What Price to us - The Royals?

rogerh

Established Member
Joined
Jul 4, 2004
Messages
476
Reaction score
15
Points
169
Age
78
Location
Maidstone
Here we go then for a media explosion of specials, souvenirs etc.
No doubt there is ring-fenced money for all the ancillary costs like Policing and the celebrations to be held everywhere.
However should we all be standing back and considering the issue of whether the taxpayer - us - should be paying good money out to keep the pantomime of the Royal Family going at our cost?
If you want to make your thoughts and views heard on this web site that's great but you may also like to take a look here Republic | Comment & Analysis and add to the views expressed.:lease:
 
What value to us the Royals?

Tourism? History? Culture?

I'd hazard a guess that the Royals probably make far more for this country than they cost it.

Yep, the policing will cost a few quid but the economy will have a huge boost. We pay billions a year to police football matches yet no one seems too bothered about footing the bill for that, footy fan or not.
 
Consider this; London is by far the worlds most visited city (approx 15 million people a year) and these tourists spend over £15bn per year whilst visiting London. That's a huge chunk of change and I doubt it costs anywhere near that much to keep the royal family. Those figures are for London alone and don't take into account people who then go on to visit other parts of the UK such as the lakes etc in return trips therefore spending even more money. Do you think London and as a result the UK, would get anywhere near the same number of tourists if we cast the royal family aside? As for the website you linked they keep going on about Monarchy etc. The UK is not a monarchy, it is a parliamentary democracy. The royal family is purely ceremonial and have no say in the running of the state.
 
Last edited:
What does 62 pence buy you today in Britain?
 
Here we go then for a media explosion of specials, souvenirs etc.
No doubt there is ring-fenced money for all the ancillary costs like Policing and the celebrations to be held everywhere.
However should we all be standing back and considering the issue of whether the taxpayer - us - should be paying good money out to keep the pantomime of the Royal Family going at our cost?
If you want to make your thoughts and views heard on this web site that's great but you may also like to take a look here Republic | Comment & Analysis and add to the views expressed.:lease:

You'll be Rog then :)
 
Ironically it costs a pound a month to join the campaign for a republic linked to above.

It's considerably cheaper to pay for the monarchy.:rotfl:
 
I'm not a big fan of the royals, but I do beleive that we as a country earn more from them than they cost us.
 
Yep, the policing will cost a few quid but the economy will have a huge boost. We pay billions a year to police football matches yet no one seems too bothered about footing the bill for that, footy fan or not.

I am pretty sure the policing of football matches is paid for by the respective footbal club. I am all for being educated so I may be wrong.
 
I am pretty sure the policing of football matches is paid for by the respective footbal club. I am all for being educated so I may be wrong.

The clubs foot the bill for any officers posted inside the stadium, other than that it's the taxpayer that foots the bill.

The costs for everything outside the 90 minutes in the stadium are huge and as the clubs don't want to pay too much you end up with a fair few officers just patrolling round outside the ground during the 90 minutes.

Rarely if ever is there now much trouble in the ground, it's far more common to happen elsewhere and the taxpayer foots the vast majority of the bill.
 
I'm not a big fan of the royals, but I do beleive that we as a country earn more from them than they cost us.
Maybe but they would still be a Royal Family whether we paid for them or not. We would not kill them!? They would still exist but they would not be leeching the publics money.

So let's not. They have enough good fortune without it the poorer public ptoping it up and paying for them to get RAF helicopters to play golf
 
Yep, the policing will cost a few quid but the economy will have a huge boost. We pay billions a year to police football matches yet no one seems too bothered about footing the bill for that, footy fan or not.

Where do you get the 'billions' figure from.

Total police spend is around £15Billiion - are you really suggesting the football accounts for 10% or more of that?
 
Where do you get the 'billions' figure from.

Total police spend is around £15Billiion - are you really suggesting the football accounts for 10% or more of that?

Collectively over the years it does cost billions, the exact figure is not really relevant as it was just an example of a policing cost that taxpayers have to meet that they don't really have much choice in.

In a year it runs in to many millions, far more than the Royals cost anyway.
 
Billions would pay for policing football matches for the next 625 years.

http://www.statewatch.org/news/2009/jul/uk-cost-of-policing-football.pdf

In the season 2007–08 it is estimated that the policing of 13 Premier League football clubs cost the police £3.2 million in consequential policing

Football clubs are currently only legally obliged to pay for the policing on their "footprint", usually inside the stadium and surrounding car parks; the provision of "consequential policing" outside a football match, is currently the responsibility of the police and is provided at their discretion and at a cost to them.

Royal protection costs are allegedly £30-50 million a year depending if you add the cost of protecting Royal residences as well as persons. 24hr armed guards are apparantly not cheap
 
Last edited by a moderator:
If you want to make your thoughts and views heard on this web site that's great but you may also like to take a look here Republic | Comment & Analysis and add to the views expressed.:lease:
Things must be fairly desperate for the Republican movement if you need to drum up business in this way.
 
