AIBU to think the queen should get off her arse and sell Balmoral?

[BlueBirdsNest]

Just a thought

But if we are struggling as a Country, financially, as a Country

Why don't the Royal family contribute and sell their holiday homes and put they money back in the economy?

Thanks Sleepydog!

Stop picking on Liz

OP the Royal family already contribute a huge amount to this country's economy. People come from the word over to "see the queen". xx

i think she should sell her teeth

YABU. Leave Her Maj alone.

And surely the Queen does not have an 'arse'. A posterior perhaps?

Cash my Teeth.

Yummymummy, of course they don't come over here to see the queen! How many tourists actually see her????

I have yet to see any real evidence at all that tourists would stop coming if we no longer had a monarchy - we still have hundreds of years of history, lots of historic buildings and many amazing tourist attractions that would have people flocking here. Nothing to do with 'seeing' the queen at all.

Oh and MrsBucket, PMSL at the idea that Cromwell was an elected head of state!!!

Prince Philip was born Prince Philip of Greece and Denmark he has German, English, Danish, Russian ancestry probably more if you care to look it up.

I do believe a lot of people come to England to see the Royal family or things to do with the Royal family, ever been to the changing of the Guard at Buckingham palace or Windsor Castle, there are normally big crowds during the summer.

Prince Philip's family tree is really good fun. (if you like that sort of thing)

His mother was Alice, one of Queen Victoria's older great grandchildren. Her mother was Victoria daughter of Alice, Grand Duchess of Hesse and Queen Victoria's second daughter. Victoria married the rather flash and older Louis Battenberg (yes really). After the 1st World War they became the Mountbatten family and the younger son, Alice's baby brother, became the Lord Mountbatten murdered by the IRA in the seventies.

One of Victoria's younger sisters was Alix who was the last Tsarina of Russia. Victoria also had a borther Ernest, whose older son ended up married to one of Prince Philip's big sisters. Till they were killed in a horrible air accident with their children.

Alice married Prince Andrew of Greece and when it all went pearshaped for the Royals in Greece they all had to clear out. George V of England send a ship to 'persuade' (with big guns) that the Greek Government really did want to let his relations go. This was after the massacre of the Russian royal family btw. Made everybody a bit sensitive about the fate of one's relations.

Incidentally George V was related to the Tsar and Tsarina on both sides - his father was the Tsarina's uncle and his mother, Alexandra, was the Tsar's aunt as her sister was the wife of the previous Tsar. And it was their brother who first got the job of being King of Greece. The Greeks looked round Europe at that time and picked the prince they liked the look of......

So Philip isn't Greek but he's definately European

See?

ner ner ner ner ner

Sounds all Greek to me !
Well done Northernlurker !

Can you imagine Philip on Who Do You Think You Are - it would be mini series !

I bet the Queen does have an arse - she was brought up horsey and was then surrounded by the Navy

Pinkie, I used to work in Buckingham Gate so have seen the changing of the guard thousands of times - never once saw a member of the royal family there .

Could still have the tourist show of changing of the guard without a queen.

wow maybe there bringing in commoners like kate to stop all the confused family history.

The queen has several properties. Why pick on the only Scottish one? She's a Scottish monarch too. Selling nearby places like Windsor or Sandringham would make more sense, but they are her houses and she doesn't have to sell them because she isn't hard up.
If you don't want a monarch work for republicanism.

I just think that our politicians are so money grubbing (see expenses scandal, Blair's work trading off all his connections after he left office) that I don't see why we should create another layer of political office for their self-interest to flourish in. And knowing us, we'd manage to make a complete hash of setting up the system anyway, so that we'd end up with a president who wanted to keep up with other world leaders in terms of flashiness and accordingly spent more than the RF do, but wasn't prepared to do boring things like visiting hospitals and schools, which do bring a lot of pleasure to people when the RF do it.

I also think the Royal Family are highly entertaining, much more than any president could ever be, and for that alone we should keep them.

NorthernLurker you are Very knowledgable! (or is that Wikipedia? )

My friend recently to,d me that Beatrice and Eugenie are no longer in line to the throne.... Is that true?? Haha

It's no true - they remain in line to the throne, but pretty far down the list (5th and 6th). You only leave the succession if you renounce it (and they haven't), or if you do something which disqualifies you (like marry a catholic, but that's set to change).

What my friend said was that it had been renounced for them? (by mum and dad :)) I always thought that would have even bigger news!

I think your friend must have heard something badly garbled.

It is possible to abdicate (and so presumably renounce also) on behalf of yourself and all your issue. But they are of age, so even if their father relinquished his position in the succession, I'm not sure it woud now remove them too. And the Duke of York is definitely still in.

Surprisingly I went to the changing of the guards and saw the Queen, Prince Philip, Prince Andrew and Prince Edward. My point was any way that people go to the changing of the guard because of the Royal family, if there was no Royal family would there be a changing of the guard?

Curious - I am offended! Yes I am VERY KNOWLEDGEABLE and I acquired said knowledge from books.

If anybody is interested in the general topic of Queen Victoria's grandchildren this is very readable and covers 4 interesting people and one dull one.

There are lots of other good books too.

Pinkie, do you think they attend every one? . As I say I worked there for 3 yrs and never saw them. Of course we could have C of G without the royals - Buckingham Hotel would need to be guarded by someone .