to wonder why the whole country has gone completely bloody Royalist?

[Hullygully]

Erect the scaffold.

Up the Republicans.

We are ADULTS we don't need a feudalistic Divine Right of Kings addled parasitical bunch of halfwits to live off our taxes.

Wamster - did you read the DM today - there were several personal attacks on members of the royal family. Hardly sycophantic.

flatbread you can be as skeptical as you like - but why skeptical of one paper which is generally considered to be fairly well thought of and unbiased and not of the other paper which, well... generally thought to be a little less so?

You are right to be sceptical Charles himself said it would be frightfully unpopular but Osborne went with it.

The royal family do not have the rights to the sea bed The Crown estates do. The Crown estates are not the private property of the monarch, the trustees of the crown estates are accountable to Parliament and all income is paid into the treasury (although the proposal is that a proportion would fund the royal family instead of the civil list).

I think a discussion about funding of the monarchy or even its relevance or the disestablishment of the church would all be interesting but I think you should be discussing the correct facts.

"There is an important difference between those that get rich through hard work, effort or just luck and the royal family who just get it by birthright." - no there isn;t.

You either believe people should be allowed to inherit wealth or you don't. You don't get to set up a commision to assess who deserves their wealth and who doesn't.

Should lottery millionaires not be allowed to pass their wealth on? Cigarette manufacturers? Arms Dealers? Bankers?

I may inherit my mums flat on her death (hopefullt no time soon though) - why do I deserve to benefit from the rise in London property prices? Your argument makes no sense at all - and I have repeatedly said that I'm not a monarchist - it still doesn't make any sense to me.

I agree with this 100%.

Lets add every single child who attends private school.
Absolutely no child deserves it. The child has done nothing at all to deserve it other than be born to rich, entitled parents.

Perhaps the state should claim 100% of wealth and assets upon death, and everyone will be equal. This would also include spouses as of course they have done absolutely nothing to deserve their wealth.

Again you either accept inherited wealth or you don't. No exceptions.

Unemployed people bussed in to be pageant stewards for free, made to sleep under London Bridge night before (Guardian)

Nice to see traditional Monarchist attitudes to the commoners are alive and well :o

Just going back a bit in the thread, I thought CatItaInaHatIta's posts werr very interesting.

were, ffs.

And sorry that I got Cat's capitalisation all wrong.

I think it is silly to celebrate a system which works basically on the trust that the monarch will be a good egg and do as she is told

So I wonder what happens if a maverick emerges, must scare everyone whi is anyone...is there a subtle smear campaign if one looks too independent ("Charles just isn't right for the throne, y'know...)

Thanks Princess. I have been banging on about this for years. I think it is a great shame that schools rarely explain the governmental system, since it means that a great number of people are very sketchy on the ins and outs of how government works, nor the Queen's role in the whole thing. I find it very frustrating that it seems generally considered that she has no real importance for our system, when in fact she is the most important figure whose presence and assent is required for nearly everything the government does.

"There is an important difference between those that get rich through hard work, effort or just luck and the royal family who just get it by birthright."

Interesting. If anyone earns or wins money and passes it on to their children/grandchildren/successive generations - that is one thing. The money could have been acquired in a number of ways (e.g. through starting up a corner shop and then building a multinational retail enterprise, or through winning a premium bond and then building up an investment portfolio). And of course we may question whether any/sufficient income or inheritance tax has been paid on this.

With the royal family, though, aren't we talking about lands (and therefore taxes/rents/other dues on those lands) that were originally acquired through force or through royal proclamation? Of course those original land acquisitions were made centuries ago. But, even so, no tax AT ALL was paid on any of the income from those lands until, I think, the 1990s. So that's a lot of compound income that the royal family have been 'earning' for a very long time.

