More heartbreak for the Queen

They do nothing whatsoever for the North of England . Brilliant for Windsor but We pay our taxes too .

The workings of the RF,their estates what they do, don’t do what belongs to the country , what they are custodians of, how many folks they employ etc etc is not at all as black & white as it may appear on the surface, if we did not have them then many many folks would loose their jobs etc etc, the situation is often portrayed as a one way street which is a misrepresentation.
Windsor town for one example is thriving due to visitors , cafe, shops , B& B etc
Factories producing souvenirs are also employers
We don’t all have to have a liking for them , but we should perhaps sometimes look at the bigger picture.

How many shipwrecks has there been in the last 50 years ?

The property of anyone who dies with out a will or identifiable
heirs goes to the Duchy.

Charlies"duchy" estate ,entitled to the contents of all shipwrecks off the coast,anyone who dies without a will he gets the estate ..ad lots of more very unfair wee things that the ordinary jo/joe would be called out ofr.Its theft by another name .Thats where their money comes from and always did come from,they haven't done a days hard work in their lives ...any of them Annepl the "crown" estate was handed over to government by one of the Georges in payment of his debts he got an agreement to a share of the income ..nice "work" if you can get it ,the agreement has grown wings and they take a fair whack of it every year .

But where did the Crown estate come from??
Why do monarchists not do full research into the history of the Royal Family and how they "acquired" the land and money to pass on.

The royals are a pretty ghastly crew. I wish they'd do the decent thing and count their lucky stars and go away - they've had a very good run. I'm fed up paying taxes to support an entitled and not very bright set of spongers.
I see people sleeping on the streets, queuing at food banks and having operations cancelled in decaying hospitals and wonder why on earth we pay taxes to maintain these already very wealthy people. What am I missing?

ten gardeners.

I presume you are referring to the extensive gardens at Highgrove which are open to the public by appointment and often used for charity funding events.

As the Queen never speaks of giving money to charity it’s
amazing that some one who writes a book knows she not only
gives money but it’s not her money.

I agree TerriBull

Grany and others:
Most of the UK monarchy’s expenses are not paid by the taxpayer, but by people who rent land and buildings from the Crown Estate. Travel and security costs are borne by the taxpayer, however. When the Queen needs to go a long distance, she charters an aircraft. The monarchy has no equivalent of Air Force One except for short-haul flights.

The US president’s salary is comparatively small, but he has a large budget for his staff, and his travel and security costs are absolutely gargantuan compared to the royal family. He takes two massive armored cars with him wherever he goes, along with a mobile operating theater. The two Air Force One planes are expensive to operate as well. Whenever he goes someplace, the Secret Service researches it for weeks in advance. The Queen doesn’t go through nearly that much fuss.

The monarchy also brings in money to the nation through tourism and knickknacks, which the presidency does not, so that’s on the positive side of their ledger. Every commemorative plate with the Queen’s face on it that’s sold produces 20% Value Added Tax. US presidents don’t stay around long enough for a lot of commemorative plates to be made.

Finally, there’s the colossal cost of US elections. These are born chiefly by the donors, not the taxpayer, but they still involve an absurd amount of money. The Queen isn’t elected, and British elections are quick and cheap.

So they worry about their jobs, putting food on the table, paying the rent/mortgage, gas,electricity, getting their children into half decent schools, worry about paying for much needed prescriptions, dental treatment or glasses, waiting weeks to see a GP, months to have hospital treatment...... the list is endless.

To sum up. They do not have a clue about living the real world.

I feel worse for the kids of the broken marriage than the Queen.

Marriages fail. Royals are still humans like us.

The queen will cope. Not everything that happens in her extended family is about her.

Grany I agree with everything you say. I am very anti monarchy. But no one listens to facts so save yourself the bother.

I still don't really care about this divorce more than any other. Divorce is common nowadays. Mind you they will have an easier time than my daughter had financially .

Who was it who made that callous comment, ‘privileged pain’ ?

Apart from obviously having access to speedy medical treatment, the royals suffer life’s trials and tribulations the same as the rest of us.

The Queen wouldn’t refuse, she represents the country .

At the Holocaust Memorial in Israel Trump sent his deputy ,
The president of Poland refused to attend because he wasn’t
invited to make a speech, Charles was there representing the
Queen who is obviously too elderly to travel now.

What is so wrong is some believe everything negative they read about the Queen . I signed onto to Netflix to watch an
episode of The Crown, I was so angry I cancelled the next day.
They protrayed the Queens visit to Aberfan in 1966, she was cold and pretended to wipe her eyes, visited a family, shook hands and left. I was there, her eyes filled with tears, the family she visited she stayed sitting with for about half an hour .

The Queen has a few of her millions stashed away in tax havens.

Should be given a fixed amount of money like a government department. This was suggested in the 1970s
But mrs Windsor threatened to leave BP if this happened.

And what they do give to charity is money from the public purse.

So who's interests is she there for obviously her own.

Not if you were the Queen! She also had to meet Ceausescu and his odious wife. I think they accompanied her on a carriage ride!! How awful can that have been!!
You can keep your Trumps,Macrons, Merkels and all these here today gone tomorrow heads of state! Big, big admiration for our Queen none of these can touch her.

An elected head of state would be much cheaper A fixed generous salary

The Duchy is run like a corporation but is exempt from corporation tax Inheritance tax capital gains tax.

Sovereign grant
The Duchies
Amongst other sources

*She had to meet and shake hands with Martin McGuinness ,former leader of the IRA, the IRA murdered her much loved
uncle and have him at a banquet at Buck House .*
I would have refused.

*Anniebach" I watched that programme too. There was also a quick clip of her with Mugabe. As Queen she has had to entertain many people whom she would probably rather not. She couldn't hide like Meghan did when Trump came to visit.

Well said.

I watched a programme last Thursday on the Queen ‘Inside the Crown’

She had to meet and shake hands with Martin McGuinness ,former leader of the IRA, the IRA murdered her much loved
uncle and have him at a banquet at Buck House .

This isn’t about the IRA, just what the queen has to do as
head of state.

Well said @newgran2019

Royal Finances

Quoting from a book 2010 by Liam Finn

Since 2001 the Windsors publish a financial report detailing how much money they cost the tax payer.
Each year quoting a woefully underestimated figure of the total taxpayer expenditure of the Windsors.

In 2009 BP claimed the monarchy cost everybody in Britain 69p In total it cost 41.5 million, it claimed. In truth it cost £183.02 million.

Imagine what it costs today?

Huge swathes of money are not even available for public disclosure!
All travel expenditure under £10,000 are exempt from publication and not recorded.

William uses a Ministery of Defence Chinock misleading his superiors allowing officers to take the blame costing taxpayer £50,000
Andrew charters a luxury private jet £60,000 of public money 3 day visit to Azerbaijan
Milks the crown estate of millions of pounds which should be going o public purse.
And so it goes on lots of corruption
The monarch should be sacked next one takes the throne

When doing charities they don't boast about Charles demanding seven bedrooms to himself with a dressing room a writing room and accommodation for his staff which inclined some of his three butlers four valets four chefs and ten gardeners.

I don't think this is democracy this is many of the reasons we need a republic They cost us the earth.

Some plastic is useful. A great deal of it is to with greed.