £1 billion. This is a temporary boost for the estate but not for the royals. The 2011 agreement includes a 'gold ratchet' that means the grant can stay the same or go up, but not fall. Together with his £27 million income from the Duchy of Lancaster the King is well provided for. Even though the palace knows the Crown Estate is a national, not a royal, asset it persists with the fiction that it is. Supposedly, its surrender in the 18th century is still providing a net gain for the public. A spokesman said this week: 'The sum surrendered by the King is far greater than the sum returned as the sovereign grant, and thus there is no additional burden on taxpayers.' To this fantasy is added the secrecy of Prince William over the tax he pays on income from the Duchy of Cornwall. Once public, the amount is now simply described as the 'highest rate'. The duchy is a 'private estate with a commercial imperative'. That means a company, surely? Yet it pays no corporation tax or CGT. It also makes charities, schools and the NHS pay for using premises. William's desire to be a champion for the underprivileged is undermined by this profiteering. Just like the Crown Estate, the duchies of Lancaster and Cornwall are national assets, not 'private' ones. It is time for the government to consolidate all three into a National Estate and pay working royals simple stipends while maintaining royal infrastructure. The gravy train must end.
