To wish all the royal family would become private citizens?

[Snog]

I wish they would all stand down
I'm sick of the virtue signalling, wealth hoarding and hypocrisy while there is so much poverty deprivation and homelessness in the UK with the NHS, mental healthcare and social care in semi collapse.

I don't want a royal family for the UK. I used to but I have really changed my mind.

Nobody visits the UK to see the royal family fgs. And if people will only donate to charities if a royal is a patron they they need a slap.

[SuzieBishop]

Booooooooring

[MangoFeverDream]

Yanbu get rid they are all parasites

[fedup2017]

Yanbu.

[EuphorbiaHemlockthe1st]

The broohaha since Harry stepped back proves that many many many people in the uk are hugely invested in the Royals.

[Cheesecake53]

YANBU

[ThatUserNamesTakenTryAnother]

Yadnbu

[LaurieMarlow]

The broohaha since Harry stepped back proves that many many many people in the uk are hugely invested in the Royals.

It also demonstrates that it’s not a healthy set up for any of those concerned.

[BeardedMum]

YANBU

[Leaannb]

I don't understand the hatred for rich people on this site.....Do you really believe that if the Royals went away that their money will disappear and they will be regular people? Do you think all of their money is just going to be redistributed to the citizens? I'm sorry but seriously do you think not having a royal family is going to improve the NHS? If you believe any of that then you are delusional

[UsedtobeFeckless]

After Her Madge goes we should get rid of the lot!

[HillAreas]

Depends.
If spending on the NHS was to rise by circa £80million a year, would you all be saying “yippeee that’s the end of the crisis!”
Or would you be saying things along the lines of “drop in the ocean and these politicians are deluded if they think that’s going to make the slightest impact at all”?

[LaurieMarlow]

Do you really believe that if the Royals went away that their money will disappear and they will be regular people? Do you think all of their money is just going to be redistributed to the citizens?

Well they wouldn’t be entitled to the sovereign grant for starters.

[Sparklingbrook]

If it stops all the relentless threads on MN about them then it's a yes from me.

[WhentheRabbitsWentWild]

YANBU

[Snog]

@Hillareas yes I do think that £80M a year would make an impact on many many lives. It would indeed pay for a lot of life changing operations (eg cataracts) and/or could help a great number of homeless people.

Would I prefer the money to be spent in this way rather than on funding the royal family? Yes I would.

[CreekIsRising]

Technically they are custodians of the £88 billion worth of assets they've amassed through history. They've all built up ample private incomes and savings from this in the order of millions, and due to holdings and trusts it would be legally difficult to dismantle and sequester this accumulated personal wealth not to mention creating bad feeling and a bit unfair to suddenly change the rules during a person's lifetime.

However I see no issue with the state taking over ownership of the assets and benefitting from any future return on them. It would net a pretty penny, ongoing.

[CreekIsRising]

And yes of course there's the immediate cash saving of £80 million a year as well.

When you add that onto investment returns from the various duchies, holdings, gilts etc that currently goes to them we'd have several hundred million if not close to a billion extra to play around with compared to now.

[GhostofFrankGrimes]

YANBU but good luck helping the most vulnerable in society under a tory government....

[GrimDamnFanjo]

I think I'd prefer the royal assets were signed over to the uk which would dwarf any civil list payments.
Then slim it right down to just the monarch and direct line. It's too much, the money and the constitution, no place for the system without reform moving forwards.

[Somemore]

YANBU and I agree

[KidLorneRoll]

YANBU. The idea that our head of state is there simply because they are born into a certain family is absurd.

[BigChocFrenzy]

YANBU

It's not just the 80 million quid per year, it's the moral principal:

Why should a supposedly modern country have a hereditary head of state instead of an elected one ?

The RF are only there because their ancestors conquered, oppressed, robbed and murdered many of our ancestors for umpteen centuries

Obviously we can't demand they give up all their money at this stage,
because too much time has passed
and many other billionaire families have a dodgy past

However, before QE2 dies, the nation needs a serious discussion if we want to continue this royal soap opera with Charles, then William, .....
or whether we feel capable of electing our head of state, like most other democracies do.

[snappycamper]

I've mostly reconciled to this particular Queen as a head of state because I think that she's done a cracking job. The rest of them are a fucking shambles though - drunk, idle, philandering, lying, abusing teenage girls etc while amassing huge wealth from their status.

I think the second sentence here indicates that the queen has not done a cracking job at all. She is the head of this family of wasters and has done a pretty atrocious job of raising her children.

[Leaannb]

@LaurieMarlow The Sovereign Grant isn't where most of their money comes from. Even if they were to stop using the Sovereign Grant to pay a very small portion of their wages it would still go to upkeep of the Government Owned Palaces. For example Buckingham Palace is getting like 25 million to be refurbished. Do you think they are going to stop that?

[Graphista]

“They're looking at the palace, not the queen. The queen won't even be in there most of the time.“ exactly!

There’d be extremely minimal if any drop in tourist trade if the monarchy downsized or even abolished.

In fact if handled well tourism regarding royal attractions could be increased - they give up/we take back x amount of palaces, gardens etc and we open them up to paid public viewing.

“We all know who the president would be...
I prefer royalty...” ridiculous argument disproven by the queen herself in recent months when she’s done sod all about the abysmal handling of Brexitx boris’s lies, proroguing of parliament etc etc etc she’s utterly useless politically precisely because she’s too gutless and feart of losing her and the royal family’s “position” - which ironically appears to be massively backfiring

Also ironic I would not be at all surprised if the death knell were to happen once Charles becomes king as I suspect it wouldn’t be long before he said something political that was deeply offensive.

And I can certainly see William wanting a much more scaled down modern European monarchy by his turn (which I may not live to see given how long they all live! Queen mum being 101 when she passed and generally - poverty not being an issue but private healthcare and chefs etc are - people live longer than their parents so we could have another 17 years of The queen and another 20 years with Charles)

“Well they wouldn’t be entitled to the sovereign grant for starters.” And as is often ignored in such discussions this isn’t the only cost they incur by any means, there’s security, all the costs that go into “sprucing up” places they’re visiting and all the other costs associated with those, a good number of civil servants are assigned to royal duties or work connected with royalty, military provision etc

“She is the head of this family of wasters and has done a pretty atrocious job of raising her children.” Totally agree

This saccharine view some have of her especially on here that she’s some sweet little old lady who gives the slightest actual damn about the poor, sick, disabled, disenfranchised, traumatised, unemployed of this country is utterly laughable!

They are the great unwashed as far as she and her family are concerned. Look at who she fell in love with married and had children with and as pp said how those children turned out! They are the product of that union and will despite having mostly been raised by nannies etc (who the queen will have carefully chosen) have very similar views and options to their parents.

They are a bunch of entitled, over privileged, racist, misogynistic, bigoted, xenophobic, disablist snobs!

Doff my cap to them? Nope!