Kate's clothes bill

I have to accept that the majority of people probably would vote for queenie et al and up to a point they are benign but they symbolise much that I cannot endorse.
It is not envy ..I am content with my lovely home, great family and the funds I have earned to live a pleasant and comfortable life.

I just cannot understand why people feel such admiration and warmth for the royals. My life would not be any worse or better without them and it is that lack of impact on the 'ordinary' folk in juxtoposition with their celebrity status that I find odd! That would also apply to some other celebs too!

I don't regard what the royals do as work, but I don't think they do harm either (except perhaps for some of Charles's nuttier ideas; he means well ). A lot of people seem to need a "show" that they feel represents their country. That's all it is. I wouldn't vote for it but I think a majority might.

The main thing in favour of a republican presidency is that more people get a chance to be part of the "show", not only those born into certain families. I don't think it would cost any less, but that isn't really the point for me. A republic gives greater fairness of opportunity, at least in theory.

Well said vampirequeen Similarly to your mum, my 96 year old grandma has worked and I mean really worked . She has struggled all her life any only recently brags that she is very well off when in fact what she means is that she can keep herself warm and eat fairly well.

The royals wouldn't know work if it hit them in the face and I think to flaunt their obscene wealth at this time of hardship is shameful .

I forgot to mention that since she retired my mum has been a volunteer at a Sue Ryder home
been a volunteer driver who took people to and from hospital appointments
taken care of my sister's children so that she could work
takes her elderly neighbours shopping/to the hairdressers etc
helps to care for a neighbour who is in the first stages of dementia

My mum is a similar age to the queen. In her life she has:
worked in a small grocery shop
worked as a GPO telephonist
worked in a butchers
worked in a fish shop
worked in a hospital as a ward housekeeper
worked in a bakery
worked in sweet factory
worked in a metal can factory
worked in a school kitchen as a school cook
worked in a pub kitchen
whilst at the same time running a home and bringing up a family.

Please explain to me what work the royals do. Surely you can't class shaking a few hands and smiling as work.

lilygran,

I don't go in for conspicuous consumption myself ( chance would be a fine thing) but those who do provide direct employment for hundreds, maybe thousands, of people and indirectly for many more. To say nothing of the entertainment whether looking at the Queen's diamonds - just been on telly - or venting our envious spleen.

I have always (well since I was at college) felt that large expenditure on luxuries and the salaries gap between those in jobs that make a profit and those that provide essential services needed to be narrowed. That gap is more noticeable in an economic downturn!

Would any of us have paid any attention at all to this if it was not for the economic downturn?
Maybe, I don't know.

But I do know that the rest of the world is aghast at the power of the British Press.

Please dont' say it was Murdoch. It was always thus.

I think that it is obscene when anyone spends such a vast amount of money on clothes. I have to accept that there will probably always be those that are richer than others but when some people are able to spend an amount on clothing that exceeds the average salary of hard working people then something is very wrong with society! I don't buy all this belief that we need royalty to promote sales & business for the fashion and tourist industry.

I agree with grandmanorm
I think the royal family do a marvellous job on the whole.
I would not want an 'elected' family to represent us!

I assumed this was a question relating to our clothes, not royalist v republican. If we didn't have a royal family, we would have to "invent" someone to take on all those charity appearances, factory openings, hospital visits, etc. While I wouldn't go to the end of the road to see the royal family, I know many people who have met one or other royal; they were made to feel special, loved every minute and will remember the moment for a lifetime. I would hate to have the job, the endless smiling, standing, chatting to a row of complete strangers - it sounds like hard work to me.
As for the clothes - I had just deleted the Hotter shoes e-mail I received, have no money for such fripperies, so just £1,000 would be lovely, please!

I felt quite sad reading this forum. I wouldn't have the Queen's job for all the tea in China. Nor would I wish my daughter to be married into the royal family. They are followed mercilessly by the press,and in my opinion, they have very little private life. They are damned if they do and damned if they don't!!! So to speak!
I am a royalist, but only for those who appeared on the balcony at the Jubilee week-end. I cannot be bothered with the hangers on and I think the queen has recognised that the public think the same, hence the whittling down of those on that balcony.
Having USA relatives and watching all the palaver, and millions of dollars, that goes into electing a president, I do think we are better off with what we have.

I agree, yogagran. Just because they didn't have to work themselves up from the bottom doesn't make them parasites - none of them actually chose to be born into that family. Some of the lesser ones probably don't deserve all the privileges they get just for being royalty, but the senior ones do what they're there to do. I wouldn't class myself as a Royalist either, but I can't get worked up about the unfairness of it all - there's unfairness everywhere.

I'm with dorsetpennt and glammanana on this one. Although I don't count myself as a Royalist - I do think that they do a difficult job rather well. And, yes, it is a difficult job - how many of us would choose to do it? I know I wouldn't

We aren't goibng to agree with this one gillybob we'll agree to disagree

At least the Obamas were voted in fairly dorsetpennt which is more than can be said for the money grabbing royals !

The actual figure spent is well over 100k and I wouldn't even begin to want to waste it on clothes its obscene, but there again that's the royals for you.

I can't believe how agitato some people have got on this thread which was started as a bit of a laugh. However, like annobel and probably em if she read it, my blood ressure went up a few notches!! North Britain is not all one tartan-wearing conurbartion with Nessie at one end of Princes Street and the castle perched upon a huge chunk of Edinburgh rock at the other!
(42 years ago for me annobel it just doesn't seem possible!)

The amount of business The Dutchess brings into the fashion industry must be a vast amount and well done to her,I may not be in the position to spend that amount but if I could I would and why not I would come shopping with you dorsetpennt what a ball we would have ?
On vampires comment yesterday about tourists not coming for the Royals and only visiting for the historical value of England,I was under the impression that the Royals where part of our history

I think she's actually Catherine Cambridge, not Catherine Windsor. She would also be Princess William, I think. It really is a load of old nonsense. The Queen's new protocol about who curtseys to whom and under what conditions shows up the lie about a modern monarchy.

Actually the Royal Family does work even if it seems they just go about opening things - look at H.M. The Queen having to shake hands with an ex-IRA criminal. She and some of her faamily work hard - there a few we could do without. However, how much a year do you think Michelle Obama spends a year on clothes. Each time there is a new President the wife will frequently re-decorate the White House to her taste. Jackie Kennedy spent a fortune. I would rather have our system of a Constitutional Monarchy then a Republic - with one man having enormous power.
I could quite easily spend 35K on clothes. What fun that would be.

It would be ironic if all this skinniness made her less likely to conceive. Get too thin and you stop ovulating. If I were queen I'd be wanting to fatten her up a bit.

Bags, one of my sisters started her medic course in St A and finished in Dundee; the other did her whole Social Science degree in Dundee, but as Dundee was then Queen's College, part of St Andrews University, they both have St Andrews degrees. Anyone confused?

And just to add to the confusion, some of St Andrews University was in Dundee (Medical School, for instance) until there was a feud and Dundee struck out on its own. Edinburgh? What has that got to do with it? In my time, if you started a medical degree at St Andrews, you had to finish it in Manchester, but you could start and finish in Dundee. What larks!

Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr