Gawping at the royals has to stop

[MeritocracyNotMonarchy]

They are just people - no better, worse or more interesting than any other UK residents.

They're trussed up and put on show like animals in a zoo. No child should be wheeled out like this and gawped at. They're ordinary people in a fairly mediocre, mildly dysfunctional family, just like those found on any street in the UK.

We really need to mature as a country and put the whole pantomime of monarchy behind us. It reflects and entrenches the inequality that is so damaging to the UK. And the characters in the panto look bloody miserable.

AIBU?

I would equally not be happy to pay 80p per month (which in my family would be £3.60 a month- is it really that high!! Jesus.) for anything else that offered so little. Perhaps the people that want the Monarchy so much should be the people paying through a different mechanism like a charity would.

'Celebrity-dom' is something people bring on themselves. If everyone stopped taking interest, it wouldn't exist. Funding of it is voluntary - you can avoid buying tickets/music/merchandise/whatever content celebs are creating. Same can't be said of the royals.

I don't get the obsession with them or why people camp out for days to see them from a distance. I won't even do that for Wimbledon tickets (and now Nadal isn't going to be there it's even less likely). I've seen Kate, my mum has met Sophie. They're normal people who do normal things.

They all look like they'd rather be somewhere else in that photo, and Sophie is looking more and more fed up as time goes by.

Most well known figures have some skill or knowledge that people are interested in. The royals are just rich people, from rich families going back generations. At some stage one of them decided that meant they were better than everybody else and that poor people should worship them. Subsequent generations of that family have worked to keep that myth alive to protect their wealth, even going as far as to claim god chose them for this purpose (see coronation).

I don't object to people being wealthy but being expected to worship them because of it is sickening.

Oh dear OP, you've made a mockery of your argument by holding up the Sussex Grifters as your paragons.

Those two who are so desperate to use their Royal connections to line their own pockets whilst claiming to be derisive of the same establishment.....

Epic fail OP. Epic.

OP, is this your way of dressing up your republican opinions as faux concern for the Royals?

Why the intellectual contortionism. Just say if you don’t agree with the monarchy.

Anyone who holds up whinger and ginger as role models for anything cannot be taken seriously. You seriously think that those two clown are the ones to look up to.

Exactly, @ll09sm . They're like ultra royals, just taking the status, money and privilege and milking it. No morals.

It's the media obsession - and I guess it sells and generates clicks - but you just have to look at websites like the Mail and the Express with loads of pictures, sycophantic headlines and a complete obsession with them - and especially with the Harry / Meghan story.

It's unbelievable how obsessed they are - an obsession that is fed by people who consume it up.

What are they so interested in?

The celebrities people mention on here do something useful - like create music, do sport etc

I totally agree, which is why I'm a Republican. Get rid of the grant / civil list, make them pay taxes and they can get on with being 'normal'.

Fairly mediocre? Most barely passed A levels despite the best education money can buy.

Mildly dysfunctional? I don't know any other families with such a history of infidelity, bulimia, depression, racism, accusations of racism, squealing on Talk shows, sibling rivalry, father son sulking....

They make the Roys on Succession seem functional.

I’d prefer not to have a RF, but we do. Therefore they’ll have to deal with the attention they get from some people, whether positive or negative. They can walk away if they don’t want it, but they stay. I don’t know many people who are interested in them in a positive way, lots are appalled by Andrew and gossip about Kate’s cancer, but no one I know really gives a shit about them.

The RF board on here is awful and if I wasn’t put off already, I would be after reading what their supporters over there have to say. Part of me thinks it’s the same few posters socking themselves though, it’s all so weird and cliquey. Very strange board.

They don’t bring in tourists! They absolutely don’t. You need to look at the actual facts and not just believe the palace PR machine. The buildings would still be there and the affect on tourism would be zero.

The figures are much higher than this - this ludicrous figure doesn’t include the vast security costs attached to them. They cost us far more than this. Not to mention the cost of not having a functioning modern democracy while we’re stuck with this feudal nonsense 🙄.

Exactly. France is the most visited country in Europe.

When were you made Chief Inspector of the Gawping Police?

As none of you know them don't make assumptions. The only person I know who has met William said he was really nice, ate lunch with him, not some formal lunch, was at a military base. Friendly and interested in what was happening, no standing on ceremony but strictly no cameras allowed once the press had their shots

Kate chose to marry Prince William and chose to have children. The children don't have a choice, but Kate did. Also, the Royals have quite a lot of privacy and it's mainly just special occasions that the children are seen.

it has always happened, the gawping
so gyles B says, queen victoria, i think, said she had to be seen

that is what they are doing, Being Seen

Feudalism?? How do you manage every day, tending to your half-acre, while dealing with pests, famine, boils, the plague, 21 out of your 22 children dying beforecthe age of 2
You deserve a medal

Harry doesn't even live in the UK but still wants limitless security paid for by the taxpayer.

It's not the individual royals I have an issue with. It's the institution.

They may be individually as nice as pie.

I agree. Probably individually they're decent people, it's the whole set up which is problematic.

This. At one of the later Jubilees there was a tea party on The Mall. It absolutely threw it down and there was no shelter for the people ( chosen by ballot) who were sitting there. There was a photo of the Queen looking out from behind the curtains in her nice warm Palace. It struck me at the time thst she was probably wondering how far they could go in torturing absolute idiots who would do anything if it was 'Royal'.

Some need a hobby, sure I don't get it but plenty do and carry on like they a bff but it's their thing