Why do you love The Royal Family?

[pedropony76]

I previously posted this on The Royal Family board but only received one response so wanted to post here for traffic.

For those that love The Queen & The Royal Family, can you actually explain why?

I often see MNetters saying ‘Oh I love The Queen, I love this member and that member’ but no one ever says why. I came across the video of Stacey Solomon saying she doesn’t get why the country is so obsessed with this family as it could be any one of us born into royalty and I totally agree.

For me, when I think of The Royal Family, I instantly think of colonialism and how many of the jewels on the Queen’s crown has been stolen from different countries. I understand not everyone thinks like this but why do some love the members of this establishment as if they’ve done anything to better your life? I’d love to hear people’s views. I’ve tried to have this conversation in real life but everyone I know couldn’t care less about The Royal Family so I’m none the wiser.

Here’s the Stacey Solomon clip for any who haven’t seen it before

Well no, it is an actual role but it's unpaid and voluntary so people do it alongside their actual jobs- albeit it tends to be people who can afford to do so, often MPs etc. There's a list of them online you can easily find, but why let the facts get in the way of pushing your narrative eh.

I'm not even a big fan of them, I don't care if people hate them why would it it doesn't affect me- but a lot seem to dislike them for assumptions or based on fake news. Why not just say just don't like them rather than try and justify it with lies? No one needs to justify anything!

Discovereads, I hate using that phrase deliberately obtuse but

From the BBC
"Before his [PA's] expected departure in July 2011, the UKTI said: "The duke's unique position gives him unrivalled access to members of royal families, heads of state, government ministers and chief executives of companies".

The government body UKTI basically admitting that PA was appointed for his unique and totally unmerited royal status, despite being an absolute wanker.

. This is just part of one review from Norman Bakers book. I think it would make any royalist have second thoughts. I don't see how it couldn't.

The book explores in forensic detail all the ways in which the Royal Family benefits financially and politically from its position at the top of British society and how, with an unelected, unaccountable Head of State, there will always sadly be opportunities for self-aggrandisement and personal enrichment from some of its (many) members.
There are many, many examples of how this happens, but here are some of the takeaways:

1. British taxpayers fund over a hundred Royal buildings, including Buckingham Palace, St James’s Palace, Clarence House, Marlborough House Mews, Kensington Palace, Windsor Castle, Frogmore House and Hampton Court Mews. The Queen personally owns Balmoral and Sandringham, which were bought with public funds, but they qualify for taxpayer support as they are used for official business and they remain the Queen’s private property.

2. The Queen is estimated to be personally worth at least £350 million. Although she is not legally obliged to pay tax, she ‘chose’ (under public pressure following the Windsor Castle fire) to start voluntarily paying income and capital gains tax in 1992. A 2017 data leak of the Paradise Papers also revealed that the Duchy of Lancaster, which manages investments for the Queen’s £520m private estate, invests around £10m in the Cayman Islands and Bermuda-based funds - British overseas territories with no corporation tax and at the centre of the offshore financial industry.

3. Wills are public documents in the UK and have always been open for inspection as an essential safeguard to prevent theft and malpractice. However, since 1911, the Royal Family has been allowed to ‘seal’ selected wills – or declare them private – in the interests of upholding the dignity of the Crown. This means that exact figures on the wealth of the Royal Family are hard to come by.

4. The Queen presides over a merit-free awards system that maintains a top-down mediaeval hierarchy of court favourites that has existed for 700 years. A lot of the time, she awards honours to her own family for no apparent reason. Prince Charles now has 31 decorations available to him to wear and even Princess Anne holds 24 military positions. The Order of Merit - limited to 24 members and given to reward those who give ‘exceptionally meritorious service towards the advancement of art, literature and science’ – also includes amongst its members the Duke of Edinburgh and Prince Charles.

5. Most members of the Royal Family still charter flights or helicopter flights at public expense instead of using much cheaper methods such as scheduled flights, trains or even cars. In the most recent figures, a total of £69.4 million of taxpayer funds went on official duties such as travel, as well as other costs including staff, hospitality and property maintenance - a rise of £2.4m or 4% from £67m in 2018/2019. Recent examples of taxpayer funded travel costs include Harry and Meghan's tour of southern Africa: £246,000, the Prince of Wales’ flights for a two-day visit to Oman: £210,345, Prince Andrew taking a private plane to Northern Ireland to attend the Royal Portrush Golf Club's Open championship: £15,848 and Princess Anne taking a charter flight to Rome costing £16,440 so she could watch Scotland play rugby (in her capacity as patron).

