I can’t bear the lazy sods either, and nor do I understand the fawning over them. Jennie Bond (TV ‘royal correspondent’) makes me feel nauseous. She’s still cranking out stories about things dear old princess Diana said to her in 1995.
What I’d like to know is, exactly how much money and how many assets do they have access to, and where are the cash and assets kept? Why isn’t this information out there? We pay for them. We have a right to know.
I really dislike that whenever anybody asks these questions, some posh lickspittle weasel representing the royal family gives a partial answer. For example, they will omit the cash and assets in the royal trusts from the total, or will claim that queenie doesn’t really control particular assets because they are notionally held by another entity.
Somebody else mentioned the smoke and mirrors about what they actually cost us. Usually the number quoted is the civil list payments, less whatever they pay in tax from the income on the massive tracts of land (most of Lancashire and Cornwall) that they own. It completely omits, as somebody upthread mentioned, security costs etc.
Remember that they only reluctantly started to pay tax in the 1990s. Grabbing bastards.
I can’t believe how quickly the ‘paradise papers’ (I prefer to call them the parasite papers) furore died down. What the feck were they thinking, hiding assets offshore?
I’d put queenie on a salary and a clothing allowance, and give her an apartment to live in in Buckingham Palace. Some people in other parts of the world are daft enough to buy British things because of the ridiculous ‘heritage’ she represents, so why cut off that income stream? Open the rest of the palace permanently to tourists.
Family members who do proper trade visits (so not fat Andy flying off to South Africa to play golf, for example) can go on public transport and get appearance fees, and can wear clothes gifted to them by designers if they don’t buy their own.
The rest of them can bloody well fend for themselves. No doubt they would emulate the former Greek and Yugoslavian royal families: nick a load of assets from the country then sponge off other european royals, moaning about the unfairness of it all but insisting on retaining the abolished royal title.