£102.4 million

Excellent posts Casdon & Callistemon21

They spent the same amount as the average daily wage on travel to get to a night out at the pictures.

And yet still we think they are the bees knees.

Och, wrong again...average annual wage. (Which is worse, of course)

I'm going to have a coffee before I get anything else wrong...

Yes Esspee, I think it’s time for this to end. It simply doesn’t fit in today’s world. The royals are enormously wealthy, let them fund themselves. There’s a lot of poverty in the UK today, but we still fund these people to this huge extent. It’s really quite immoral.

As Casdon says it is a drop in the ocean . Imagine the cost of unpicking the RF if it ever comes to that.
What to do with the royal palaces, royal boxes. Fill them with celebs I suppose.

A royal family doesn’t bring in anymore tourism than not having a royal family. Have you been to France? Switzerland? Germany? America? Hong Kong? Mexico? Or a whole host of other countries, none of whom have a royal family. Of course tourists visit countries who don’t have royal families.

As for footballers high pay, it’s immoral as well.

maddyone

Yes Esspee, I think it’s time for this to end. It simply doesn’t fit in today’s world. The royals are enormously wealthy, let them fund themselves. There’s a lot of poverty in the UK today, but we still fund these people to this huge extent. It’s really quite immoral.

Why should a H of S fund themselves? What kind of tinpot country would do that? How embarrassing!

So if eg Sir James Dyson or one of the UK's other 177 billionaires were to be elected as H of S in our new republic, we'd expect them to fund themselves?

Anyone would think I’m a communist
I’m not.

Callistemon
A Head of State shouldn’t fund themselves for matters of state.
But anyway, our Head of State should be elected.

but we still fund these people to this huge extent

It's peanuts! It really is

(Coffee's on)

What to do with the royal palaces, royal boxes. Fill them with celebs I suppose.

Turn them into art galleries and museums. Like the French did. Like Holyrood Palace is mostly, except when they come and live in their relatively modest apartments there once or twice a year. Other than the places they actually own personally, of course, because they'd keep them.

I just wish people would be more dispassionate about this. Having a Royal Family that has say over our laws and no accountability is not the only option we have,

We should be worrying about the poor and disadvantaged in the UK, not the royals.

I’ll have a cup too volver

Good post by the way, at 10.14

maddyone

We should be worrying about the poor and disadvantaged in the UK, not the royals.

I'm not worrying about them, the cost doesn't worry me in the slightest; any H of S would cost at least as much.
It's absolutely irrelevant to the debate.

It has nothing to do with helping the poor and disadvantaged in this country either - that is down to the government of the day.

Joseanne NS and the queen are two very different beings...WE voted NS and her party into power ...we get landed with the RF and have no say in how long they stay or what they get paid

For the record Nicola Sturgeon and all her MP's and MSP's haven't taken a pay rise for over a decade .It goes back in the pot for general use for MSP's and to charity for MP's .When all the publicity happened about Jacinda Aherne taking a pay cut it was quickly hushed up that the FM had effectively taken a pay cut EVERY year when the unionists greedy paws couldn't get theirs fast enough

Callistemon21

maddyone

We should be worrying about the poor and disadvantaged in the UK, not the royals.

I'm not worrying about them, the cost doesn't worry me in the slightest; any H of S would cost at least as much.
It's absolutely irrelevant to the debate.

It has nothing to do with helping the poor and disadvantaged in this country either - that is down to the government of the day.

You want to talk about why having a RF is about caring for the poor and disadvantaged?

Because as long as we have a Head of State that can only hold their position by virtue of who their ancestors were, we are enshrining the concept of inequality in society. None of us can ever aspire to being the Head of State and representative of our country. We believe that people deserve better treatment because of their parentage, not because of their talents.

We have a family that can keep secrets about anything they like, including their wills and their employment practices. Rest of us can't. People wave little flags at them and wax lyrical over their dresses and hair. We are meant to be happy about Jubilee celebrations that celebrate nothing other than a lucky, long life.

Most H of State do not include relatives and family on their payroll because they need help to do the job. So if we had an elected one costs must fall.
As for the palaces, open them to the public so they make money.
If the monarch wanted to stay as H of State they could always stand in any election.

That huge sum doesn't include security ect

Why can't they take the train?"

Royal author Norman Baker responds to the release of the royal accounts, which include the cost of a chartered flight from Glasgow to London.

Let's be clear, none of this is normal. There is no justification for our head of state spending this kind of money in a single year. None. Other similar heads of state cost a fraction of this amount.

twitter.com/ImIncorrigible/status/1542420360464932866?s=20&t=DbTTqoobJfvBDBqRWjqWhw

I read somewhere this morning...

Charles had enough in his Fortnum and Mason carrier bag to fund the Office of the Head of State for Ireland for a whole year.

Casdon

I don’t usually join in royal threads but I’ve got my grumpy head on this morning. It’s a drop in the ocean. Manchester City signed one player, Jack Grealish for £100m last year, which puts it into context.

£4billion was wasted on unused PPE. That’s hardly been discussed on Gransnet, whereas the Royal Family is never without at least three interminable threads. They are worth £102.4 million just for the apparent joy people on here get from picking over the bones constantly.

I don't think you can compare a footballer's wages to what we pay for the RF.

Footballers are paid by private companies (football clubs), and the fans that happily pay to watch matches or buy the merchandise. Everyone is a volunteer.

The royals are paid out of public funds, whether we want to pay for them or not. ?

During the 70 years of her reign The Queen has been a benign leader. Just imagine the megalomaniac crackpot presidents we could have had manipulating the country for their own ends in that time. Trump? Putin?

I'm not a royalist and feel that the royal family contribute to the them and us/outdated class system which cripples and distorts this country and keeps us from moving on more fairly. That said the alternative is worth considering really carefully before we throw the monarch out with the bath water.

volver

I read somewhere this morning...

Charles had enough in his Fortnum and Mason carrier bag to fund the Office of the Head of State for Ireland for a whole year.

Not the H of S of Ireland again!!

You want to talk about why having a RF is about caring for the poor and disadvantaged?

No, maddyone did. It's irrelevant to this particular question which is about the cost of maintaining a H of S and it seems quite reasonable to me.

That money could be spent on cancer research public services

"We need to put the monarchy on a proper budgetary footing, just like any other public body. We need to slash that budget down to below £10m, and only fund what's required for the functions of the head of state."

Then we need to #AbolishTheMonarchy