David Dimbleby reveals why he’s investigating the monarchy as royal institution must "adapt or die"

Over the years, I’ve broadcast on many royal events –jubilees and weddings, state occasions and funerals. In my BBC series, What’s the Monarchy For?, I’m doing something quite different – looking in depth at the institution, how it works, its power, its privileges and how it tries to retain public support. The late Queen, in a famous speech, once said that no institution – including the monarchy – should expect to be free from scrutiny. I am taking her at her word.

I have always been curious about the role of the monarchy in Britain’s public life. My father, Richard Dimbleby, who provided the commentary on the Queen’s coronation in 1953, was both an admirer of the Queen and an ardent monarchist. He called it, “the enduring strength of Britain and the wonder and envy of a large part of the world”. His passion was founded on the belief that the monarchy was a powerful force in keeping Britain united against the misery and chaos he had witnessed as a reporter during the Second World War.

I came to monarchy from a different angle. I did not revere it in the way he did and I never understood the bowing and scraping that seemed to accompany the Queen wherever she went. That said, I followed in my father’s footsteps by accepting the job of commentator on a variety of formal state occasions, all of which provided fascinating challenges as a broadcaster – how much information to give, when to speak and when to stay silent. You could say I accepted the idea of monarchy without endorsing the flattery and flummery that went along with it.

So, my enquiry into the nature of monarchy is not into whether Britain should be a monarchy or a republic, though inevitably I touch on that. It is a look at the institution itself, the powers and influence it wields, the inordinate wealth it has accumulated and the way it goes about creating an acceptable public image. This last being crucial, since only by retaining the support of a sufficient number of its citizens can it ensure its survival. In making this series, I learnt how Buckingham Palace devotes great energy to keeping abreast of public opinion and how sometimes – as with the death of the Princess of Wales, or the Andrew saga – they’ve misjudged public feeling.

Over the past two years I have interviewed a wide variety of people, both those who support monarchy and those who do not. I have talked to the Sovereign’s closest advisers, including former private secretaries and press officers at the palace, as well as senior politicians.

It is not as easy to get people to open up about what they do as you might think. The palace, in particular, has always seemed to adopt the Mafia principle of omertà.

Speaking out was not of course met by death, although in earlier reigns it would have been. The modern punishment is exclusion from the enchanted circle, whether as a friend or an employee. It took some persuasion to find politicians who would agree to be interviewed. David Cameron bravely stepped forward and talked about his audiences with the late Queen Elizabeth. George Osborne robustly defended giving the Sovereign Grant, a generous financial settlement that meant the royals’ spending would no longer be scrutinised yearly by the House of Commons. Two powerful private secretaries to the late Queen talk about crises the monarchy has faced – though you have to concentrate to catch their admission of failures to keep in step with public opinion.

In this three-part series, I explore the influence the monarch has and at Charles’s attempt to abandon the role of an opinionated Prince of Wales for that of an opinion-free king. I look at the much-vaunted constitutional powers of the Sovereign to appoint prime ministers and to open and close Parliament, and how, when Boris Johnson was prime minister, that went catastrophically wrong. I also look at the impact of the institution at home and abroad, where the royal family has celebrity status; an international brand used by successive governments for their own purposes, whether wooing Donald Trump, repairing relations with Ireland, or insisting on state visits from dictators it thinks it politic to woo.

We start the series with a reminder of Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s invitation to President Trump to come to Britain on a second state visit, producing an envelope from his inside pocket like a magician producing a rabbit from a hat for the astonished children at a birthday party. “This is really special,” he cooed. “This is unprecedented.” Like a good conjuror, Starmer knew how to grab the attention of his audience.

But what is most interesting is what goes on behind the scenes, hidden from public view. I did not realise, for instance, that the monarchy has the power to see any proposed legislation that affects its private interests before it goes to Parliament – and has the prerogative power to suggest amendments to anything that it believes may adversely affect it.

The late Queen saw over a thousand such pieces of legislation and saw changes made to at least 160 of them. Some of these exclusions are from important laws that affect everyone else: the Race Relations Act, for example – which guarantees equal employment rights for everyone – does not apply to royal staff, whether working at the top of the tree or employed as a cleaner in one of the palaces. The same with the Equality Act and Health and Safety regulations.

Royal finances have always been murky territory to explore, with obfuscation seeming the easiest resort when awkward questions are asked.

The two Duchies – Cornwall, whose profits go to the Prince of Wales, and Lancaster, which goes to the King – are often portrayed as benign landlords and champions of the local economies.

There was a telling confrontation in 2005, when a parliamentary committee tried to understand how the two Duchies ran their operations. Faced with public scrutiny, their representatives answered in a somewhat opaque fashion. And little wonder, given the revelation that the Duchy of Cornwall – which owns land in 23 counties and in London – charges market rents for the use of its land by NHS trusts, charities, the prison service, the armed forces and schools.

You might wonder why they need further public funding at all, let alone the settlement invented by George Osborne as Chancellor of the Exchequer, which guaranteed an income stream based on the profits of the Crown Estate.

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This is another curious institution. It is made up of lucrative property given up by George III in 1760 in return for a fixed royal salary, the Civil List. If you ask who the Crown Estate belongs to, you are assured that it is not the private property of the monarch to dispose of as they wish, but it is nevertheless owned by the monarch “in right of the Crown”. The distinction may elude many. Its declared aim is to maximise profit for the good of the whole nation. Whether leasing a huge house to Andrew for a peppercorn rent lasting 75 years maximises profit for the nation is for them to explain.

I had not realised that while in recent years the Sovereign has paid income tax and capital gains tax, it is all on a purely voluntary basis and they don’t have to pay other taxes to which everyone else is subject, including death duties. Royal wealth, therefore, grows year by year. The King is the first billionaire to take the throne.

The public mood is all important to monarchy, for obvious reasons. Once the monarchy had abandoned its executive role, gradually giving it up to Parliament (no more executions of opponents), it existed only with the consent of the public. Keeping in step with public feeling became a matter of pressing concern for the Sovereign and the Sovereign’s advisers.

But judging the public mood is notoriously difficult. It is subject to irrational shifts and, with their first response to the death of Diana and the snail’s pace abandonment of Andrew in the face of his relationship with Epstein, the palace can get – as they put it – “behind the curve”.

The series has been a fascinating voyage of discovery into the workings of the institution. At a time when opposition to the very idea of monarchy is rejected by small majorities in Scotland and Wales and is growing across the UK as a whole, an in-depth examination of the institution is timely. As the old adage goes, “Adapt or die”. Watch this space.

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