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AIBU?

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Original poster

To To be appalled at all the royal palaces.

279 replies

purplehazed · 04/01/2016 22:26

I've just watched Ant and Dec with Prince Charles. The sheer opulence of those numerous palaces. Just how many do they need? So so wrong imo.
Surely in these times of massive hardship for so many it is time they were scaled right back.

OP posts:
Original poster
purplehazed · 04/01/2016 23:24

For all those saying the royals bring money in through tourism.....prove it. It's a tired old myth that their PR spin out to justify their existence. I and many others don't fall for it. The tourists would still come.

OP posts:
Eastpoint · 04/01/2016 23:28

I suspect a fair amount of national French tourism is due to the Med & coast of Western France. Plus France still counts islands like St Bart's as French so those tourist numbers will mount up.

Palaces like St James's Palace are available to rent, they were around £25K a day during the Olympics from what I recall. Sometimes there are two events a day, which must help cover costs.

Have you been to other institutions OP? I was amazed by the level of grandeur at the Institute of Civil Engineers, quite incredible.

To To be appalled at all the royal palaces.
SilentlyScreamingAgain · 04/01/2016 23:29

If the amazing PR team who are currently employed promoting the royal family were put to work promoting tourism, I'm sure not a single tourist dollar/yen would be lost.

ElinorRochdale · 04/01/2016 23:30

We'd be a lot better off if we'd followed the French example and got it all over and done with a couple of hundred years ago.

We tried that about 350 years ago, but couldn't come up with a better system, so went back to the monarchy. Don't underestimate the benefits we've had from such a long period of stability in our system of government.

And as pps have said, the royal palaces are historic buildings that would need to be maintained whoever lived in them. That's where most of the money gores.

Original poster
purplehazed · 04/01/2016 23:31

lorelei9 no it's certainly not a private inherited estate. If the royals were to be abolished tomorrow the entire estates would immediately revert back to the UK.

OP posts:
lorelei9 · 04/01/2016 23:31

eastpoint, sorry, I know you directed your question to the OP, but places like ICE are funded by members.

I get that the palaces are covered by many revenue streams but the fact remains that one family gets the right to live in these places and a large amount of that money comes from the taxpayer.

WhenWillYouMakeMyTelephoneRing · 04/01/2016 23:32

I know what you mean OP. I am actually pretty well disposed towards the royals in general, and I see the tourism benefits and so on. But I went to an exhibition a few months ago at the galleries attached to Buckingham Palace and afterwards read the notice about paying to tour the palace itself and see the nineteen state rooms used for entertaining important visitors. This was just after Alan Kurdi's body had been washed up on that beach, and I couldn't stop myself wondering how many Syrian families could have been put up in those nineteen rooms. However many practical obstacles there might be, I would imagine many people with that news fresh in their heads wouldn't have thought this too.

syne · 04/01/2016 23:33

It's bizarre, almost any aspect of the royals in another context on mumsnet and they'd be rightly slated to high heaven.
Supposedly appointed by god, they're really nothing more than the pinnacle of grabby self serving behavior inherited from tyrants, murderers and religious nutters.
And they're applauded for it when they lord it around. Very odd indeed.

Original poster
purplehazed · 04/01/2016 23:34

Legoland is actually the number one tourist spot of the UK.

OP posts:
lorelei9 · 04/01/2016 23:34

purple - sorry, I meant the Duchy of Cornwall specifically. i think you might have mixed me up with a pro-Royal poster who said something else though?

If we go back far enough then I think all Duchies were allocated by royalty anyway but I think if it's been in entirely private hands for centuries, it would be a bit weird to call it royal property and take it back?

There's plenty of money we could take from the Royal Family. Hasn't the Queen asked for a huge amount to refurb Buck House this year? This is the sort of thing we could get rid of easily.

Palehorse · 04/01/2016 23:34

TBH I really don't care how much tourist revenue they being in. It's the principle that bothers me, in terms of inherited entitlement and the imbalance of wealth in this country. As such they represent the very worst of 'British values'.

RudeElf · 04/01/2016 23:36

George and Charlotte should share a room with bunk beds

Grin

Comment of the thread.

