King calls for creative ways to tackle inequality

But your idea really is equivalent to giving everyone a tenner. His wealth is very small when compared to the ongoing costs of running a health and education system. It would be gone pretty quickly. Whereas small systemic changes continue to accrue benefit over the long term, which adds up.

I suspect this would not work in practice, even if we just talked about a cash transfer rather than getting into the difficulties of turning big jewels into money.

There have been a fair number of studies done in economics on what happens when people get large windfalls of money, and most of the time, they don't have much lasting positive impact.

Even wealth transfer through state services seems limited in what it can do in that way. It can make their lives better if it's a well run service, but often people remain more or less within the same economic situation.

I don't think there is much any rich individual, alone, can do that will tackle inequality at the root.

And they miss the point that if Blair, or Johnson, or Trump, or Truss happened to be the first born of the monarch we would be stuck with them.

Edit: look how close we came to King Andrew…

They're always the same names: Blair, Trump or Boris Johnson. Sometimes it's Liz Truss.

Why do royalists always say "Anyone fancy President Blair?"
Why do they never say "Anyone fancy President Attenbrough"?
or "Anyone fancy President Winston. or President Hale"?

@OneBadKitty

Well, only until he decided Anglo-Catholicism was a bit of a contradiction in terms and went full-on Catholic.

I definitely agree, there is a lot to be said for Charles work around environmental issues, because he’s done a lot, in regards to that , so kudos to him.

But, what I will never accept is that in the year 2024 he and his family live in immense unearned privilege and wealth, set against the back drop of empire and colonialism, systems that created immense inequality, over subsequent generations, where as the royal family has thrived. So therefore I don’t accept that Charles should be asking us to find creative ways to tackle inequality.

In fairness, you'd also need to discuss the Apostles' Creed of the Church of England.

'I believe in the Holy Spirit,
the holy catholic Church,
the communion of saints,
the forgiveness of sins,
the resurrection of the body,
and the life everlasting'

Perhaps he could abolish himself.

I like Charles too. It's fashionable to hate him because of Diana but he seems like a compassionate person who cares deeply about his country, the population and the world are large.

maybe you should do some research before posting. He started decades ago with the princes trust, tackling exactly that!

I have got a lot of time for Charles, he was laughed at for caring about the environment and I personally know people who were helped by The Princes Trust with practical support.

But it's not a popular view on MN, so I have my tin crown on.

William is much the same making a big deal of homelessness.

I would definitely prefer a President. Works well for Ireland!

One of the advantages would be that a President wouldn’t feel the need to own or have access to twelve homes or vast estates. Two would probably do! And we wouldn’t have to house their siblings and families.

I mean; looked at objectively, the living arrangements of the RF are ridiculously extravagant. Why is it necessary that they should all live in vast stately homes to enable them to do jobs that are far less stressful than your average NHS manager or senior nurse?

Prince Charles and Camilla between them have access to Balmoral, Highgrove, Sandringham, Castle of Mey, Birkhall, Dumfries House, a cottage in Wales, another one in Cornwall, a rented house in Romania, Clarence House, St James Palace, Buckingham Palace, and Windsor Castle. May have missed one or two others?

Some of these are privately owned and some of these are properties owned by the Crown Estate.

A president could be housed in one set of state apartments in town and then have somewhere in the country to receive foreign dignitaries; somewhere where they would have a suite of rooms.

And we wouldn’t have this nonsense of the presidents siblings being housed in 120-room mansions worth £30 million either!

Andrew living in Royal Lodge is a useful distraction imho as BP can occasionally leak stories about KC trying to evict him…

Sophie and Edward’s place Bagshot Park is owned by the Crown Estates and is worth £30 million. The Prince obviously intends his children to have access to it because he recently renewed the lease for an alleged price of £5 million for 150 years. What a bargain!

Why is all of this obscene extravagance necessary?

Think of the cost of the upkeep of all of them?

I really think we have been played like fools.

But at least with a democratic presidential system, the said person gets democratically elected, unlike our present head of state who is only that because they were born into that position, and not because that are actually truly suitable for the role. Can you imagine, if for some slight of history, Andrew, could have ended up king and consequently the head of state? It makes me really queasy just thinking about that hypothetical possibility.

And why is, with these kind of debates, it’s always only Tony Blair, who people use as an example of „”oh if not the King, then we’d have the likes of Tony Blair as head of state. Wouldn’t that be worse?”. What nonsense, so many potentially brilliant, infinitely better qualified, and capable people, out there who would make excellent head of states, and most definitely at a fraction of the cost that it takes to maintain the king, his family and their lifestyles. And it would be democratic.

It wont. But what might change things is if the Royals were more transparent about their finances, stopped getting things covered up, stopped getting exemptions ftom legidlationnthat may mesn tjey woukd have to spend some of theor own money, paid tax, slimmed down their expenses and stopped pontificating about things they know nothing about and don't intend to do anything about if it causes them the least bit of inconvenience.

Already, the top richest one percent pay almost thirty percent of income tax - and they’re the most mobile section of society. Beware of killing the goose that lays the golden eggs

They also control 90% of the wealth. It seems a bit unfair that they hold 90% of the wealth but only pay 30% of the taxes, doesn't it?

I am reminded of the photo of a US "diversity summit" which was a seated semi circle entirely composed of white older men.

When I was at school. I recall one white teacher explaining what it meant to be "Indian" to someone whose family had fled Uganda.

And of course, there are any number of men who will tell us what it really means to be a woman. Nearly as many as there are women who tell us how to be women.

So we get rid of the royals, remove their power, remove Charles as the figure head of the Commonwealth, share out their cash- then what? How will that change things for those peoples that feel they suffer inequality because of colonialism and the slave trade?

Yeah, I'm no Royalist. Abolish the lot I say. But it's quite disingenuous of the OP to take a quote out of context (exactly ^^, he was talking about inequality because of colonialism and the slave trade) and turn it into a 'he's considerably richer than yew' thread. Pretty offensive to the history of those he was actually referring to tbh. But let's make it about me. Hurrah!

I think 'creative' was a good way of phrasing it, encouraging the Gov to think again about reparation.

For a start, they wouldn't have to look at his rich white old mug wittering on at them about what equality means...

We can't get rid of the King.

You can replace a president - it happens all the time.

Sounds fair enough to me.

It'll be worse. We'd end up with a presidential system who'd spend even more money on themselves. Anyone fancy President Blair living it up in Buck Palace with Lady Cherie by his side?