UK Tax Payer to foot Royal Wedding Security Bill, why?

[EggFriedRice]

Just been announced on the news that the UK taxpayer is footing the security bill for the Royal wedding in April 2011. I am not personally a fan of the royal family nor is my DH, we don't agree that our taxes should be spent on someones wedding security arrangements. Why is the Queen not paying for this after all she is one of the wealthiest women in the world? With all of the cuts being announced I don't feel that it is right or fair to make the taxpayer pay for the royals security wedding plans. They will never suffer the hardships that so many people are or will be going through in this country it is a disgrace imo.
I suppose the extra Bank Holiday on 29th April 2011 is to keep us happy

Harry Potter????

Hehe - i bet RL conversations with you are brilliant Niceguy2 - so far we've had The Queen compared to Mickey Mouse, and Prince William compared to Harry Potter

"The first generally recognised king of all England was Egbert of Wessex who reigned from 829 - 839 AD"

Oh no he wasn't! (Well it is nearly Panto season).

King Alfred the Great is often held as being responsible for the vision of their being a single King of England but never achieved it in his life (it's one of the reasons why he's the only King called the Great). However it wasn't until his Grandson Athelstan in the 920s that that was actually achieved. Even Alfred is "only" known as the King of Wessex, Athelstan is the first King of England.

And Egbert and his House of Wessex, which includes both Alfred and Athelstan, weren't Danish. That House was allegedly founded by Cerdic who was a Saxon, or British, or part Saxon part British but certainly not Danish.

The Danes came later, and it was them who stopped Alfred being King of England and Alfred and his house had immense problems with them.

King Alfred is also a direct ancestor of the current Queen.

"In 1603, King James I reigned as the first King of all Britain"

That's not as "wrong" as naming Egbert as the first King of England but it's not quite right....

King James in the early 1600s was the King of England, Scotland and Ireland. They were still separate Kingdoms under him, he was never known as the King of Britain.

The first Monarch of Great Britain was Queen Anne when the Kingdom was made in 1707.

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland came into existence in 1802 and the first King of that Kingdom was George III.

Finally in 1922 we get the modern United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and it's that title, among others, that Queen Elizabeth still holds.

"The following monarchs of England were then generally made up of the French from William I"

William I wasn't French, he was a Norman, a Norseman. He descended from Norse raiders, Vikings, that settled in that part of France and caused so much trouble that the then King of France granted them a large Dukedom on the condition that they leave him alone.

It's also worth noting that William's son Henry I's wife was from the House of Wessex, so the Norman Monarchs claimed descent from both the Norman conquerors of the country and the much older House of Wessex who made the Kingdom of England in the first place. Very politically savvy....

If we're going to take pot shots at them let's at least understand their background, history and claims of legitimacy.

"Why cant they do it quietly and discreetly with no fuss, in secret."

"and just how do you think they'd manage that?"

Well Charles managed to keep things pretty low profile with Camilla. You don't need to have the Wedding in a huge Abbey, televised across the world with hundreds if not thousands of guests.

I'm not saying that they should go small, but they do have some choice in the matter.

However even then there would still be a significant security bill as the public would still turn up to see what they could see. Plus they'd then get criticised for not sharing the event with the nation when they're meant to be our Heads of State.

ooooo I'm impressed Badger - I have to confess my Royal History is absolutely abysmal (well most of my history. (where did you C&P from )

"owever even then there would still be a significant security bill as the public would still turn up to see what they could see."

That's what I meant - the fact that no matter how "quietly and discreetly" they tried to be people would still turn up.

I'm not surprised he kept things low profile with Camilla

"ooooo I'm impressed Badger - I have to confess my Royal History is absolutely abysmal (well most of my history. (where did you C&P from )"

I like my history :)

I can't remember from where but it was only recently that I found out about the direct link from Queen Elizabeth II back to Alfred the Great. You kind of presume that the House of Wessex got wiped out, but instead William's son married right into it.

There is this image that the Royal Family were just transplanted into the country from Germany and have no real British/English links, but if you dig into it that's just so not true. Our Queen is directly descended from the family who came up with the idea of there being a single England and had the determination to make it so.

I will admit to using Wikipedia for some of the exact dates as while I can remember that such and such happened to so and so I often can't recall the exact year....

"I'm not surprised he kept things low profile with Camilla"

Nor am I.

Though given Charles' proven history of having an affair with a mistress that was significantly uglier than his wife I do wonder who on earth he's knocking about with now...

But my point was that he had that choice to make it a small Wedding and he took it.

ahh I've always been interested in history - but a series of shite History teachers at school (and an equally shite curriculum) meant that i've never really enjoyed it.

Although having said that there was some history in the OU course I started earlier this year, about the history of "childhood" and I got quite into that......

Princess Ann'es second wedding was also a low key affair, but then she isn't as close in line to the throne as prince William.

Unless we have a revolution or he abdicates, we are looking at the future king. So whether we like it or not security has to be paid for somehow.

can the country afford a revolution right now - I suspect that would cost more than the security for the wedding

"So whether we like it or not security has to be paid for somehow."

True, and while the costs for a big Wedding which is actively trying to involve the public are bound to be higher than something lower profile which would draw less people at least with the big Wedding you get the boost to business and tourism that a smaller Wedding wouldn't have.

I don't think it wrong for the Government to pay the security bill so that members of the public and ancient buildings in London don't get blown to bits.

And I wouldn't be at all surprised if it's actually been the Government pressing the Royals into making this a big event for their own purposes.

Everybody is entitled to protection from harm whether they are members of the royal family, politicians or regular people. If anybody on this site was ever at real risk from somebody who wanted to do them harm would you insist they pay for protection? Why should royalty sneak of to get married? Why should anybody in the country change how they want to live their lives because of the threat of illegal behaviour from criminals?

Let's treat the royal family the same as everybody else and pay for their protection.

TiggyD, the sad truth is that not everyone is protected by the police when they need to be, take the case of Fiona Pilkington & her disabled daughter who committed suicide due to complete failure of the police to protect them against criminals who tormented their lives for 10 years. Over 33 emergency 999 calls in 10 years and the police dismissed them as over-reacting. No protection for them, so I disagree that if we are ever at real risk from somebody who wanted to do us harm we would be protected by our police forces. Put the boot on the other foot and imagine the Queen being harrassed by criminals at one of her castles, do you think for one minute she would be making 33 emergency calls I think not. The Royals get preferential security treatment whatever their status, so it is not possible to compare Joe public with them, the tax-payer is the loser as usual

To be fair even the Queen had a lunatic in her bedroom once. And it wasn't even the Duke of Edinburgh.

Badgers Paws - Directly descended from anyone when you're talking about over a thousand years ago doesn't actually mean much - I seem to remember that they worked out that everyone with an English lineage is descended from Edward III, who was quite a bit further on.

The way I understand it is everyone has two parents, four grandparents, 16 great grandparents and so on. If you work out how many great great great great etc etc grandparents you must have, even accounting for quite a lot of overlap by the time you've gone back 1,500 years that is an awful lot of the population you will be related to. Just takes a few children born on "the wrong side of the blankets" or even the wrong bed entirely for the royal family to become a part of that DNA pool.

Quite happy for an anthropologist t come and prove me wrong though, I find this kind of stuff fascinating :)