UKC

http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2014/jun/26/queens-accounts-revealed-inc...

"Senior royals still prefer charter flights, according to the accounts. But the younger generation may be more amenable. Prince Harry spent £10,888 on a first-class return ticket from Heathrow to Washington, Denver then New York. By contrast, keen golfer Prince Andrew spent £14,692 on a charter flight from Farnborough to Scotland, to visit the Royal Highland Fusiliers, and also take in the Open Championship at Muirfield."

In reply to Douglas Griffin:

I've lost the will to be angry at these f***ers

In reply to Douglas Griffin:

The Monarchy seems value for money at a penny a week per UK citizen, particularly as it includes repair and refurbishment of ancient buildings which are part of the nation's heritage.....

In reply to Removed User:

It might have been cheaper to send the Royal Highland Fusiliers down to Farnborough?

In reply to Douglas Griffin:

To get the best you need to pay for them. Otherwise they will take their skills to another country eager to get the best.

In reply to Douglas Griffin:

Sorry I've just read some of the unapolgetic scrounger thread.
***k em, ***k em all. You can maybe make a case for the absolute core monarchy if a constitutional monarchy is what you want; but those examples are ridiculous and not even close to the total spend for the two of them (and his weans no doubt).

In reply to Douglas Griffin:
I am sure that the royalty has some value for money, but the question is, why couldn't we have them for free ?

The Queen is so immensely rich they could probably live on their assets until the end of time.

Queen Elizabeth II is the biggest landowner in the world, she owns about 1/6th of the non-ocean surface of the planet, with 6,600 million acres of land, worth about £17,600,000,000,000. Do we really need to throw more money at her ?

In reply to Removed User:

Here we go with the easy targets.

Prince Andrew does incalculable good work raising the profile of Britain and British business overseas.

His hard work and dedication has also raised plenty of money for charity.

As a former war hero I think he is allowed some recreational time on the links if that entertains him.

Why can we not celebrate his work and contribution to public life rather than deriding and demeaning it?

In reply to RomTheBear:


Are you sure about that?

In reply to Douglas Griffin:
Yes

http://www.businessinsider.com/worlds-biggest-landowners-2011-3?op=1

"#1 Queen Elizabeth II
Land: 6.6 billion acres of land worldwide including Great Britain, Northern Ireland, Canada, Australia and a few other spots here and there. Also, the all-important Falkland Islands."

In reply to RomTheBear:

It says that she "nominally owns places like Canada and Australia". I'm not sure how seriously I'd take that claim.

In reply to RomTheBear:

Queen Elizabeth II is the biggest landowner in the world, she owns about 1/6th of the non-ocean surface of the planet, with 6,600 million acres of land, worth about £17,600,000,000,000.

Perhaps not: -

https://www.metabunk.org/threads/debunked-the-queen-of-england-has-%C2%A317...

In reply to TMM:

Seems fair. We should presumably extend the right to take charter flights across the UK to play golf to all UK military veterans?

PS incidentally the situation with what the Queen 'owns' is a little complicated. Although technically a lot of things are owned by the Sovereign, such as the seabed, in practice for the last couple of hundred years each king/queen has passed the income and management of these to the Government via the Crown Estate. It is now probably too late for any monarch to change this, so effectively this is owned by the country not the crown, and arguably if we became a republic it would remain so. But the deal is that, in exchange for the Crown Estate's income, the government pays the royals from the Civil List, so they would presumably be 'entitled' to some form of compensation if we became a republic without the normal head-cutting-off procedure...

In reply to Trangia:


Does £14k for feckless wastrel Prince Andrew to charter a plane seem like a good deal to the public purse to you?

In reply to tony:

*Round of applause* for "feckless wastrel".

In reply to TMM:



A good friend of Saif al-Islam Gaddafi and a convicted Libyan gun smuggler Tarek Kaituni. Marvellous. And who was the sec offender he was friends with? And the comments he made regarding BAE corruption.


Marvellous. Lots of people do this. They don't get paid umpteen thousands from the public purse.



Because he's a feckless wastrel.

