This review of the book."What do you do" puts it far better than I could.
“In total, the taxpayer pays for a hundred buildings, six thousand rooms and twenty acres of roofs. And of course the Queen owns plenty of private property too, notably Balmoral and Sandringham, both bought with public funds, which also qualify for taxpayer support when they are used for official business.”
Ridiculous, bloated, antiquated, greedy, deluded, shameless parasites, are just seven of the less offensive words I‘d use to sum up the royals. Baker clearly feels along the same lines too. From the perfect quotes used in the epigraphs this book hits the right mood and tone from the very first turn of the page.
Baker has a lot to work with here, from the blatant examples of pro-Nazism from Edward VIII and his American wife (the couple received a gold inscribed wedding gift from Hitler) and the fact that Princess Michael of Kent’s father was a Nazi and fought in WWI against the Allies too, it is almost like shooting fish in a barrel. There is the bizarre and antiquated thing known as the honours system, a number of paedophiles, war criminals and dictators have been given various honours over the years, the likes of Kaiser Wilhelm II, Ceaucescu, Mugabe to the likes of Jimmy Savile and Bishop Peter Ball to name only a few.
“For 2001-11, the civil list was set at £7.9 million for each year. This became £13.7 million in 2011. The first year of Sovereign Grant saw support rise to £31 million in 2012.”
But then it continued to rise 2013/14: £36.1 million (up 16.5%), 2014/15: £37.9 million (up 5%) 2015/16: £40.1 million (up 5.5%) 2016/17: £42.8 million (up 7%) 2017/18: £76.1 million (77.8 %), 2018/19: £82.8 million (up 8%).
When factoring in the vast security costs, often for obscure or minor royals “the true cost to the public purse stretches well beyond £300 million a year.”
We see that old Prince Charles alone has 31 medals (for what?) and we learn of his immense hypocrisy in terms of his approach to the environment. His environmental impact from his tax payer subsidised travel alone including his vast entourage and security, puts a clown’s nose on his so called environmental concern.
“It is worth noting that the practice of paying sums to the monarch’s relatives, other than the King’s wife, only started when the present Queen came to the throne in 1952.”
Of course let us not forget the Royal Collection, a public asset, which the palace continues to pocket money from charging the public to see, and only 0.1% of it is ever on a display. Due to the secret and opaque nature it is hard to get an accurate value of its worth, but some estimates say it may be as high as £20 billion.
Then we get the dossier on hapless old Air Miles Andy who is beyond belief and beneath contempt, a repulsive and repugnant parasite with connections and/or business dealings with various dictators, Middle Eastern theocracies, Gaddafi, the Bin ladens and of course old Jeffrey Epstein (In Epstein’s incriminating black book, there was no less than 16 different contact numbers for the royal and 18 for his ex-wife). Among the many sinister and sickening facts around him is that in the ten years to 2011 he cost the taxpayer £4 million, with another £10 million for his police protection. We do know that his mummy gives him £249,000 tax free each year and that he gets £20,000 from a pension, but we don’t know how he and Sarah Ferguson managed to pay for their £13 million ski chalet in Switzerland?...
There are loads of shocking cases in here one dating back in 1962 involved Princess Alexandra (who I admit to having never even heard of) forcing a chartered aircraft she was using for royal duties to divert to Vancouver in order to visit some friends, and then demanded that the tax payer meet all costs, including the clothes she bought herself. The cost of the detour in today’s money was around £200,000 and the outfits around £100,000. The government paid up.
Then there’s the Offshore tax havens, Cash for Access scams, the ever growing unaccountability, Hereditary peerages, immunity from countless laws (not just seat belt wearing and hate speech), exemption from the Freedom of Information Act, the hunting (whilst claiming to be animal welfare advocates), the sneaky lobbying and political interference, the endless freebies, the lecturing people on climate change whilst travelling on private jets with extensive entourages, and using £369 million in order to revamp Buckingham Palace. The list goes on and on.
“The sovereign is not legally liable to pay income tax, capital gains tax or inheritance tax.”
So what all of this is really saying is that the British royal family are above the law. They have been granted impunity. Their very existence puts a giant dildo on the face of Britain’s idea of democracy, fairness and equality. If we were to see a mob of scroungers who ripped off their country to such a degree anywhere else in the world, we would laugh in pity and condescension. They are a sham that no one is ever supposed to speak out on or challenge. We routinely see that even so called sacred institutions like the BBC and every single British government since she came to the throne are all guilty of sickening levels of sycophancy and brown nosing.
It is beyond absurd that the royal family are allowed to get away with what they still get away in the year 2020. There are so many awful things related to them, that it is hard to know where to start. In spite of worsening global warming, a global financial crises they remain immune and are continue to be subsidised and enriched, granting themselves impunity in almost any situation that pleases them, when it pleases them.
Baker makes another wonderful point when he compares the royal set up to the MPs stealing from the tax payer, “For the royals to use civil list money to buy and help amass a private property portfolio is no different: it is fiddling their expenses.”
I am not sure I have shaken my head in disbelief so much during a book as I did reading this. It is way beyond belief what the British royals get away with. There should be no place for this blatant anomaly, which takes far more away from many than it occasionally gives back to the few. The royal family is a bloated farce of a thing, an absurd, extortionate pantomime stuck somewhere between a tedious BBC costume drama and a crap Monty Python sketch complete with the plummy, self-important English accents.