NinjaLeprechaun · 04/01/2016 23:36

"We'd be a lot better off if we'd followed the French example and got it all over and done with a couple of hundred years ago."
The British monarchy was abolished in the 1600s. It was reinstated not long afterwards because Charles Stuart was more fun than Oliver Cromwell with popular support.
I kind of think that if it was going to happen it would already have happened. Other European countries have royal families and far less angst over it, which is probably sensible.

Also, apparently the Windsors privately own an alarming amount of land that is rented by the government for a tiny fraction of what it's worth. If the monarchy went, so would that "public" land - along with the right to use and the revenue that goes with it.

Eastpoint · 04/01/2016 23:37

That's true Lorelei I guess my point is that there are a lot of very fancy places which your average Joe just walks past without knowing what is inside. St James's Palace is rather amazing, the bulk of it is state rooms, there is one small apartment on the ground floor but it hasn't been touched for 20+ years. There are other apartments around the palace, but there aren't any bedrooms in the part near the throne room.

TooMuchRain · 04/01/2016 23:38

YANBU at all, it's embarrassing to have monarchy at all. They could be opened up as tourist attractions so everyone could benefit and then they'd be profitable too.

lorelei9 · 04/01/2016 23:38

Ninja - bit confused which land/lands?

if the Windsors privately own it, can't they just allow Joe Public to use it without the government paying them rent?

Baconyum · 04/01/2016 23:39

Another who would happily live in a republic. It's obscene they don't need all those buildings and rooms and opulence nobody does. The tourists would still come and would likely pay stupid money to stay in the palaces therefore continuing revenue. Ditto government opulence. Mps could certainly stay in Travelodge type places when visiting London for parliamentary business they certainly don't need full family homes with 4+bedrooms and staff for occasional use!

Palehorse · 04/01/2016 23:41

Don't underestimate the benefits we've had from such a long period of stability in our system of government.

I think the stability we've had is due to our parliamentary democracy, the challenging of the 'divine right' rather than our 'divine' rulers

Bunbaker · 04/01/2016 23:41

"Legoland is actually the number one tourist spot of the UK."

Really! I very much doubt that.

I did a bit of googling and every website I visited had a different number one. And none of the sites I looked at even had Legoland in the top 10.

HotterWok · 04/01/2016 23:42

purplehazed: they made a small profit when Diana was alive but they have made a loss since then, I have no idea how that became such a popular idea

HellesBelles01 · 04/01/2016 23:49

I could be completely wrong - and will happily stand corrected - but I thought that only a few estates were privately owned by the queen, eg Balmoral, Sandringham?

I don't have a problem with the queen any more than I do with any other octogenarian that I don't personally know. But I do find the ostentatious display of wealth (be that of the royals, aristos, multi millionaires of UK and overseas extraction) pretty distasteful in the age of foodbanks and the continued oppression of the working poor.

I'm not attacking the rich - this is all our problem. We all have our part to play in society. It just seems that some of the very rich (royals included) don't contribute according to their ability. But we are still expected to fawn over them!

Nanny0gg · 04/01/2016 23:49

Camilla was lovely she asked me what perfume I was wearing, when I said Arpege, she said I love the classic ones.

Ooh, I used to wear that - I can still smell it now. Must add it to perfume list for the future!

AyeAmarok · 04/01/2016 23:50

Please stop saying "revert back".

It's revert, no need for the 'back'; it's a tautology.

I'd rather the Royals were in these palaces than some Saudi Prince, which is what would happen.

HellesBelles01 · 04/01/2016 23:54

^^what Arf said (revert and Saudis). I hadn't thought of that. Our royals are positively benevolent compared to that lot (but that's another thread).

NinjaLeprechaun · 04/01/2016 23:55

"if the Windsors privately own it, can't they just allow Joe Public to use it without the government paying them rent?"
Why would anybody do that? It would be even less likely if they were just private citizens.
Despite all the talk of them being 'on the public payroll' the Windsor family is actually obscenely incredibly privately wealthy.

I probably consider myself a republican if I stop to think about it, an inherited Head of State is a daft idea even if they have no actual power. But I suspect that they're inevitable, because the system is so stable and well established that there's less reason to get rid of it than there is to keep it.

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