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PM's father-in-law slams royal family as "arrogant"
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BRITISH Prime Minister Tony Blair's father-in-law has waded into a growing debate on the future of the royal family, calling the monarchy "arrogant, greedy and stupid," a London newspaper reported yesterday.
Tony Booth, father of Blair's wife Cherie, said no one should be surprised by the "avarice behind the arrogant and ill-mannered comments of minor royalty," according to the Daily Mail newspaper.
"Greed is not a characteristic unknown in the British royal family," Booth was quoted as saying.
"The... sheer crass stupidity of the (royals) has contributed to the erosion of the pretence that this historically disreputable family is in some indefinable, God-given way, different... from the rest of us," he said.
Booth, an outspoken former soap opera star and committed Socialist, has embarrassed his son-in-law before. Last year he criticized the government over the level of pension allowances.
According to the Daily Mail, Booth made his comments about the royal family in an article in the left-wing magazine New Statesman.
His remarks were prompted by an embarrassing incident involving Sophie, Countess of Wessex, wife of Queen Elizabeth's youngest son Edward, which has rekindled the debate about whether Britain should dispense with the monarchy.(SD-Agencies)
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