All this susan hussey uproar just highlights how antiquated the concept of monarchy is in this day and age .
The fact is the Queen hung on too long ,far too long all that guff about duty and service from that speech ( written by a someone else ) was a load of nonsense.
She could have stepped down twenty years back given Charles a chance and taken all her aged servants with her .
Which leads to the present situation .
Here we have octogenian retainers hanging about greeting guests .
Its a bit like the Carte Dāor advert
The monarchy is quite simply past itās sell by date .
I agree with this Iāve never been a royalist, in fact my dad used to say they are the richest family on social security and of course we 7 kids grew up believing him . I watched King Charles in a documentary , he was then prince , it was about an old property he wanted to restore and its taken something like 10 years to complete , as he was being filmed I kept thinking this man has no idea of what life is really like . How can he know .
I think itās time to call it a day , I wonder if the young generations are that interested
My guess would be that the majority of people in the UK want to see the monarchy continue. But I fully agree that it needs to be massively scaled back. A quick search shows that there are about 1,100 people working in the royal households - paid staff and unpaid aides. How many residences are there (public owned and privately owned) - about 30? More? There something like 25 individuals in the immediate family but only half are actively contributing to royal duties. The Crown Estate assets are worth well over Ā£10 billion. The royal family has about 300,000 acres of land. The best observation is it has become bloated, hugely rich and inappropriate to a UK of austerity.
the King is still considered the āheadā of the C of E ; however apart from certain few and far between celebrations that also is becoming and anachronism? However if we still love the pageantry ; pomp and ceremonies and of course the gossips they do have a significant element of entertainment value surely? just a bit of trimming needed perhaps?
Charles has been King for only a few months so itās early days yet to see whether or how much he will be reducing Royal household staff and scaling back on spending.
However many members of the Royal Family there are,not all of them receive money from the Sovereign Grant - only those who perform Royal Duties can claim expenses.
It should also be remembered that the income from the Crown Estates goes back into the Treasury to go towards public expenditure, less the amount the Government agree to pay the Monarch in the Sovereign Grant (currently 25%) to maintain the Royal Households and Buildings and cover Royal Family official duties.
It is my belief that if we did not have a monarchy and the Government had control of the Crown Estates, those income-earning assets would have been sold off years ago (Thatcher and successive Governments have sold off every other publicly owned asset!) so we would not be reaping the benefit of the Crown Estates income now.
The Crown Estate has announced a net revenue profit of Ā£312.7 million for the financial year 2021/22 - after deducting the Sovereign Grant, that means the Government Treasury reaped Ā£234.5 million more for public spending than we would have had if the Crown Estates were not protecting these assets and earning income from them.
How true. In my travels Iāve often been struck by how samey and dull the countries without an unelected & expensive monarchy are. You go between France and Italy and India and Australia and all these republics and its same same same dull dull dull. No reason to visit any of them once youāve been to one. And no colour at all in any of them.
I also note that the fascinating, stimulating, wildly colourful country that is Belgium has of course got a king. Case closed.
Less the massive cost of security which is never featured or disclosed in these calculations and is upwards at the very least of one hundred million pounds . This cost is met by the Metropolitan police ie the Tax payer .
The same tax payers that are lucky if a copper even comes around after a burglary.
Thatās true - knock the Ā£100 million quid off the remaining Crown Estates net profits that go into The Treasury and that means the Government Treasury reaped Ā£134.5 million more for public spending than we would have had if the Crown Estates were not protecting these assets and earning income from them.
My original point was that if there was no Royal Family, most of the profitable Crown Estates would have probably been sold off years ago - successive Governments have been notoriously āshort-termā in their thinking by selling off the āfamily silverā - so I very much doubt weād be receiving any revenue from the Crown Estates now - private investors would be reaping the profits.
ya ahead by a neck so far boot! muddy your comments re not enough coppers is erroneous ; the royal family needs them and pays for them how the govt spends the rest of the money is wisely or not ā¦they could spend more on cops get it?