6. The Privy Council, (a formal body of advisers to the Sovereign which originated in Anglo Saxon times) can amend Acts of Parliaments without anything being reported in the Press. Prime ministers use the Council, which officially reports directly to the Queen, to make arbitrary decisions for which they are not accountable or subject to democratic inspection. These include allegations that the British intelligence services were involved in torture during the so-called ‘War on Terror’ and the forced deportation of the Chagos Islanders to make way for an American military base.

7. Despite being ‘public servants’ on the taxpayers’ payroll, the Royal Family is exempt from the Freedom of Information Act and Is not obliged to abide by the standards of behaviour set out by The Committee on Standards in Public Life. This means that they can carry out their roles in almost total secrecy (unlike accountable politicians, councillors, Lords etc) and are free to accept privately any holiday, the use of a castle, private jet, luxury car, yacht or loans all without any requirement even to record these gifts (although official gifts are recorded). British taxpayers have no right to know who is buying favour with the people who form an integral part of their constitutional system. The questionable business relationships and friendships of some family members such as ‘Air Miles Andy’ Prince Andrew are something that no other public servant could get away with.

8. The Queen Mother acquired assets worth up to £70m in her lifetime which were then bequeathed to her daughter the Queen free of inheritance tax, thanks to a private deal between the Queen and John Major when he was Tory prime minister in 1993.

9. The Royal Household pays face value for the Maundy Thursday coins that the Queen distributes every Easter (one for each year of her age), however the taxpayer pays for the full cost of the specialist minting, which is never revealed to the public for ‘commercially sensitive’ reasons.

10. The Duke of Edinburgh still receives an annual allowance of £359,000 from taxpayers despite retiring from being a ‘working Royal’ in 2017. (The Queen makes up the shortfall needed to maintain his office from her private funds, the Duchy of Lancaster). There are currently 12 working Royals which entitles those individuals to certain privileges, such as taxpayer-funded security which costs a total of around £106 million per year. Working royals also tend to have access to ‘grace and favour’ residences and many are also gifted private country homes by the Queen in her private capacity. Although many royals have access to the Sovereign Grant for official royal duties, the cost of their day-to-day lives is not covered by public funding. Surprisingly the idea of a ‘working royal’ is a mid-20th century one.

11. The Royal Family continues to expand. At the 2018 Trooping of the Colour, the Queen was surrounded on the balcony at Buckingham Palace by 44 members of her extended family (many of whom you will not have heard of).

12. The British Royal family is at the top of the European Royalty league in the receipt of public money receiving around £82 million in 2020. Some comparable figures are:

Netherlands (2020): £39 million
Norway (2019): £34 million
Belgium (2018): £12 million
Spain (2018): £7 million

Royal Families in Spain, the Netherlands and Denmark all make do with two palaces each; the UK Royal Family has 15 palaces plus Balmoral, Sandringham and those owned by the Duchy of Cornwall.

Full marks to Norman for his detailed and up-to-date research that has gone in to this book against, it appears, opposition from those who don’t appear to be that keen that this kind of information is more widely known.

At the end of the book’s acknowledgement, the author notes sardonically: ‘Lastly a reverse acknowledgement of thanks to the Lord Chamberlain, the Cabinet Office, The Privy Council and Prince Charles, all of whom have given every possible assistance short of actual help.’
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I love them!
I love the history and Queen is amazing I don't know many others still working at her age!
They also do an enormous amount for charities.

I've just looking online for numbers and found;

the Queen is the patron of 510 charities and had helped them raise £1.4 billion. The Royal Family together are patrons to over 2,400 charities in the UK (about 3,000 worldwide). Prince Charles’s charities raise £100 million annually.

As individual people I couldn't care less tbh, but I would definitely say I'm a royalist, in that I believe in Queen (or King) and country. For me it's a traditional thing, I love the history of learning about those of the past and want it to continue as it's part of who we are as a country.

I understand where people are coming from when they complain about the tax payers money being spent on things like Royal weddings, houses etc, but IMO, they bring in far more in tourism, and if it wasn't spent on them, it's be squandered somewhere else, the government wouldn't put it towards anything necessary, they never do.

It's meaningless to talk about the crown estate as being publicly owned.

I'd not get very far if I tried to move in to Buckingham Palace. Or borrowed the crown jewels to wear to a party. Yet, apparently I own them so why not?

That makes it even worse then. Given his sucking up to despots and dictators, backhanders and golfing on each 'trade' mission
I doubt the others behaved like him?

giving--evidence-com.cdn.ampproject.org/v/s/giving-evidence.com/2020/07/16/royal-findings/amp/?amp_gsa=1&amp_js_v=a9&usqp=mq331AQKKAFQArABIIACAw%3D%3D#amp_tf=From%20%251%24s&aoh=16545030390107&referrer=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.google.com&ampshare=https%3A%2F%2Fgiving-evidence.com%2F2020%2F07%2F16%2Froyal-findings%2F

TarasHarp55 Various posters have tried quoting Baker's book, but the royalists just point-blank refuse to read it and cannot say why a former Privy Council member with actual insight into that world is wrong. Flagshagging destroys critical thinking capacity.

