A genuine question for royalists.

[Tutorpuzzle]

I am a republican. I believe that absolute power can only end in disaster. Trump appears to want absolute power. Boris Johnson tried it (proroguing of parliament, amongst other things.)
Please can you tell me why you think (ignoring the Windsors self-destructive present tendencies), having a head of state who is in position only by accident of birth is a good thing?

Ok @CatHairEveryWhereNow

I’ve just looked up a few of the countries you list as being particularly democratic
It is to do with their VOTING system and nothing to do with a few having a monarchy clinging on !

Its PR or multiple local assemblies and nothing at all to do with the remaining bicycling monarchies - much as pro royalists try to spin that line

And yet when Parliament pushed theirs too far, the monarch signally failed to act.

But that's also true of the royal family. Not one of them has avoided having a whiff of scandal and corruption attached to them.

@SoSoLongThat's exactly what they want you to think.

"No incentive to grab as much as they can before they are voted off", well I'm afraid the exact opposite is the case.

They can't get voted off, they make deals with the government precisely to grab as much as they can for all eternity. Look up the sovereign grant, if you can bear to look.

1. Yes they are taxpayer supported but the sovereign grant is always less than the money HM Treasury receives from the crown estates.

2. so the NHS shouldn't face costs? If the NHS wanted to rent a warehouse from a private owner it should just be free because "clap clap we are the NHS".

Because the alternative is a Trump, a Boris Johnson or worse....

Boris was alright

Apart from being an adulturer; and turning a blind eye to parties at No 10 when the rest of us were being asked to isolate ...yeah, great.

Nope.

I think that's a bit like saying in hindsight the luke-warm soup starter was ok because the main came out burnt to a cinder.

Rishi Sunak was awesome, but I really did like Boris on most things. Not everything, but most things.

But if we have a President, it wouldn’t even have to be a former PM, anyone would be allowed to stand. We could easily end up with President Farage, perish the thought!

For gods sake - politicians could easily be excluded .
A president - if we wanted one- would have no power and would not be able to accumulate billions off our backs

The Windsors have a great deal of secret power - they influence laws , exclude themselves from laws , they do not pay tax - only voluntarily and only on income that they select to offer a bit of tax on. William has stopped doing even that ! He’s more a raging despot than Charles despite all his talk of being a zoom king .
Their wills are sealed for one reason only - to hide their immense wealth and secret children.

Andrew’s behaviour and sealed documents shows how much power the Windsors have. And he’s not the only Windsor with questions to answer - Charles housed Peter Ball AFTER he has been convicted . Saville was reputedly brought into the royal circle by Mountbatten .

The monarchy in the UK is a sleazy disgrace .
Lets start with cleaning it up and see what’s left ( nothing I predict )

Slightly tongue in cheek, but why not remove all the Duchies and Crown Estates from Royal hands, and give an allowance to the Monarch for being HOS. That way there'd be none of this % of the profits justification, and the NHS could park their ambulances there as part of the cost of running the NHS, not as rental income to the RF.

Go on, take it all away, leave them with an official residence and a generous enough HOS allowance (which is how it works re other elected Heads of State) and see what the reaction is. I think if it was floated to the taxpayers it might get some traction.

But Communism.... lol 😊

@waitamo

Thats not a new or revolutionary idea - even the Duchys are not theirs ! The Duchys are a medieval rip off which needs to stop now . I started a thread about this when the channel 4 programme exposing the abuses came out .

Royalists say there are other dukedoms . That’s their defence. What they don’t tell you is only the Windsor 2 are above the law and do not have to pay tax . As I’ve repeatedly stated Charles offered some tax - around 20% some estimates say - but only on what he chose to declare . He tried to get his mistress’s household expenses through as tax exempt .
William is even worse and has refused to reveal how much tax he pays ( neither pay capital gains or corporation tax )

So yes make the Duchys properly part of the Crown estate - and call it what it is the National estate .
By the way the Duchy rip off was debated by MPs over 100 years ago ! This is not new

I guarantee it would be extremely popular with voters

Btw @waitamo the crown estates are not in royal hands - they do not own them . I agree the name is v misleading and needs changed

All the proceeds previously went to the state -and the Windsors got their hand out from an agreed amount after a parliamentary debate - this was the civil list.

Then the Tories - Cameron and Osbourne - changed the funding model after years of campaigning for this from Elizabeth ans Charles - and called it the Sovereign grant ( and made a rule that the amount can never go down !) .

Confused royalists will sometimes claim that the Windsors are generously ‘sharing’ their wealth with the tax payer ! Just as the Windsors hoped they’d think .

@Ukisgaslit Thanks for the clarifications, and I agree that the obfuscation is unreal and exactly what they want us to believe.

Oh what a tangled web we weave, when first we practise to deceive"

@Ukisgaslit Good posts.