Rule Britannia! The Queen owns the seabed.

[grannieonabike]

Heard this on the news. She'll get all the profits from offshore wind farms, I believe. Made me wonder what else she owns.

March on the Palace anyone?

alcohol.

"THE. Do behave........just because your life is not mapped out for you."

complimentary, can you expand on this? Chil (a monarchist) asserted that having your life mapped out for you was a daunting prospect, and that the queen coped with it well. I pointed out that having your life mapped out for you at 20 was a fairly common occurrence.

I'm not sure why you are implying that I am jealous of people in the 1950s?

Perhaps because of their hair?

I lost the will to live on this thread when someone actually wrote "The Royal Family has done more for Britain than any politician in the last 50 years except Thatcher."

People complain about class divisions and inequality in our country..................the entire system is built around inequality.

My dad used to bare his arse to Her Maj every Christmas day when she patronised us with her shitty speech showing what a twat she is.

I loved my dad

I think I love your dad too, Lady

I love LadyBlaBlah's dad as well.

Pan, do you think the Queen has actually met any real life english chavs? I often wonder if she has ever been shopping in Tesco's, Sainsbury's or Waitrose like us ordinary folk, her personal wealth of £290 million pounds in 2010 up £20 million on 2009 and ranked 245th richest person in the UK out of 1000 is staggering, but where does she spend her cash?

We're all in this together, are we including Liz?

When DC first uttered those nation-binding words we all knew that some people will be more 'in it together' than others. and so it shows.

THE. I thought they had rather nice hair in the 50's. Can you do a pin curl? Perhaps you can learn on youtube.
Having your life mapped out for you can mean many things.

But wouldn't you like your life mapped out for you, immense wealth, (some you could share) not having to get up at crack of dawn with a hangover and stumble into work, for measly wage that isn't enough for a luxury break to Bognor, or Pontins.

Of course this does no apply to our dear Queen. Who has had many responsibilities all of her life, ones that she could not shun or move away from. Others who joined the Royal family could not cope with this, and had to leave or were pushed.

No the way the Queens life is mapped out, it's not for me or many others.
I was poor and could get out. Our Majesty has money, privaledge and power, but she is not FREE to do as she pleases, she must think of the country and it's people first, and has done so from a very young age.

That is why I and you are not worth the 63p and she is! night. night.

Ladyblabla. Your father 'bared his arse' at
the Queen? Eggfriedrice. That's why she's not met any chavs!
If that's the reaction, she would wonder why she ever bothered!

Rule Britannia!

ladyblabla. He does sound a laugh tho!

No, I am a sixties/seventies girl I'm afraid- it's all about the bouffant to go with my fake eyelashes and go-go boots.

Have you ever thought of writing professionally?

You are definitely worth 63p.

ha!

btw I ddin't realise how 'bad' it is to go abusing someone's poster name. Never witnessed it before on here but it did feel pretty unpleasant.

Just a point but if we had a president it would be the choice of the voters who could also vote her/him out. As for the Queen I dont remember voting for her to be the titular head of the UK.

The royal family are a complete bunch of tax avoiding benefit scroungers.

Ahem. The Queen pays income tax on her personal income...

Lol at her paying income tax - she chooses to pay and chooses how much. Wish I could do that .

"The people who grinned themselves to death
Smiled so much they failed to take a breath
And even when their kids were starving
They all thought the queen was charming".

Says it all really.

And as for "let's all feel sorry for poor ickle queenie cos she has such a tough life" . . . give me a break!

The arrangement is voluntary as in she volunteered to pay it, not as in she can decide whether she wants to or not each year. It's on the whole of her private income. I remember her volunteering in 1992....Likewise Prince Charles stopped paying a percentage from the Duchy of Cornwall and started paying income tax instead. IMO that was actually jolly decent of him because presumably he got hit by the tax rise!

I wouldn't call myself a monarchist but it does annoy me when people don't even bother getting their facts straight and make assumptions about the monarchy, how rich they are, how much tax they don't pay, what their 'worth' is to the country.

