Leading article: Family values

You know the problem. The relatives who want a home. The troubles with the builders. The grandchildren demanding expensive accommodation for their college years. What to do with the empty flat when a relative dies...

So pity the Queen when she has to argue it all out with her bank manager (with us taxpayers if you want to know). No wonder She, or rather the Keeper of the Privy Purse, wanted it kept within the family. Who would want it known that the Gloucesters and the Kents were leeching off you still, that you had to provide free lodging to the Surveyor of the Queen's Pictures and the Mistress of the Robes, that Princess Beatrice needed £250,000 spent on redecorating her university rooms and that Princess Diana's apartments had to be rented out to Prince Charles's charities to make ends meet?

The figures may seem huge, the titles terribly grand, but the dilemmas are common to us all. It's a hard job being head of a household.