Should we abolish the Royal family?

[erics44]

What you have to understand is that Miles holds ideals that do not need to be held up to financial or practical scrutiny.

But if we didn't have the monarchy it's a fair bet that whoever became our head of state would have to be paid many times more to do the job.

Let's look at public offices as an example.

Our prime minister, like our queen is paid a modest salary considering the importance of his position, £142,500 per year. Cabinet ministers get £134,565

These salaries reflect the fact that the job they do is paid for by the tax payer, and should not be excessive.

Now let's look at what happens in the public services.

Currently there are a staggering 1700 council workers who receive a wage of greater than £100,000 per year. One executive in Cornwall earns over £410,000 or over 3 times the amount of the prime minister.

Let's look at Europe. The foreign secretary William Hague earns £134,565 per year for his role. The EU secretary Baroness Ashton earns a staggering £230,702 for doing what is essentially a non job.

Even more outrageous she has over 100!!! staff members working for her who earn more than William Hague and the Prime Minister!

How can this excess possibly be justified?

If we abolished the Royal Family, the position of Head of State still needs to be filled. We still need diplomats and dignitaries but now they would be employed with public funds and paid in accordance to the scales above. Furthmore they would no longer be politically neutral but would represent a political party, have their own stance on Europe and other agendas etc.

It would be an infinitely worse system, a tremendously bad idea, but this does not matter to Miles because he has his ideals and they are not subjected to such criticism. They are altogethy too lofty and virtuous for such things.

it would also cost a hell of a lot of money to abolish and replace in the first place

so in summary, it would cost lots to do, and cost more to be different, and be less financially profitable

[Kev]

What you have to understand is that Miles holds ideals that do not need to be held up to financial or practical scrutiny.

But if we didn't have the monarchy it's a fair bet that whoever became our head of state would have to be paid many times more to do the job.

Let's look at public offices as an example.

Our prime minister, like our queen is paid a modest salary considering the importance of his position, £142,500 per year. Cabinet ministers get £134,565

These salaries reflect the fact that the job they do is paid for by the tax payer, and should not be excessive.

Now let's look at what happens in the public services.

Currently there are a staggering 1700 council workers who receive a wage of greater than £100,000 per year. One executive in Cornwall earns over £410,000 or over 3 times the amount of the prime minister.

Let's look at Europe. The foreign secretary William Hague earns £134,565 per year for his role. The EU secretary Baroness Ashton earns a staggering £230,702 for doing what is essentially a non job.

Even more outrageous she has over 100!!! staff members working for her who earn more than William Hague and the Prime Minister!

How can this excess possibly be justified?

If we abolished the Royal Family, the position of Head of State still needs to be filled. We still need diplomats and dignitaries but now they would be employed with public funds and paid in accordance to the scales above. Furthmore they would no longer be politically neutral but would represent a political party, have their own stance on Europe and other agendas etc.

It would be an infinitely worse system, a tremendously bad idea, but this does not matter to Miles because he has his ideals and they are not subjected to such criticism. They are altogethy too lofty and virtuous for such things.

it would also cost a hell of a lot of money to abolish and replace in the first place

so in summary, it would cost lots to do, and cost more to be different, and be less financially profitable

Yes the initial upheaval would be in the billions of pounds as the government would need to buy property from the crown, pay vast sums of rent and/or move into alternative buildings.

The first problem would be where to actually run parliament seeing as the Crown owns Westminster. So that would need to be bought from the Royals or else the whole government would have to move somewhere else.

Of course any upheaval of this magnitude would have to be subject to a referendum which would cost hundreds of millions of pounds also, with the result far from guaranteed. The people would most likely oppose so to go against them would lead to the court of human rights and british courts becoming involved leading to further action.

It's possible the most loyal of the Commonwealth nations would also object mightily wondering how their relations with Britain might be affected.

[erics44]

i dont know which idea is worse, this one or the one to create a super heavyweight division as suggested in the other thread

what do you think?

[Gandalf]

Privatise the Royal fucking family then. Let them inflate their price so that only daft Yanks with no history pay to look at them. The Prime Minister should be head of state, not some outdated Queen. Why have both when you can pay for one? I don't care about tourism, I care about democracy and a monarchy is anti-democratic.

[Kev]

Privatise the Royal fucking family then. Let them inflate their price so that only daft Yanks with no history pay to look at them. The Prime Minister should be head of state, not some outdated Queen. Why have both when you can pay for one? I don't care about tourism, I care about democracy and a monarchy is anti-democratic.

Great so when our prime minister is visiting with foreign diginitaries, or maybe the victims of a terrorist attack, where hundrede have been killed in a response to a government military policy in the middle east who is he representing first and foremost? The country? The people of Britain? The Government? The Conservative Party?

Our current Head of State is politically neutral and is not making policy. This is a wonderful thing. She doesn't represent the government, or the Tories, or an unpopular set of policies or austerity cuts. Rather she represents us, the people of Britain. There is such a great value to that that only a fool would want to lose it.