Let's all do the same for footballers, shall we? I want to see Wayne Rooney's bank accounts, how much tax he pays, what his worth to the country is....

Let's do all the MPs while we're at it and every other British resident too.

Well, yes lets do that Frakkinstein - let's have a look at every single one of them - scrutinise them and see if we 'are all in it together'

That's the point

Jolly decent of Prince Charles my arse. Do you hear how ludicrous that sounds?

The rich are protected and their scrounging accepted

My point was he could have stuck with the beneficial arrangement he had. He volunteered not to.

I just don't think it's fair to scrutinise the Royal Family so much more than everyone else, just because they're in the public eye (which incidentally they didn't ask to be born into any more than they asked to be born into privilege).

You don't think it is fair to scrutinise the Royal Family?

I come from a totally opposite view in that I think they get away without any decent level of scrutiny since they are essentially a public funded 'institution'. They are not 'just in the public eye', they are publicly funded for all intents and purposes.

No one who claims to value democracy can also value an institution based on elitism, exclusive privilege and hereditary public office.

Interesting link, thanks Teth.

I said 'so much more than everyone else'.

A level of scrutiny, certainly, but firstly that scrutiny would cost unless you required them to publish the intimate details of absolutely everything which no other institution is required to do - even those who do publish expenses aren't required the give the sort of breakdowns I feel people would like to see. It just seems like too much trouble for the general public to separate the Royal Family as an insitution, the Crown and them as people, as evidenced by the first post of thread.

The Royal Family's public funding is effectively their salary. Princes Andrew and Edward are no longer serving members of the Armed Forces so they're not getting their salary anymore. Sophie, Countess of Wessex, gave up her career and has done a lot of public engagements. Do you feel they shouldn't be compensated for that on top of their 'business expenses'?

Then, yes, they have their personal inherited wealth but so do a lot of people.

THE. Flattery will get you knowhere! I do comprehend I should write, with myself being informed and witty etc;( and vastly attractive to the opposite sex, and the same sex!) but sadly I'm too bloody lazy. Having to look after my children and the 'nanny' is taking up too much of my time, any suggestions to motivate me? (Coarse ones not welcome!).

Are you saying 63p isn't enough motivation?

LOOK AT "WHO OWNS THE WORLD?" BY KEVIN CAHILL.....
Queen Elizabeth II, head of state of the United Kingdom and of 31 other states and territories, is the legal owner of about 6,600 million acres of land, one sixth of the earth?s non ocean surface.
She is the only person on earth who owns whole countries, and who owns countries that are not her own domestic territory. This land ownership is separate from her role as head of state and is different from other monarchies where no such claim is made ? Norway, Belgium, Denmark etc.
The value of her land holding. £17,600,000,000,000 (approx).
This makes her the richest individual on earth. However, there is no way easily to value her real estate. There is no current market in the land of entire countries. At a rough estimate of $5,000 an acre, and based on the sale of Alaska to the USA by the Tsar, and of Louisiana to the USA by France, the Queen?s land holding is worth a notional $33,000,000,000,000 (Thirty three trillion dollars or about £17,600,000,000,000). Her holding is based on the laws of the countries she owns and her land title is valid in all the countries she owns. Her main holdings are Canada, the 2nd largest country on earth, with 2,467 million acres, Australia, the 7th largest country on earth with 1,900 million acres, the Papua New Guinea with114 million acres, New Zealand with 66 million acres and the UK with 60 million acres.
She is the world?s largest landowner by a significant margin. The next largest landowner is the Russian state, with an overall ownership of 4,219 million acres, and a direct ownership comparable with the Queen?s land holding of 2,447 million acres. The 3rd largest landowner is the Chinese state, which claims all of Chinese land, about 2,365 million acres. The 4th largest landowner on earth is the Federal Government of the United States, which owns about one third of the land of the USA, 760 million acres. The fifth largest landowner on earth is the King of Saudi Arabia with 553 million acres