On top of which, although there is a Civil List to cover 'basic' royal expenditures, in exchange for income from certain Crown Estates (that income now goes to the state - although that has been the case only for about 250 years, I think), the royal family also retains income from certain lands (e.g. the duchy of Cornwall) which is their own private income.

This is why the royal family have so much private wealth. Which is vast. E.g. the queen alone is reckoned to be worth about £310 million (her private wealth - nothing to do with Buckingham Palace, etc.).

And this is why many people think that the royal family have got rich through their 'birthright' rather than through any 'effort' on their part.

God save our noble Queen!

Kew, you are right, I stand corrected.

But the point remains, why should the royal family get 15% or what ever figure of the gains from the seabed? What right does one family have to profit from our national resources?

I agree with you that the financial affairs of the royal family should be made absolutely transparent.

And about the Telegraph being independent, no newspaper is. They clearly have a slant. Charles has been pushing this for ages as it will bring immense wealth to the royals. Why was there no public debate on this?

YABU OP. The country hasn't gone 'royalist' necessarily. If anything, I think we're all enjoying the ability to fly a union flag, sing songs and other expressions of patriotism without being assumed to be members of the BNP. :) The reason the enthusiasm is so concentrated in England is because, unlike other nations (even those within the UK) the English have no national celebration, no St Patrick's Day parade, no 4th July. We can fly the Cross of St George only, it seems, when there is a football tournament. The rest of the time we're meant to be quietly introspective & respect everyone else's culture.

My family, some of whom are now expats have been raving about the Jubilee all weekend on facebook and decorating their houses accrodingly.

I really just don't get it at all. I feel nothing. I don't wish the royal family any ill but I don't know them, I know nothing about them except what the media wants me to know. My dad was saying 'oh don't, perception it's a special occasion'

why??^

Don't get it........I feel as though I've misunderstood some big secret.

Thank you for articulating it so well PrincessFiorimonde.

Yanbu, Hullygully, it is simply wrong to have royalty and although not every royalist is thick-far from it- it is safe to say that they have a massive blind spot as regards the monarchy.

The BBC have been slated for their coverage of the flotilla on sunday, I think they did an excellent job and a crap job at the same time.
Crap because there was no history, but excellent as it fully reflects today's vacuous times.

And this will be what kills off royalty. People are now self-centred, and have duty to themselves only. Ultimately, it will, in years to come, piss people off that these royals have done little to earn their respect and income from the taxpayer. We're not a duty bound, cap-doffing lot anymore.

There'll be no revolution, just a process of gentle evolution to get rid of the country's numero uno benefit scroungers. It will be subtle, of course, but it will happen. I hope to god it does in my lifetime.

Haha at the notion of the Torygraph being independent.

Not even the 'Independent' is that independent, either, but they managed to stay on the right side of the facts and reporting of something which is a historical occasion without being brown-nosey and moist.

There's really no such thing as journalism that does not have an agenda of some kind.

I do love the way that people witter on -seeming to ignore the fact that there have been 4 days of hugely successful celebrations!

How do you mean, exoticfruits?

Have you not seen the crowds? The people camping out? The numbers who watched TV? The fact that it all went without a hitch-bar the weather.

What would England be like without the Royal family ? The Palaces would be offices or flats. No tourists. No more History or traditions. I could go on and on.
I love the Royal Family, long live all of them.

I do love the way that people witter on -seeming to ignore the fact that there have been 4 days of hugely successful celebrations!

That's what they want you to believe

(Was I the only one who thiought the BBC pageant commentary reached a new high in vacuous sycophancy?)

Shooting stars, what are you on? The only tradition the monarch represents is that of a feudal system, class and unearned privilege.

The real achievements and traditions are set by people who have achieved something, JK Rawling, a poor single mum who made it through talent and hard work, is more representative of Britain we admire, than scrounger queenie and her useless family

The point about tourists and palaces...have you been to France? They abolished their monarchy and get more tourists than the UK. Of all the visitors I have ever met, not one has come because we have a monarchy.