£102.4 million

Blimey MaizieD I find myself agreeing with you.

Whenever I consider the alternative, a republic with an elected leader, I remind myself of the last time the electorate were trusted with a decision which would impact ever citizen; the Brexit referendum. Think on. Given the right wing press and their influence on voting behaviour............

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.

If we're going to get into whataboutery I'd be very interested to know what our current PM has 'cost us' over the past 6 years. What with spearheading the campaign to make the UK poorer by £billions in lost growth, £billions lost through fraud and corrupt contracts during the covid pandemic, vanity projects such as 'official' aircraft (and probably much more that we don't know about) I suspect that the £102.4 million for the RF is a drop in the ocean...

I have every regard for the philosophical case for getting rid of the monarchy but in practical terms they really don't bother me at all. There are very wealthy people doing far more damage to the UK than they are. Rupert Murdoch for one...

We can take the supreme luxury and privilege the royals enjoy (I wouldn’t ever want to be one!) but we can’t take the hypocrisy and preaching. Such monumental green virtue signalling amongst the wealthy is becoming extremely tedious.

I’m incredibly fond of the Royals. Politically I shouldn’t be but I am and I can’t help it. Maybe they’re a constant in my life. But I’ve been mulling over it lately and I’ve realised it’s honours and peerages that are the problem. Eg PM’s being able to promise peerages to people that prop them up, support their party etc. I so realise how ignorant I am about how intertwined the Royal family is with this sort of thing so am happy to be educated. And that also throws in the fact that over the past few years the HOL’s has tried to rein in many of the atrocities committed by this awful government.And, as I’ve said before, I’m sure that the country would elect someone like Farage to be president. Johnson certainly would have been president in an alternative universe. What I want long term is a greatly parred back royal family and a written constitution for governing this country. Newspaper magnates not being allowed to print blatant lies and control which party is in power. And a modern parliament where people can’t shout and scream and filibuster, even though I’d miss the entertainment of watching parliament today ( sorry for rambling on: just woken up from my relaxation tape and still half asleep….)

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

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.

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.

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. ?

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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.

I’ll have a cup too volver

Good post by the way, at 10.14

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

(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,

but we still fund these people to this huge extent

It's peanuts! It really is

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

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

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?

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

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 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.