BRITAIN: Prince and Princess Michael of Kent are defiantly refusing to give up their plush central London apartment for which they are reported to pay less than £100 a week.
"I suppose we are rather under siege. But we are not quitters," Prince Michael was quoted as saying in an interview with a Sunday newspaper.
News reports said the royal couple pay as little as £69 weekly for a flat in Kensington Palace, where the late Princess Diana once lived. It is described as having five bedrooms and a similar number of reception rooms.
Asked if he might relinquish the palace apartment, Queen Elizabeth's cousin was quoted as saying: "The apartment is in the gift of the queen so it isn't for me to speculate."
What about paying a more commercial level of rent, which would be astronomically higher? "Again, that is for the queen to say and it hasn't come up," the prince said.
Queen Elizabeth and the British royal family have worked hard, and with some success, to improve their public standing from a low ebb following Princess Diana's untimely death in 1997.
The queen, acting on criticism about royal wealth, offered to pay income tax and cut the number of her family on the state payroll.
A committee of parliamentarians said last week they would scrutinise the peppercorn rents paid by members of the royal family for luxurious central London dwellings. - (Reuters)