In reply to Douglas Griffin:

And as for his little brother ...

In reply to FactorXXX:




Actually your "debunk" can be debunked, they say that the queen is not the legal landowners of these countries, but only the powerless head of state. This is wrong, she is actually the legal landowner and has property titles for LARGE parts of these countries (the land we usually refer to as "public land") and can and does rent/sell it, but of course there are constitutional limitations as to how and whether she can sell it.

But the crown did sell land in the past.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crown_land

In reply to andrewmcleod:

There's also the Sovereign Grant fund:
http://www.ukclimbing.com/forums/t.php?t=554681

In reply to TMM:




I'll mention that to the boy next door on the 12 hour shift that was in the engine room on the same ship. He sees himself as a "veteran" BTW.

In reply to Removed User:


Me too. ME TOO. I am so sick of the apparent sense of entitlement that these people have. They really seem to think, or believe, they're worth it.

Why can't they all shut up? It all beggars belief to me.

OK rant over.

PS isn't a lot of the money they spend OUR money? Or have I got it wrong?

In reply to andrewmcleod:


Alrightly then, safer to keep the head-cutting-off procedure. Plus, people often say the royals are enormously valuable as tourist attractions - they could continue to be so in the form of heads on pikes at the Tower of London. Let that Gunther von Hagens do his thing with them, they should last absolutely *ages*.

In reply to Douglas Griffin:

I remember getting into a busy pub in Glasgow with no seats available with both my parents (they are French).
We were standing up and talking, when suddenly a guy sitting at the table next to us hears us speaking in French and he says to his wife:

"Ho darling, these guys are French! Let's get up and leave them our seats ! These guys had the balls to take the head of their kings !"

The guy shook our hand and they left us their seats.

I love Glasgow

In reply to RomTheBear:



Thats not the glaswegain patois I know!

btw The English managed to take the head off a King too - I must try for a seat in a busy pub there next time with that line.......

In reply to Rom

I'm fairly certain you've made that up entirely or bowdlerised it.

IRT the above: if I could choose HM the Queen specifically I'd say it was amazing value for money. I'd say similar for Charles. I've met both. After that I'm substantially less convinced.

If we voted for a head of state we could end up with Blair or Cameron (or wee Eck) FFS. Our current head of state is exceptional IMHO, and the likely successors better than average.

In reply to DNS:


Compared with who ?

What is the average?

In reply to TMM:


There are loads of war hero's if you count Andrew as one then every Falklands veteran is one, just most of them don't get to go on jollies paid for by the tax payer, even though they are already rich beyond the dreams of most of us.

In reply to TMM:


Yes, we should get back to kicking people on benefits.



Here are some examples of this work for those who are unfamiliar with it:

http://www.channel4.com/news/prince-andrew-cheerleader-in-chief-for-the-arm...

http://www.ianfraser.org/britain-is-fast-turning-into-a-banana-republic-wil...


Let's not forget his contribution to private lives:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2597308/The-bombshell-court-documen...

http://www.theguardian.com/uk/2011/mar/13/prince-andrew-jeffrey-epstein

In reply to jasonC abroad:


I used to go hillwalking with a guy who assessed him as a helicopter pilot. He was too diplomatic to say a bad word about anyone, and he had emphatically nothing to say about Prince Andrew.

In reply to dissonance:


Germany ?

In reply to RomTheBear:
How did they get these huge assets in the first place?

Did the British people just decide to hand over the huge wealth to the crown?
Seems unlikely.
Therefore some kind of coercion must have been used.

In reply to Douglas Griffin:

Would anyone swap them for President Cameron? President Bliar? President Farage? President BoJo?

In reply to stroppygob:

How about not swapping them with anything? We have a prime minister who is the head of government and that's all that is really needed. If we really want someone to hand a few medals, attend a horse race here and there, a bunch of dinners, and wave at people from a balcony , then we can just hire Rowan Atkinson to do it for an hourly rate.

In reply to Jim C:


Read The Poor Had No Lawyers by Andy Wightman for some answers - there's a clue in the title.