Right apart from the fact that my reply was a joke as was the reparations comment after someone suggested a public apology as the two often go together, only a pedantic fool would suggest that being a serf under fudalism was on any way different to being a slave, and all of the aristocratic houses of the UK are related to williams top dogs in the gang that attacked us in 1066 and I presume that is also the case in the question of William of Orange or how did he get a look in over all the "English" aristos who presumably wpuld have a better claim.
Poll: How would you vote in a referendum to abolish the monarchy?
- Thread starter Dark Light
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Right apart from the fact that my reply was a joke as was the reparations comment after someone suggested a public apology as the two often go together, only a pedantic fool would suggest that being a serf under fudalism was on any way different to being a slave, and all of the aristocratic houses of the UK are related to williams top dogs in the gang that attacked us in 1066 and I presume that is also the case in the question of William of Orange or how did he get a look in over all the "English" aristos who presumably wpuld have a better claim.
So which bit of oppression, warmongering shall we start with first.... lets pick one in recent history and say the 1st world war.
Soldato
Soldato
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Abolish 
Soldato
It's a complete and utter myth that the Monarchy costs less than they make the UK. Prove it.
The old Tourism chestnut is old and tired and completely improvable, there is no doubt some money is gained by Tourism by them but to say they pay for themselves is ridiculous. LEGOLand Windsor gets more visitors than Windsor Castle, should LEGO get UK Public Money for boosting UK Tourism? French Palaces get visitors and we all know what happened to the Monarchy there, right?
The Crown Estate, do some research and you'll see it is not owned by the Monarchy it is owned by the UK in the name of the Crown, it is NOT the Monarchs personal property, nor does the Monarch have any claim to the profits from it. The Crown Estates OWN website tells you this, find out for yourselves.
And the final thing that just completely pulls the rug from under the feet of the 'They make more money than they cost' Brigade is the SECURITY Costs, which are not Publicly known, so saying they make more than they cost when by far the biggest by far costs are hidden away just makes you look silly.
I don't really mind them, but I don't see why they need ANY public/TAX-Payer funding whatsoever, they are an extremely wealthy family in their own right.
The old Tourism chestnut is old and tired and completely improvable, there is no doubt some money is gained by Tourism by them but to say they pay for themselves is ridiculous. LEGOLand Windsor gets more visitors than Windsor Castle, should LEGO get UK Public Money for boosting UK Tourism? French Palaces get visitors and we all know what happened to the Monarchy there, right?
The Crown Estate, do some research and you'll see it is not owned by the Monarchy it is owned by the UK in the name of the Crown, it is NOT the Monarchs personal property, nor does the Monarch have any claim to the profits from it. The Crown Estates OWN website tells you this, find out for yourselves.
And the final thing that just completely pulls the rug from under the feet of the 'They make more money than they cost' Brigade is the SECURITY Costs, which are not Publicly known, so saying they make more than they cost when by far the biggest by far costs are hidden away just makes you look silly.
I don't really mind them, but I don't see why they need ANY public/TAX-Payer funding whatsoever, they are an extremely wealthy family in their own right.
Deleted member 66701
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Deleted member 66701
I though you just said they weren't - the crown estates thing etc?????????
I wouldn't abolish the monarchy.
BUT I WOULD 100% CUT OFF ANY TAXPAYER MONEY THEY RECEIVE, SCABS!!!
They own enough wealth to buy every property in the U.K but still get money from the tax payer, disgusting leaches.
Yes they own a lot of property that is actually England's and owned by the government, but they also own their own extravagant properties they could retreat to if they were abolished.
BUT I WOULD 100% CUT OFF ANY TAXPAYER MONEY THEY RECEIVE, SCABS!!!
They own enough wealth to buy every property in the U.K but still get money from the tax payer, disgusting leaches.
Yes they own a lot of property that is actually England's and owned by the government, but they also own their own extravagant properties they could retreat to if they were abolished.
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Soldato
To the Queen!
Soldato
Citation needed.
Agreed. I have no doubt they're very well off and probably could 'manage' without taxpayers money, but to say they're that rich is extremely unlikely.
Most sites I've looked up estimate between £250m and £400m depending on when the articles appear. At least for the Queen and she's the most well orf.
