Apparently the Queen wants more dosh.
The Queen faces a financial showdown with the Treasury after Buckingham Palace indicated that it intended to continue spending at current levels.
The Palace is asking for the first increase in the Civil List for two decades, arguing that it has already made substantial cuts.
Really? Well, perhaps they should look at making more. The company I visited today has recently reduced its paybills by asking its employees (and getting their agreement) to take a pay cut in order to stay afloat. In times of recession we all have to make sacrifices, cut one’s cloth so to speak. Unless, that is, you are Gordon Brown or, now it would appear, royalty.
LR,
“In times of recession we all have to make sacrifices, ”
True. But it is obviously ridiculous to compare this with especially the public sector given that there has been no change in the civil list in 20 years. That is a simply extraordinary statistic.
More importantly, we need to look at the revenues paid to the Exchequer by the Crown Estates – that’s the other half of the bargain. I’ll wager that they didn’t remain static over that period.
[Googles]
here:
http://www.thecrownestate.co.uk/annual_report/financials/ten_year_record.html
Net revenue surplus rose from £126M in 1998/99 to £211M in 2007/08.
How much is the civil list in total? £7.9M
Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_List#Present_day
So: the Treasury takes in amounts rising from £126M to £211M p.a. and pays out £7.9M p.a.
I think the taxpayer doesn’t do too badly out of that trade.
Fair point. Actually, from an ethical point of view, I’d be happy for the crown to keep its revenues from its estates and do away with the civil list.
I wouldn’t. Who did they pinch the land from in the first place?
Well, being cynical, Barons who had stolen it from someone else…
Yes, Gordo should make the sacrifice and halve his salary – just to show us how it’s done.
.-= ´s last blog ..[airbus] yet another down =-.
For loot like that at least the monarchy could piss up a storm from time to time and stir the pot a little, and just now for example veto the bills laid in privy council before the last session, and so bring down a really needed election around your Mr Brown’s no doubt waxy (hairy?) ears….
Otherwise, you should just put the entire crew out on bicycles in the graachts like a bunch of Dutchmen!
(I wish we could do something like that with these bogus “Democrats” AND Republicans around here.)
Longrider’s remark about “being cynical” is a laugh — these “Whites (sort of!) Only” jerks here who bellyache about Mexicans and “immigrants” are listened to with, well, sarcastic laughs by the handful of Indians still left in these parts!
Emmett hits it on the head; to be worth the money, I’d like to see the Queen do something unconstitutional like tell Gordon “not in my name” when an illiberal bill lands on her desk. Then I’d really have some respect.
The Crown gives us value for money. There are a hell of a lot of places you can make savings (ID cards; NHS databases; the EU; our ‘elected’ representatives; quangos; entire government departments; fake charities; the BBC; the over-bloated pay of the quangocracy; the Fun Polizei; funding for religious causes) before you start on the Queen.
What value does the Crown give us for our money, apart from providing the tabloids with a permanent soap opera? OK, God Save the Queen and may she live for ever – because I do NOT want to be a subject of King Charles III who does not resemble his predecessor Charles II, of whom it was said that he never said a foolish thing and never did a wise one. Big Ears is neither wise nor witty – just a pain in the national posterior.
Oh, gripe, mumble, bitch, complain…. Without monarchy you’ll just be another run-of-the-pregnancy-test regulatory EU pisshouse like Roumania or Beloruss, or something, or else us here in the States. Charlie Duce was a twat and Jasper Deuce another, at least this one talks about The Abominations, factory farms, bad (!) architecture and such….
And, as to “constitutional,” the great thing about a LIVING constitution IS that it IS subject to revision and initiative from DIFFERENT quarters, AND historical “progress” is NOT always unidirectional.
Too much of this castrated “monarchy” HAS played its part in landing us all in the Old Atlantic West in this egualitarian and postmodern, greasy, basin of puke, along with the Baby Peter killers and Ms Shoesole or whatever, as well as all of these low NuHorseshit amuck Scotchmen and Real (!) IRAs, running around loose and drooling. ABOVE ALL, what the “common man” (and “his” grubby besotted retinue of grim females!) more than anything needs shoved up his jacksey on a QUOTIDIEN basis is THE omnipresent AND ASHAMED sensation that, YES, there ARE others who ARE “better than I am,” me with my vile cesspit of a little computer monitor full of porno and (Jesus Christ!) Pro “Wrassling” videos.
And, this is objectively so even when — and, maybe, especially when! — the “better than” part is ALL fairytales and a load of claptrap about “aristocracy.”
Aristocracy does /not/ have to be a sham forever; and, if you don’t — /can/ not — buy that, then better you should off them all — and continue to take your medications for N-HADD (“Non-Historical Awareness Deficit Disorder.”)
(Not /you/, Aunty, just, well…”you” all know who you are!)
69p a year each, and you grudge the old dear an increase?
What a bunch of skinflints, are you all Aberdonians, or what is it?
I’d rather pay ten times as much for the monarchy and get rid of those useless thieving parasites in Parliament, frankly. Or fire a few thousand useless pen-pushers.
Long live Her Maj!