To think this is a complete joke and want to abolish the monarchy

[portugalq]

The Royal Family cost taxpayers £102.4million last year.

As the nation struggled in the cost of living crisis, spending on the royals rose £15million – 17%.

www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/record-100m-taxpayer-payout-royal-27360820

Did you not see the joy, pride and well-being that lots of people all over the world got from all the jubilee celebrations? Can you distill that into pounds, shillings and pence? Even if it’s misguided, the psychological uplift is real.

Bread and circuses you mean?

People shouldn't be 'uplifted' distracted right now. They should be fucking furious. All the Jubilee did was give Boris Johnson a week off from the relentless scrutiny he richly deserves, and kept the plebs busy with something else for a while. At exhorbitant cost to themselves.

We have (or at least we HAD) so much to be proud of in this country beyond the royal family; now everything's going down the pan so the royals are being constantly waved about in all their finery to keep everyone's attention away from their own worsening situation. Perchin a diamon on top of a turd doesn't make it any less a turd, and having a glamorous, wealthy royal family as a figurehead doesn't make this country any less of an increasingly desperate basket case. People need to confront that fact, not be 'uplifted' away from it.

And that’s not the real overriding benefit - they’re worth every penny because of two words - soft power

You name one single solitary thing the royals have done with their 'soft power' to the benefit of this country in the last 30 years. Anything.

I think any taxpayer money to the royal family should be means tested

get rid of them. Then maybe little George might smile now and again. Poor kid looks depressed and who could blame him … being rolled out on display like an endangered animal at the zoo.

plus it would be great to see the lot of them suddenly having to actually work for a living.

I agree that we'd be much better off without the royal family, they are just the tip of the iceberg of a completely unfair system of inherited wealth in this country, and some of them clearly believe that they are above the law. They do a lot more harm than good.

Poor George although I did laugh a bit at this

I’m a bit over the gushing over the youngest too

However I don’t know if I’d get rid of them, I don’t think looking up to them us right but I can see the asset (soft power) argument

Plus if I remove the actual people I think I prefer constitutional monarchy

Hard to decide

Only in Britain do we bash those who are funded by the taxpayer, unless they have £millions and a golden coach......then we say how wonderful they are and wave flags at them.

The soft power argument is the only one that gives me pause. I think the Queen, expecially, has exercised a great deal of soft power: e.g. hosting Heads of State, when they visit etc. It's the ultimate schmooze, especially when our elected Prime Minister is such a laughing stock and I think it does have a beneft to the country.

The £ argument holds less weight as I really don't think you need a current royal family to attract tourists to the history of royalty (buildings, jewels etc).

For me, the most damaging aspect of having a royal family is that is is the ultimate example of breeding automatically making you more valuable or more worthy to lead, in some respect. I think the knock on from that is the nepotism we see right across our political landscape and the fact that the vast majority of those in power all went to the same school together and all are interconnected. It has led us to a place of intense corruption, back handers, dodgy deals and people with some big jobs they are not remotely qualified to do: just because they once tossed a bottle of champers over another jolly bloke at the Bullingdon club.

I don't think we can challenge the latter until we end the former.

Just my tuppence worth.

This.

Tourists would still come to see the fancy buildings/furniture/jewels that once belonged to royalty after we'd done away with the monarchy.

Arguments about the merchandising are also crap. Tourists may buy tat with crowns/queen's head etc on now, but that doesn't mean without it they'd go home empty handed, if there wasn't a monarchy, they'd just switch to a different momento (post boxes, London buses etc).

Ireland's presidency is two and a half times cheaper.

Only up to a point.

Sorry that was meant to be a response to the point about Buck Palace and Windsor being open to the public.

Yawn. Another Royal-family-bashing thread. Nothing to see here. 🙄

Yet you clicked onto the thread and felt the need to contribute …

Remind me how we vote out members of the Royal Family....

Um, see my previous post. The money they receive is a proportion of the income from the Crown Estates i.e. land and property owned by the Crown - which all goes to the Treasury then they give some back to the Royal Family.

There are plenty of rental property owners here, both permanent & holiday lets. Should they give every penny of the income to the Treasury and get less than half back? Or a car rental business have how much they get from car rental controlled in the same way? How about places like Church halls - rented out for community events, Government takes it all & decides how much they can have back?

There are plenty of "rich" landowners who inherited land and lease it out to e.g. small farmers. They get to keep the income after paying the relevant taxes - why aren't you saying all these people should have their property taken away?

Parts of Buckingham Palace are open. But you dont see the Royal Art Collection
www.rct.uk/collection or the Royal Stamp Collection. I suspect if the RF were to be gotten rid of it would be a grey area who owns it. Remember the Royal Yacht? Paid for by the Navy and supposedly would be a hospital ship in time of war. But mysteriously when a war came (Falklands) the ship used the wrong type of fuel. How about there is a crowdfunder for them? Those who want the RF can contribute to their upkeep

And yet an extra £20 a week for the nations poorest was unaffordable? Outrageous.

This

Soft power, ie presenting the UK internationally as a country that apparently gets things done by being appealing and charming, fair and honourable 🤣🤣 rather than by revolution and coercion like all those other peasanty countries that the UK likes to feel superior to, is basically just nation branding. Big fake. The RF is ultimately just a brand, which is stubbornly and stupidly refusing to rebrand, after 50-whatever years. Queen Eliz is/was a great ambassador, not for the UK, but for her own brand. Unfortunately for her, she's also very greedy and didn't exit stage left 10-20 years ago. Perhaps because her sons are brand saboteurs, now coming into their own and really displaying their full potential.

Windsor brand strategy: Let's play at being fair, just and honourable with our fine upstanding traditions while coercing the plebs into believing it's all real and paying for it all, while using that very same soft power to shroud ourselves in secrecy to fill our coffers with whatever we can grab. Based on the assumption that the plebs are probably too dozy to notice, they enjoy telling each other comforting myths, and are certainly too dullwitted to come up with a more ethical alternative?

Are you suggesting we lop their heads off and have a revolution?

Remind me again how many people have died in these revolutions.

They do bring in revenue, and they do represent Great Britain.
Regardless of the voices saying otherwise, usually paid shills attempting ruination via misrepresentation on the value of the Royals

If there was a public vote, what do you reckon the outcome would be?

Does anyone complaining about this actually understand the Sovereign Grant?
You do realise this money isn't coming out of your pocket right? It's literally money they bring in which is then handed back to them after the government take their cut.

£102m?! - it costs £526m to run the NHS for a DAY.

Do you really think anyone would see any benefit if the the taxpayer didnt pay that £102m