In general, the royal family needs to be thrust, kicking and screaming, into the 21st century.

Sell off some of those huge mansions, parks, gold carriages, horses etc etc. Stop all future Dukes, Earls etc. Pare back and get rid of the waste.

In other words, modernise the royal structure while maintaining it's integrity.
 
Consider this; London is by far the worlds most visited city (approx 15 million people a year) and these tourists spend over £15bn per year whilst visiting London. That's a huge chunk of change and I doubt it costs anywhere near that much to keep the royal family. Those figures are for London alone and don't take into account people who then go on to visit other parts of the UK such as the lakes etc in return trips therefore spending even more money. Do you think London and as a result the UK, would get anywhere near the same number of tourists if we cast the royal family aside? As for the website you linked they keep going on about Monarchy etc. The UK is not a monarchy, it is a parliamentary democracy. The royal family is purely ceremonial and have no say in the running of the state.

thats incorrect Paris pips London by a few hundred thousand and France has almost 3 times more visitors than the UK as a whole. France is a republic

well I dont think the Royals themselves are the main reason for those visits after all no one ever sees them .In any case how many people visit Holland or Belgium because of their royalty? or Sweden and Norway?
My belief is that we should become a republic and maybe for the sake of tourists fix some sort of mechanised mannequins representing monarchs on the balconies of Bucks palace.I would also sell some Spitting Image type puppets of the royals to amuse the tourists.
If we must have a monarchy because the public want it then for heavens sake lets have a toned down one as all this pomp and grandeur is getting very embarrassing .Ok when we had an empire when the monarch meant something , but not now.I would also cut down the number of their places of residence to two ie Bucks and a place in the country , maybe a cottage or something and then give them a bicycle each
 
Last edited:
Mostly guff

obvious.jpg
 
nope , just sound common sense

Really. So in the other monarchies you mention, you will provide links and examples to where they have had properties taken off them and been issued with bicycles?

No rush.
 
Really. So in the other monarchies you mention, you will provide links and examples to where they have had properties taken off them and been issued with bicycles?

No rush.

you've not heard of the term bicycling monarchy then?Here this might help you

Bicycle monarchy - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Its about changing the monarchy to reflect us in the modern age ie one far less formal and in greater touch with the people.
The way i see it As it is,the way i see it is its a sad reflection of a bygone age ,sad because its a vestige that too many hang on to.As an American once said - we lost our Empire but we havent found anything to replace it with .

That basically was my point, even though I remain a Republican at heart because i believe we should be able to elect our figureheads and not have them forced on us.If we must have a monarchy then for goodness sake lets have a modern one
 
you've not heard of the term bicycling monarchy then?Here this might help you

Bicycle monarchy - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Its about changing the monarchy to reflect us in the modern age ie one far less formal and in greater touch with the people.
The way i see it As it is,the way i see it is its a sad reflection of a bygone age ,sad because its a vestige that too many hang on to.As an American once said - we lost our Empire but we havent found anything to replace it with .

That basically was my point, even though I remain a Republican at heart because i believe we should be able to elect our figureheads and not have them forced on us.If we must have a monarchy then for goodness sake lets have a modern one

The problem with very "modern" things is that they tend to become redolent of the moment they were "modernised" in and look very dated and very wrong, very quickly. Also given the last line in the article you linked to;

Wikiseedier said:
Whichever gave rise to the term, it was not a result of either poverty or lack of constitutional authority. For example, the Dutch monarch, to whom the term is most frequently applied, retains full Royal Prerogative powers and has a personal wealth of $250 million.

Hardly suggests that there has been wholesale (or indeed any) change to the actual functionality of the Royal Families it has been attributed to. That is I concede, very modern. Huff, puff and say the world is changing and then don't actually change anything.
 
If we must have a monarchy because the public want it then for heavens sake lets have a toned down one as all this pomp and grandeur is getting very embarrassing.

Embarrassing for whom? A significant number of Brits as well as loads of foregigners love the pageantry
 
Tradition, pomp, ceremony and an inflated sense of importance is all that is left of our once huge Empire. Royalty also heads up the Church of England and the Common Wealth as well as the State. The USA likes are Royalty and we get lots of American Tourists.

I think we should just carry on as we are a relic to a bygone age. The world can look at us think they used to rule a quarter of the world, now look at them, poor things. A reminder to current world powers that they may not be eternal.
 
or more likely they feel sorry for us

I doubt that very much.

Interestingly the film "The Queen" did incredibly well in France, mainly due to the French very much liking the idea of a Queen despite happily slaughtering their Monarchy during the revolution.

Oh and LGS, grammar and spelling policing is rather daft at the best of times but doing it to the chief mod is a bit like sticking your private parts in to a lions mouth.
 

The latest video from AVForums

Is 4K Blu-ray Worth It?
Subscribe to our YouTube channel
Back
Top Bottom