Friday, Jun 27, 2008
That's all right then.....NOT!
BBC online: Royals cost taxpayer '66p each'
'The Queen and the Royal Family have cost each taxpayer 66p during the last 12 months - up 4p on the previous year, Buckingham Palace accounts have shown.
The total amount spent on maintaining the monarchy in the year to 31 March rose by £2m to £40m, figures revealed.'
According to Forbes she has a personal wealth of £280 billion (give or take a million or two).....so why the free housing, and a £40 million per annum handout!
Posted by rental john @ 12:02 PM (745 views) Add Comment
23 Comments
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1. icarus said...
£280 billion? Try dividing by a thousand.
2. mark wadsworth said...
So, per annum the Royal Family costs one-tenth of what the political parties siphon off?
Looks like good value to me!!
3. uncle chris said...
I'm more than happy to pay 66p .... especially considering the number of people the Queen employs and the amount of tourism that the Royal Family generates - far in excess of £40m. And as Mark says, it is but a small fraction of what the various layers of politicians cost us. Does anyone have a figure for the total amount spent on keeping Westminster - which I guess would include MPs salaries, security, maintenance and the like.
4. icarus said...
They're not quite so extravagant as they were in the old days. In 1961 the King of Nepal organised a grand shoot of tigers and rhinos for the Queen and Philip. They used 376 elephants (two miles trunks to tails). The Nepalese army prepared the camp. They built a road to a spot on the Rapti river and cut an airstrip out of the forest. They built a camp a mile square by scraping away the topsoil and getting coolies to carry away the insects and scorpions. The ground was sprayed to kill flies and mosquitos and specially selected turf was laid and steamrollered. The Katmandu fire engines were brought in to water the grass. Hundreds of tents were erected for coutiers and other staff. In the centre of the camp a splendid model of Mt Everest was built in stone. Tented palaces were erected for the royal party. The Queen's quarters had two bedrooms, two bathrooms and a drawing room. A well was specially drilled for water and flushing lavatories.
Before the royal arrival the army dug up flowering trees from the forest and transplanted them to decorate the avanues running through the camp and linking it to the airstrip. About 50 tons of fridges, furniture and fittings were shipped in from Hong Kong.
The Queen and Philiprode in a gold and silver howdah on a specially selected elephant and set out to inspect the other elephants, all lined up and decorated and with phanits, mahouts and pachwas on their backs. Bar elephants with chilled beer. iced champagne and other drinks moved along the line.
The column eventually reached the area where tiger had been seen. The elephants encircled the area. White cloth two yards high was dispensed from two elephants that walked around the ring, making a kind of fence a mile in circumference. Philip had a sore trigger finger and couldn't shoot and the others failed to kill many animals.
When the royal party departed in motor vehicles the 376 richly decorated elephants, carrying their ornate howdahs, lined the route, their trunks raised in salute.
5. jake said...
Poor article from the BBC. They do not provide figures for what the Royal Family have generated in income.
The family strengthens our international relationships, they support British business interest and they attract millions of tourists to the UK every year.
They work tirelessly in their duties and are a great example to us all. Long may they continue to serve the UK.
6. Rental John said...
Whoops sorry for the typo.....ment millions, but may as well be squillions compared to my bank balance!
7. uncle tom said...
The profits from tourism probably far outweigh the cost; and imagine how much a president might squander..!
- Good value in my book.
8. paul said...
Hang on a minute. I've heard this argument before. There are very good arguments for now having a royal family but the economics is not one of them.
This article completely ignores the revenue the royals bring in from tourism. This kind of one-sided "analysis" is becoming typical of the BBC.
9. paul said...
"There are very good arguments for not having a royal family" I meant.
10. Ijjhall said...
Just how do the French manage to attract all those tourists to Versailles despite getting rid of their monarchy ?
Have to laugh at all these Euro sceptics who lecture the EU about lack of democracy but turn out to be ardent monarchists.
11. str 2007 said...
I wondered what I might read from you all when I opened up this.
As I understand it the correct story is that George 2nd (I think) the father of 'Mad king George (portrayed by Hugh Laurie in Blackadder 3) Handed a large amount of real estate over to the state in anticipation of his mad son bankrupting the Royal Family.
This estate stretches from Tottenham Court Road down Regents Street etc. The boundary of it is signified with Crowns on top of the lamp posts (if you happen to be passing). All these Crowns BTW will have to be changed to Kings Crowns when we have a King. There is a difference think game of chess.
Anyway the rent produced by all this prime property in central London more than covers the expense of the Royal Family.
Why this fact is never mentioned I don't know, but next time someone slags off the Royals for spending too much you've got another story to tell them that will shut them up.
12. str 2007 said...
BTW what's wrong with the HPC website today - it's going at a snails pace for me. Other sites are fine.