Whilst our political leaders may be hated by half the country, and blamed for much of what happens in it, the Royal Family represent us. When the queen visits her subjects she does so on behalf of us, not Labour, not the Lib Dems, not the Tories, or the judicial system.

There is strength and comfort in having a thousand years old institution to provide stability and an enduring presence in our nation. The royal family was invaluable during the war, and historically have been in times of great crisis, when the people need a focal point. You seriously underestimate the asset we have in them.

[Gandalf]

Privatise the Royal fucking family then. Let them inflate their price so that only daft Yanks with no history pay to look at them. The Prime Minister should be head of state, not some outdated Queen. Why have both when you can pay for one? I don't care about tourism, I care about democracy and a monarchy is anti-democratic.

Great so when our prime minister is visiting with foreign diginitaries, or maybe the victims of a terrorist attack, where hundrede have been killed in a response to a government military policy in the middle east who is he representing first and foremost? The country? The people of Britain? The Government? The Conservative Party?

Our current Head of State is politically neutral and is not making policy. This is a wonderful thing. She doesn't represent the government, or the Tories, or an unpopular set of policies or austerity cuts. Rather she represents us, the people of Britain. There is such a great value to that that only a fool would want to lose it.

Whilst our political leaders may be hated by half the country, and blamed for much of what happens in it, the Royal Family represent us. When the queen visits her subjects she does so on behalf of us, not Labour, not the Lib Dems, not the Tories, or the judicial system.

There is strength and comfort in having a thousand years old institution to provide stability and an enduring presence in our nation. The royal family was invaluable during the war, and historically have been in times of great crisis, when the people need a focal point. You seriously underestimate the asset we have in them.

A leader of a country should really be representing the people that voted for him. The Royal family is irrelevant in that regard. If the Queen was really about representing the people then she should have spoken up for the majority who were against the war in Iraq. Likewise, she should have spoken up against the poll tax and all sorts of other attacks against her so called people, but she doesn't. She stands either mute or uttering inane pleasantries. That is because she is one of the elite and likes her position as chief benefits scrounger of the UK. It's all well and good saying that she is one of us, but that is blatantly untrue.

She and her lot are relics of a bygone and more inbred period in our history and I would like to see them consigned to history. People pay quite happily to see Buckingham palace for the structure that it is. Move the Queen into a 3 bedroom bungalow and the country would be a better place. Only then can she truly say that she is one of us.

[Kev]

Privatise the Royal fucking family then. Let them inflate their price so that only daft Yanks with no history pay to look at them. The Prime Minister should be head of state, not some outdated Queen. Why have both when you can pay for one? I don't care about tourism, I care about democracy and a monarchy is anti-democratic.

Great so when our prime minister is visiting with foreign diginitaries, or maybe the victims of a terrorist attack, where hundrede have been killed in a response to a government military policy in the middle east who is he representing first and foremost? The country? The people of Britain? The Government? The Conservative Party?

Our current Head of State is politically neutral and is not making policy. This is a wonderful thing. She doesn't represent the government, or the Tories, or an unpopular set of policies or austerity cuts. Rather she represents us, the people of Britain. There is such a great value to that that only a fool would want to lose it.

Whilst our political leaders may be hated by half the country, and blamed for much of what happens in it, the Royal Family represent us. When the queen visits her subjects she does so on behalf of us, not Labour, not the Lib Dems, not the Tories, or the judicial system.

There is strength and comfort in having a thousand years old institution to provide stability and an enduring presence in our nation. The royal family was invaluable during the war, and historically have been in times of great crisis, when the people need a focal point. You seriously underestimate the asset we have in them.

A leader of a country should really be representing the people that voted for him. The Royal family is irrelevant in that regard. If the Queen was really about representing the people then she should have spoken up for the majority who were against the war in Iraq. Likewise, she should have spoken up against the poll tax and all sorts of other attacks against her so called people, but she doesn't. She stands either mute or uttering inane pleasantries. That is because she is one of the elite and likes her position as chief benefits scrounger of the UK. It's all well and good saying that she is one of us, but that is blatantly untrue.

She and her lot are relics of a bygone and more inbred period in our history and I would like to see them consigned to history. People pay quite happily to see Buckingham palace for the structure that it is. Move the Queen into a 3 bedroom bungalow and the country would be a better place. Only then can she truly say that she is one of us.

How is she a benefits scrounger? First off, she works for her money. Secondly she has worked 20 years longer than ordinary people have to, and is still serving this country past her 85th year.

Thirdly she MAKES us money. When you are talking about how much the Royal Family cost us what you really mean is how much of the profits we get from having them are we having to share with them.

The crown estate pays more to the taxpayer each year than the queen receives from them, so annually we owe her AND she works on our behalf.

How can you not understand this? She is the best value for money employee in the whole of Britain! Who else would rent out over £6.6 billion pounds of worth of property and then give all the profits to the taxpayer?