Royal staff at Tower of London, Hampton Court Palace and even Kensington Palace are among those who have been affected by the coronavirus lockdown

Perhaps there is no place in the UK more symbolic of the unequal impact of the coronavirus.

Today, many of the 1,100 staff who run the country’s richest, most opulent palaces – including the Tower of London, Henry VIII’s home Hampton Court Palace and the state apartments at William and Kate’s London home, Kensington Palace – face redundancy because of the impact of the coronavirus lockdown.