13. Montaigne said...
Their existence is a daily reminder that we are not all created equal. They live in a world where everything is free, no door is closed and have riches beyond comprehension. And yet we pay them. Happily it seems.
14. Cstanhope707 said...
Compared to NR and the Bail Outs for the City in my humble opinion they are fantastic value for money!!!
15. The Baldman said...
I would rather pay for them than a penny towards politicans pay and expenses
16. mark said...
lets look at it this way it is cheaper to keep the royals and behead all of the labour government.............
17. last_days_of_disco said...
This is your typical socialist materialist thinking. Lets knock down all the cathedrals and give everyone tuppence. That will make everyone happy. They forget the value of having pride in your history and your people. The sacrifices people still make for their country is amazing considering how that value has been denigrated.
That patriotism is an enormous benefit to Britain -- our troops are giving their lives in Afgahnistan for Britain. The Labour party has been busy deconstructing our identity so they can integrate us into the EU. Its all standard 90s social psychology on race relations. Seen this before in SA and Zim. Didn't work there, won't work here, except this time the majority is us and we are going to be even less forgiving than the South Africans -- the ANC hates liberals. Its not quite working out the way the liberal left hoped.
Guess what, we still exist, we love the Queen more than ever and all they have done is create a really angry bunch of British who are going to go on a Labour purging rampage (peacefully and democratically of course). I love the fact that the BNP got more votes than the Labour party in the by-election in Henley (both got a microscopic portion of the vote thankfully). A sign of things to come perhaps, has Labour joined the likes of the BNP and the Loony party?
Perhaps we are finally putting them into the place in our country's political framework where they belong.
What gives houses in Britain their unique value is the sense of history. You still pay more for a "character" property. Why do you think that is? Its because identity has a real measurable value, it makes us strong in a world where a strong identity is not considered valuable, its not some construct in our heads that can be imagined away.
We are one of the only nations left with a real Queen and I am proud of that. My kids love having a Queen, its easy to explain to children, she makes all the politicians look so shabby. They come and go, but she has remained. All I wish is she could have been able to assert herself more against this treacherous Labour government.
18. icarus said...
Why compare royals with politicians? They do different jobs.
19. icarus said...
uncle chris - the total bill for parliamentary salaries and expenses is about £155m. Add another £210m for the cost of running the House of Commons. A fair comparison may be between the costs for heads of state in various European countries. The costs in all European countries are far lower than the £40m for the royal family in the UK. The £40m figure is in any case disputed and many say it should be much higher. It is the monarchy's own figure, published in the Royal Finance Report and is criticised on the grounds that it is secretive and unaccountable - not subject to scrutiny by an outside body like the National Audit Office. It is claimed in the Report that revenue from the Crown Estate is surrendered in return for the Civil List allocation (and that therefore the royal family effectively costs little or nothing). This too is hotly disputed on the grounds that the legal status of the Crown is that of a corporate sole, an independent legal entity with the right to hold assets. It exists independently of the sovereign. it is definitely not the property of any sovereign, and would continue to exist if the monarchy disappeared. The £40m figure is disputed on the grounds that it does not include security (estimated by The Times at £100m - the relatively low costs of other heads of state referred to above include security) and the costs to local councils when a royal visits the town/city. If these items are included the total cost of the monarchy is about £150m (assuming the self-reported £40m is not an underestimte).
The stuff written above about tourism is wide of the mark. Only one royal residence (Windsor Castle @ 17) is in the top 20 tourist attractions. Other European countries demonstrate that castles and palaces are tourist attractions without there being a royal family.
20. enuii said...
The Royals costs me 66p or half a litre of diesel a year, Gordon Brown has cost me my pension, my savings, and his economic policies may well cost me my job in the next 12 months.
I hope that one day Mr Browns head is stuck on a spike in the Tower of London, the Labour Party died the moment it sold it's soul to the devil to get into power and to top it all Hagriet Harbinger is now going to actively discriminate against the very white males who built this country on the sweat of their broken backs over the last 300 years since the start of the industrial revolution.
The only Traitors to the good, hard working people of this country are the very politicians they have so foolishly elected and one has to question whether the existence of party politics in this country is now so corrupt that is actually non-democratic.
21. Mr Plumbase said...
I think I would rather spend my 66p on a bag of crisps and a tin of coke! On the subject of tourism I think I am right in saying that republican France gets more visitors than the UK, some of their (former) royal palaces are well worth a visit!
22. icarus said...
There are 15 working royals listed on the official monarchy website. If this is correct, and the estimate of £150m is correct, then each working royal costs £15 million.
23. Letsgetreadytotumble said...
Scrap democracy. Have the royals run the country. She could have a team of proven professions to be her 'cabinet'.
Can't be any worse than the completely crap system we have now. I think the royals would have sympathy with the great unwashed, and not be selfish megalomaniacs that we laughingly call a government.
Just an idea.