They also do an enormous amount for charities

Have a read of this. Not so.
giving-evidence.com/2020/07/16/royal-findings/

I do think it's kind of ironic that it's Stacey Solomon who said this - a woman who was initially famous for having an ok singing voice and a strong Essex accent, and who then got a series of extremely lucky breaks and who now lives in a beautiful mansion, largely funded by Instagram.

I don't really have any strong views about the RF. I will be upset when the Queen dies, it will be the end of an era and so much have changed since she became Queen. But there is also a hell of a lot of bullshit in that family and yeah, a lot of them don't necessarily deserve their pampered lives?

What would replace it though? A bunch of that's arguing to the death on social media about which of their opinions is most pure? No thanks.

I was talking about the monarchy recently with some friends - one of them is a bit of a gobby Owen Jones type who predictably is all about abolishing the monarchy etc. Two of the others (one Russian, one Ukrainian as it happens) were saying that the British monarchy is great, how lucky we are to have it, how great it is for tourism etc and what a shame it would be if we didn't have it any more.

I don't know, I have enjoyed this weekend, it's been a nice distraction from the fucking misery of everything else!

Ah Norman Baker, shame he couldn't declare his own interests in Tibet before moaning about others doing the same eh. In any case I don't think any of those are overly shocking are they? Even he doesn't want to abolish the royal family though, but wants to see them streamlined which is exactly what Charles is going to do.

@TarasHarp55

Thank you thank you. I'm on a phone and links are tricky.
However it won't be read by ardent Royalists. They don't want to know

It's bizarre isn't it. It's like they WANT someone to look up to, regardless of how corrupt they are.

What would replace it though? A bunch of that's arguing to the death on social media about which of their opinions is most pure? No thanks.

Or someone democratically elected, like the Speaker of the House of Commons. They would also be politically neutral.

This is the sort of thing many republicans and anti monarchists propose.

Preferable to King Charles, and his family, surely...

Hardly comparable, and Charles "streamlining" won't make him out of pocket, probably cut a few hangers on off and take more for himself. Great PR tactic though this "streamlining".

Yes.
It's habit, comfort, tradition, history and I get that

I used to be an ardent royalist but bit by bit they destroyed my confidence in them over the space of a very long time for very many reasons
So I researched and the more I found out, the more I went off them

Yes but you get the privilege of paying for them. 😄

Yes. Especially as by law the Sovereign Grant can only go up. Not down
So more dosh to go round less people

Don't 'love' them, and not all are worth the money, but they do a lot of good with their charity work, are not controversial, great for tourism, and they define the UK around the world. Continuity ✅. Spectacle ✅. Devotion to duty ✅. Nice clothes ✅. I'm sure there's plenty more, and their cost of easily offset with the tourism they generate.

I think the Queen is admirable in that she is clever to never say anything out of place and I think she has a sense of duty which others in her place wouldn't have. However I have nothing but for contempt for anyone who believes in the monarchy. It's ridiculously outdated and has no place in modern society.
The other royals are a bunch of jokers. I can't believe anyone respects them. They pretend to be socially and environmentally aware yet their actions show the opposite. I'd only respect them if they all stepped down.

We live in a democracy and any leaders we have should be voted in.

The wealth of the Royal family needs to be taxed properly too.

Ah, the tourism myth! It's not true about tourism I'm afraid.

It's trotted out numerous times on these threads by royalists, and has already been addressed on this one, so easier to post a link

www.republic.org.uk/tourism

I think this article sums it up well.

www.irishtimes.com/culture/tv-radio-web/harry-and-meghan-the-union-of-two-great-houses-the-windsors-and-the-celebrities-is-complete-1.4504502

Beyond this, it’s the stuff of children’s stories. Having a queen as head of state is like having a pirate or a mermaid or Ewok as head of state. What’s the logic? Bees have queens, but the queen bee lays all of the eggs in the hive. The queen of the Britons has laid just four British eggs, and one of those is the sweatless creep Prince Andrew, so it’s hardly deserving of applause

The contemporary royals have no real power. They serve entirely to enshrine classism in the British nonconstitution. They live in high luxury and low autonomy, cosplaying as their ancestors, and are the subject of constant psychosocial projection from people mourning the loss of empire. They’re basically a Rorschach test that the tabloids hold up in order to gauge what level of hysterical batshittery their readers are capable of at any moment in time

Spot on

I don’t follow their every move but they do intrigue me. I’ve loved every second of the celebrations this weekend. I like the tradition and the history too.