There are rather a lot of people in the UK that are better off than she and her family are.
In the top 25 richest people living in the UK in 2015 according to the Sunday times she doesn't even feature. The only 'royal' (and this is stretching it, AFAIK he's not even related to her) is the Duke of Westminster.
Man of Honour
You're lacking in knowledge of the subject. The UK gets net tax from the monarchy, not the other way around, and the monarchy doesn't actually get any of the money anyway. There are expenses involved in having a head of state, which of course we'd have to pay regardless of what we called the head of state.
If you think the monarchy gets money from taxpayers, then you'll eagerly accept the same deal they get, I offer you that deal, scaled down of course. If you send me £2500 and agree to work for me, I will send you £375 of it back to cover expenses you incur in working for me. And I won't even call you a scab for taking that offer, because I'm nice like that.
Man of Honour
"someone with a knowledge of history" does not mean "pedantic fool". Given how inaccurate your knowledge of this country's history is, it's hardly surprising that you arrive at the conclusions you make.
The idea that serfdom in medieval England was exactly the same in every way as slavery is so wrong that it's downright silly. Serfs in medieval England had legal rights and protections and couldn't legally be sold or killed or beaten or raped. Serf families couldn't be legally split up. Serfs could bring cases in court and stand as witnesses in other cases. Etc.
Also..."us". Are you claiming to be at least 950 years old? If not, you probably have some Norman ancestry. If so, then by your own argument you're guilty (for no reason you've explained) of what other Normans did >900 years ago.
As for the relationship to William the conqueror and his gang, that had become tenuous to the point of being barely existent by a couple of hundred years before the coup which put William of Orange on the throne of England. Married to the daughter of an illegitimate son of a cousin of a grandson of someone, that sort of thing. William of Orange had a claim by bloodline (to English kings, not Norman kings) through his mother and through his wife, but the main reason he got "a look in" was that he was a popular protestant leader and he had a big enough army. James II/VII had a much stronger legitmate claim, but he was a catholic and he had a much smaller army. Religion and force were the key factors. Bloodline was more of an excuse after the fact.
No, the Queen "owns" the Crown estate, but "in right of the Crown", not personally.
This is analogous to a Limited Company being a legal person, able to own land. The "Crown" is a sort of legal person, and owns the Crown Estates. Currently, as the Queen is the reigning sovereign, the is the owner of the Crown Estates but they are not personal property, and she is not able to dispose of Crown Estate if she feels like it. She does also have very considerable personal property that are hers to dispose of.
When the Queen passes the Crown to someone else, either by succession or abdication, then tne Crown Estates become the property of that person, say Charles for example, again by right of the Crown. It is, if you like, the legal personage of the sovereign that owns the Crown Estates, not the individual that currently fills that role. The current sovereign is more like a trustee, but without any trustee powers.
The Crown Estates are then admjnistered by an independent board set up by an Act of Parliament, and revenues from the Crown Estates go the the Exchequer, in return for which the Crown gets the payment in the Civil List, which itself was replaced by the Sovereign Grant in 2011.
So, if the state stops sending the "taxpayer money" that is the Civil List/Socereign Grant, it is defaulting on it's obligations under the Act that set up the Civil List/Sovereign Grant, and the result might well be that both the property itself of the Crown Estate, currently valued at some £11.5bn, reverts to the ownership and control of the sovereign, as would the revenue generated from it.
The "UK" does not own the Crown Estates. The institution of the monarchy, currently in the person of the Queen, does. The income goes to the state, and the quid pro quo is the Civil List, and now the Sovereign Grant, which goes to the Queen.
To put that in context, the last published figures show £42.8m of Sovereign Grant, which is what the taxpayer gives the Queen.
On the other hand, the net contribution from the Crown Estates to the Treasury was £285.1m (2015 accounts).
So she gives us £285m and we give her £42m back, leaving the taxpayer with something around £200m-250m profit on the deal for each of the last few years, and some £2bn profit over the decade. The Sovereign Grant is actually set, with the addition of a ceiling and floor, at a rate of 15% of the net revenues ftom the Crown Estates.
As for security costs, it's something of a moot point because we'd have those whatever the form of our Head of State, be it monarch, president or whatever.
