As Rachel Reeves struggles to balance the books, the Royal Family should forgo a £46 million increase in their funding. AIBU?

This. Spend it on education and the nhs instead!

And then we’ll pay ten times as much for an elected head of state, and their administrative staff etc who will change with each election, the elections themselves will cost in the billions.

you don’t realise how ‘cheap’ our head of state is!!

This will be interesting. On BBC

David Dimbleby asking what exactly the Monarchy is for. A 3 parter. The first part delves into Charles's influence on Government Policy. How politically impartial are the Royals? Charles still regularly writes letters to the PM and they are top of the pile at the weekly chat.
The second part is finances. (Is the Monarchy a giant Ponzi scheme? No, that isn't the title of the second part, just the Guardian's. It does cover how staggeringly expensive it is for us to have the indulgence of a Monarchy)
The third part is on soft power, and mentions the illegal prorogation of parliament,

www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2025/dec/02/whats-the-monarchy-for-review-david-dimbleby-bbc

Yes , still not a word of apology from the Windsors regarding their charging of public services , being slumlords , not paying their due tax .

The country is sinking and the very least the Windsors could do is forego their handout this year. Instead they are taking a bonus .
Where is this ‘duty’ that is always being trumpeted?

Probably worth noting he's not averse to carriers of cash, has had a close adviser embroiled in a cash for honours scandal and previously sacked the same close adviser who was found to be at the centre of an enquiry focused on the fencing of royal gifts.

He's also not averse to double dipping in the public pot on his own behalf but....nothing to see, natch.

He is bought off and bribed thpugh, with colossal amounts of money. We used to have diplomats who were paid far less. And of course the armed forces personnel, ditto. And the health service personnel… and the emergency services …

The Church of England is hardly thriving.

@lemonraspberry

That’s an odd attitude . So you would be happy with an atheist head of the Church of England ?

I agree that because a Windsor ( for now) must be anointed head of the Church of England, the COE has a profile which does not reflect its dwindling numbers .
Something like 1% of the population of England are active COE members!
That anomaly needs to be addressed too.

Just - Church of Scotland barely financially viable & selling off its assets.

The Church of England is only one of many Protestant churches. The King is not the Head of the Church of Scotland. It still exists.

Nothing to do with being spiritual. It is power & politics. Without the royal family the Protestant church loses its supreme head- could they continue without one, who knows? How do you think they keep their churches?

.

The link between church and monarchy will need to be broken in any case .
William is not religious or spiritual in any way.

Mind you Charles and Camilla being anointed must have hard for religious people to swallow

If William is hypocritical enough to have a coronation for PR reasons , the least he could do is pay for the whole pantomime himself .

"Get rid" of the church? What's your argument for that? Just break the link between crown and church of England, surely?

The money the Windsors take from the country is nothing short of an utter disgrace . The sheer greed is staggering especially in light of the state of the UK and public services .

The last Civil List payment was in 2011 and it was for something like 7.8 million .
The equivalent today if we had carried on with the Civil list system would be around 12.15 million

The Windsors are taking 137 million next year .
That is the headline figure of course . The 24/7 security for empty estates/ helicopter commutes / flying personal cars abroad etc bring the total to closer to half a BILLION
On top those handouts , William and Charles pocket around 25 million a year each from the Duchy rip off !

No one but the most swivel eyed royalist could support this greed .

The royal family don't get asked if thry fancy a state visit or opening a centre somewhere they're told what they'll be doing and when.

The whole lot rustle up some six month's FTE between them with C3 contributing a back breaking two of them, leaving months of lovely me-time for all.

Telling them to bang a gong for the nation from time to time isn't an imposition.

Haven't RTFT and may be repeating the point but it's worth noting the £46m uptick derives from the sale of windfarm licences located on seabeds which should by rights belong to the nation.

E2 apparently 'saw something' about the Crown Estate taking on ownership of seabeds way back in the 1960's and they were docilely handed over paving the way for all sorts of profitable fuel rights to be sold.

C3 wanted the windfall used for the weaselly worded 'wider good' but that naturally hasn't extended to the full amount.

Also worth noting the Sovereign Grant will never reduce from the previous year's amount thanks to the golden ratchet clause which was supposed to bring stability to royal finances but in effect means if the Crown Estate profits are reduced for any reason (See Covid related losses) the treasury will make good any shortfall.

Heads the royals win, Tails we lose.

Much good it will do them to live ever more obscenely while more of us go under.

Charles I fucked around and found out...

Agree. Even if you accept the most conservative costs of the monarchy we could have about ten Danish monarchies for the cost of our monarchy.

What exactly have the RF done for US, yes us their subjects? Still awaiting an answer I won't want to laugh out loud at.

Well one thing's for sure, it's nothing like what the Romans did for us!

What do they do exactly?