Well, I hated the coronation…

[TheColourofspring]

I can see I am in the minority on here but I found yesterday to be distasteful on a gigantic scale. To watch the most privileged people travel in gold coaches & be decorated with diamonds and gold that is priceless in the face of millions of people struggling to eat/heat their homes just feels so wrong.

Our primary school has just opened a food bank. There are kids & families in crisis- children coming into school hungry & smelly as families can’t afford to wash clothes (I am not joking) - living in Dickensian conditions. Some of the teaching staff use the foodbank.

Yesterday was a display of obscene wealth. The royals didn’t even pay for it- we did. How can we find money for that absolute nonsense yet we can’t find money for large swathes of the population to feed themselves.

While Charles was sitting there in his gold costume holding these priceless items, plenty of families weren’t eating. It made me really angry.

I am tired of all the arguments for a royal family- how somehow these displays are quaint. Yesterday was an obscene display of wealth, inherited privilege and everything that’s wrong with this country. Seems a conversation about the royals is long overdue.

This is true, to be fair. We'd all give up work and contribute to or volunteer for causes we care about if we could.

I assumed most of the cost would be on security and other staff that worked the event, all the tailors and seamstresses needed to alter uniforms/outfits and make new ones etc. Are those people not “ordinary” people earning a wage. I’m also assuming the tens of thousands of people in London also went to shops, cafes, hotels, used taxis and public transport etc so more money back to “ordinary” people.

Should we not celebrate anything ?

Jesus wept. This is akin to those ridiculous ‘well I didn’t have central heating in my day’ statements. So because things used to be shit in the past we can’t have any progress?

@Fansandblankets well I guess it depends if you think the perpetuation of inherited wealth and privileges and an out of date hereditary monarchy is worth celebrating 😅

All I’ve learnt this weekend is that peasants like being peasants.

For me the monarchy died when the queen died. The crown on top of her coffin said it all. Her sense of duty to the nation cannot be replicated.

time to get rid of the others.

Keep doffing our hats Britain - both literally and metaphorically to an elite who are no more intelligent, qualified that you but have inherited wealth and changed laws to keep it that way, than you.

Excellent, insightful post.

Who would have the money to buy a literally priceless crown?

Some Arabs with big enough Fortnum and Mason bags?

@ArseMenagerie

They weren't parading wealth and better ness. A lot of people all over the world wanted and expected a show. There would be just as many complaints if Charles had been seen getting the bus to the coronation in his joggers.

How could we ethically get rid of the Crown Jewels? The only countries who'd buy them would be ones with appalling human rights abuses.

Jeff Benzo is a wonderful spoonerism I shall nick that. Was it a typo ? He's a right villain as well.

I watched the coronation, wonderful, history in action. I love the carriage, made in 1726 I believe. All the wonderful horses.

@DarrellRiversCriminalBehaviourOrder melt then down?! Break them up? Return the parts to the countries they were nicked from?!

I don’t think her post is about envy and to dismiss it as such is cruel (towards the young people she is describes) and disingenuous.

Who wouldn’t feel emotional to see kids coming to school hungry and without the resources to stay clean? We talk about food banks but we forget the existence of hygiene banks that were founded by Lizzy Hall to counter hygiene poverty.

If I was constantly seeing kids in that condition I couldn’t watch the vulgar display of the RFs wealth and unearned privilege and power either.

I see those of you who are initiating a pile-on against the OP but stand firm OP many of us are with you on this.

I don't think the Royal family are anything to be 'jealous' of - imagine being born into a system where your every moment from birth onwards is publicly shared and analysed, and certain Royalists will claim that you automatically 'owe them' simply because of who your ancesters were. I find the system quite disturbing. I don't doubt that the Royal family bring in tourism but even using that as a reason for keeping them just feels very wrong. On the other hand the Royal family cost the average taxpayer something like £1.50 I believe so I'm rather apathetic about them other than feeling quite sorry for them.

I am however terrified that the cost of living crisis is going to see us going back a hundred years with food costs leading to poor nutrition, inadequate housing with damp and overcrowding leading to poor health, the state of education meaning many children - particularly those with SEN - are being failed spectacularly, the NHS bring on its knees and so any repercussions from the poor nutrition and inadequate housing won't be dealt with, and many people still holding antiquicated views on the less fortunate in society. I don't believe abolishing the Royal family will help with those things though.

Headpieces made by Jess Collett, a milliner who was able to start her business 25 years ago after receiving her first business loan from The Prince’s Trust.

It wasn’t just a random show of wealth, there was a meaning behind it. There’s plenty more random displays of wealth that can be picked at but I don’t think their headpieces are one of them.

They drove through the streets of London in a gold carriage and then had a ceremony where they were covered in jewels. I personally call that parading wealth :)
But I agree that there would have been complaints if Charles had got the bus.

Nobody "earns" that much cash.

You achieve to a) because you have inherited a few million (at least) to start off with, and then consolidate what you inherited by employing ruthless business practices and treating your employees like sh!t - minimum wage, bad conditions, zero hours, no job security, outsourcing to the lowest cost area where people are so desperate they will literally work for pennies, exploiting tax loopholes.

There is still modern slavery, and it isn't all in the sex trade. Many people are employed by these billionaires on starvation wages, working God-alone-knows however many hours a day just to subsist - children as well as adults.

I don't think the RF pay fantastic wages from what I've heard, but there is a lot of competition for jobs with them because it seems they are good employers and treat people fairly. I've certainly never heard of any staff not being allowed to go to the toilet etc when they need to, which happens at Amazon warehouses.

As Churchill said "where you have what we call sweated trades, you have no organisation, no parity of bargaining, the good employer is undercut by the bad, and the bad employer is undercut by the worst…. Where those conditions prevail you have not a condition of progress, but a condition of progressive degeneration". We are in a race to the bottom!

Instread of all of these calls for "reparations" for slavery (and there is nt a country in the world, including the African nations, that has clean hands when it comes to the slave trade) we should be fighting to end the modern day slavery instead - the sort of modern day slavery that billionaire entrepreneurs exploit to make their further billions.

Absolutely agree.

@TheColourofspring Most of Scotland have been repeating this for days.
#NotMyKing
#DownWithTheCrown

He was already King though wasn’t he? All this was frippery.

All those posts on here slating people who got married overseas or in a registry office and are then having a ‘not proper’ wedding or a party, the level of vitriol spread their way because it’s just attention seeking / money grabbing etc and they shouldn’t expect anyone to go. I don’t necessarily agree with that in terms of weddings but the coronation whole thing of an extra party when the deal is already done seems a bit odd.

Our royal family and the display yesterday were watched by millions around the World. It generates interest in this country which otherwise has little to offer, hopefully stimulating trade, tourism and investment.

You're harping on about how much it cost yesterday; how much did it generate and how much will it continue to generate?

@Cherryana

I would much rather doff my hat to the royal family than put up with the likes of the next Boris being the head of state. The government will still be filthy rich under a British president, and there will still be food banks, cost of living crisis, energy crisis etc. And on top of that we will lose the nearly £2billion the royals bring to the economy each year.