I am no dyed-in-the-wool monarchist at all but I do think the monarchy should stay. I would certainly have a hard look at all the 'hangers-on' that might receive tax-payer's money for little reason, and also cut back the weird old funding systems that are still in place like Charles receiving the money of all those who die without in a will in Cornwall.
Soldato
Dark Light said:
They don't have the power to change anything, they are just a figure head
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Soldato
Rather than spam the Andrew Windsor thread I thought I'd kick this one back to life. Last post was middle of 2016. Have people changed their minds?
I used to be a monarchist in my younger days but now I'm firmly in the get rid when the queen dies. Andrew has done more for the republican movement than any lobbying could. Charles looks like he was taking bribes for honours of Saudi citizens. In 2022 the idea that a family is placed above all others for life for nothing more than being born in the right cot is laughable really. To live a life of absolute luxury for what? What do they offer that could possibly mean they deserve such a life? I don't buy the "they bring in money" line. Tourists will likely visit even more if all the palaces are completely opened up, see France. Rooms could be hired out for events to bring in further income. Parts could be used to house ex servicemen and women that have fallen on hard times and are homeless. The Dutchy of Lancaster and Cornwall revenues would go to the treasury instead of lining their pockets. The Queen is the only one I have any respect for, the rest can do what we all do and get as job and pay their own way.
I used to be a monarchist in my younger days but now I'm firmly in the get rid when the queen dies. Andrew has done more for the republican movement than any lobbying could. Charles looks like he was taking bribes for honours of Saudi citizens. In 2022 the idea that a family is placed above all others for life for nothing more than being born in the right cot is laughable really. To live a life of absolute luxury for what? What do they offer that could possibly mean they deserve such a life? I don't buy the "they bring in money" line. Tourists will likely visit even more if all the palaces are completely opened up, see France. Rooms could be hired out for events to bring in further income. Parts could be used to house ex servicemen and women that have fallen on hard times and are homeless. The Dutchy of Lancaster and Cornwall revenues would go to the treasury instead of lining their pockets. The Queen is the only one I have any respect for, the rest can do what we all do and get as job and pay their own way.
Caporegime
No change from what I said before:
As for current affairs: I think the whole Andrew thing has been rather overblown, people are acting like he is the equivalent of Epstein and Maxwell when it seems rather more than he was a sleazy bloke who took the chance to knob a young woman he thought was of legal age and didn't know she'd been trafficked by the scumbags he swanned around with. It's not like Epstein was some niche figure, he had a great many celebrity and political friends. With Charles, it seems that it was more people who worked for him that were the problem, and it rather pales in comparison to the Tory cash-for-honours which isn't even getting investigating. The Queen should probably abdicate in favour of Charles and, in fact, should probably have already done so; her health is increasingly not up to the role and with lifespans as high as they are now, establishing a tradition of the monarch standing down in old age would be a good thing.
As for current affairs: I think the whole Andrew thing has been rather overblown, people are acting like he is the equivalent of Epstein and Maxwell when it seems rather more than he was a sleazy bloke who took the chance to knob a young woman he thought was of legal age and didn't know she'd been trafficked by the scumbags he swanned around with. It's not like Epstein was some niche figure, he had a great many celebrity and political friends. With Charles, it seems that it was more people who worked for him that were the problem, and it rather pales in comparison to the Tory cash-for-honours which isn't even getting investigating. The Queen should probably abdicate in favour of Charles and, in fact, should probably have already done so; her health is increasingly not up to the role and with lifespans as high as they are now, establishing a tradition of the monarch standing down in old age would be a good thing.
I'm not anti-monarchy, but i do think the royal family needs to be cut down in terms of status/honorary titles. Just picking on Andrew's children, they're so far down the pecking order that for one of them to become queen would likely require a big act of treason. So even though they're the grand children of the queen, there shouldn't be any "official status". That should be reserved for first in line (Charles) and then his children. Then as they grow up, Will and Kates eldest would keep their official status, but the younger children would lose it. Rinse and repeat.
You do realise that happens outside of the royal family too? Plenty of people are born to wealthy parents just for "being born in the right cot" and live a life of luxury.
To some extent that example could even be applied to yourself. You could have just as easily been born to a poor African family living in a mud hut shared with your 9 siblings and no access to running water?