The Royal Wedding: Why Britain Shouldn’t/doesn’t Care
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So, the Royal Family….now a Royal Wedding…when are we getting our money back?
Follow me on Twitter! @BrookLaa
Oh my God! “Big” Willy and “Babykins” Kate are getting married (No, they really do call each other by those nicknames) and it’s going to instill a sense of pride in Britain, raising spirits of the working classes during this, their most dire financial situation since Thatcher’s days. Really, watching a couple of rich people drain money out of the country (via increased security and police forces around them, general wedding costs they get the money for via…us etc). Wikipedia explains it best here. We can only hope that all burglars are Royalists.
It’s great they’re happy and they’re getting married, but I mean that on a personal level. The average Joe basically isn’t interested. The extra day off we get is nice, but a token to the amount of money this wedding wastes. We have to pay for our weddings, so why not them, theirs? According to recent polls, 87.3% of Britons don’t believe we need a monarchy; that is essentially, your boss saying one of your employees is redundant, but is not allowed to sack them for some unknown, unfair anachronistic reason.
A monarchy does not allow for a full democratic system, yet we have Parliament. Royalists may even believe the Royal Family should be given more power, but that just exacerbates the point: they really are pointless with regards to Britain and her (few) commonwealth states. They are neither rulers, nor democrats. They’re just people with special privileges due to bloodline. Not to take a cheap shot, but isn’t that what the BNP believes in? And…well just generally, active racists? This is more a classist point, but still needs to be addressed and never has been.
Related article: the banality of snobbery in the UK here.
Really, let us break free from this system. Parliament has been proved time and time again to be corrupt, but we unfortunately, at this particular point in time, need them. Maybe not the specific people, but we need them as a system. We do not need royals flaunting all of their ill-gotten gains that technically belong to us as a nation, in front of us and claiming they are worthwhile. They’d be average people were it not for their parents, and their parents before them, and their parents before them and[…]
How about we vote for the royal family? Personally, I vote Ozzy and Sharon Osbourne to come back to England and take the throne, but that’s just me being more realistic than the current royals. I would have been happy to contribute to their wedding fund, were they royal. We’d get a bit of entertainment over the racism and (alleged) assassinations at least. Good value for money. I even think Harry’s a big Ozzy fan, so there.
Image via Wikipedia
Anyway I digress, basically, I’m happy you’ve found a husband/wife in the man/woman that you love, but please stop wasting our money and time telling us about it. You’re not worth it and no one genuinely cares. Put the pride back in Britain? Royal family, Stop wasting money by your very existence; Parliament, come up with some decent financial measures to combat that which should have been over years ago (Australia, for example managed to avoid recession) and please Mr Media stop covering a wedding which you’d be hard-pushed to find a fan of!
Still undecided about the Monarchy? Well, here’s a lovely bit of trivia for you: Should Kate become monarch, besides being the first one that you would actually want to take to bed, she will be the first monarch who has a degree. Harry, in contrast, got a B and a D at A-Level in Art and Geography respectively. I actually managed better than that without the benefit of an education from Eton costing hundreds of thousands of pounds without really revising. So there you have it, an uneducated, unwanted, not-needed, racist, drug-using anachronism soaking up all of our money and loving every second of it.
Anyway, their abdication isn’t happening in the foreseeable future, so I leave you with a Facebook group to the Royal Wedding Drinking game, complete with rules. Enjoy your day off in style!
Follow me on Twitter! @BrookLaa
lay off the royals yeah? prince charles alone gives away almost 70% of his yearly income majority of which comes from family land which he puts to good farm use instead of letting it sit there doing nothing. the royal family brings attention and funds to good charities and yes they are something to put in the tabloids but better them i say then some twit like lindsay lohan. the small amount of tax payers money they take is more than given back to the public. better they use it for good causes than you who would probably spend that extra 2 quid a year to buy some preppy grande-low-fat-soy-mochiatto
I’m with Rosie on this. The Money they bring in on Tourism alone is a profit for the country. There’s 2 people in love getting married, and I am perplexed to why people want to put a negative spin on it!
Anthony: note the first line of the second paragraph. This is more a critique of the Royals as a whole, using the Wedding as an example of gross extravagance and needless media coverage.
haha wow you are one angry person – i don’t know whether anyone has given you this advice before but … LIGHTEN UP!!!
the royals bring more money into the country through tourism than they cost , they have been around for decades and they are part of our culture. id read about the royal family over katie price any day. if you dont like the wedding , dont watch it , simple as and stop compaining , you get a days holiday dont you?
I couldn’t care less about the wedding. Or the monarchy, although as Katie rightly points out they bring in a lot of revenue. And considering I’m unemployed (not through lack of trying, before anyone starts) getting a day off work means nothing to me. Having the wedding of two strangers, regardless of money or status, shoved down my throat every time I touch anything connected to the media annoys the hell out of me. Great, be happy for them, have your parties and your fun, but there really is no need for the insipid simpering that seems to be going on.
Hugh – your intelligence and maturity is summed up nicely in your last sentence. Lovely bit of racism there.
It kind of speaks for itself.
If you could though, explain to me how I said the monarchy hinders Parliament? I didn’t see that bit…
\”A monarchy does not allow for a full democratic system,\”
^^ Contradicted yourself. Fail
Made a number of fleeting statements which you didn’t back up with any facts only vague opinions.
You mentioned Ozzy Osbourne.
In my humble opinion. You are just another media person who wrote another fluff piece about the wedding to fill a page. I came to this page because I wanted to read something informative about the wedding but regardless of your stand you provided nothing interesting.
1/10
Hugh – meant in the freedom sense.
Anything else?
Without the royal family why would people want to come to this country? to see out grotty streets filled with grotty people smoking and probably shouting abuse at each other whilst carrying 5 / 6 kids?! The royal family gives this country something tourists want to see: where they live, certain parts in history, the buildings and so on. The Royal family may spend some of our money… but if they make lots of money from their own tourism… then this is not our money… it’s theirs.
Without them we wont have this tourism money to begin with.
Plus as a nation we probably spend most of our taxes on lazy sods with 5 / 6 kids smoking and drinking all day and to lazy to work!
What you gonna do about it then you whiney little prick?
asdf
thats the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard.
Considering almost 2 billion people watched the royal wedding from Canada, Australia, America and dozens of other countries, thats just proved you wrong.
Jay: it’s shoved down people’s throats by the media.
People don’t give a rat’s ass about the royal bimbo and her beloved bald prince. They work all day trying to pay their rent while these dorks spend our money laughing
The guy who wrote this article along with any others who hold something against the royal family is an ignorant unpatriotic twat in my opinion. The royals are one of the most important tourist attractions in London and any claims that events such as this wedding take money from the British people are entirely wrong. But more importantly, the royal family are part of our culture and history and if you believe they are pointless and a waste of space then quite frankly, you are a poohead.
Oh for goodness sake grow up Andy Laa, I think you can count unless you failed arithmetic at school. Yes they spent 32 million on the wedding and about 34 million on security, the income they are going to get back on the extra tourism and the broad cast rights they will get back that 66milloin and a lot extra as well. William like his mother Diana has breathed life into a very old institution the British monarchy and they have done a very good job, William and Kate be great.
I’m from Australia and me along with a hell of a lot of my friends all watched the royal wedding by choice…my brother didn’t watch it he played xbox (but he’s a bit young to understand the importance of the future king getting married)…so having the media go crazy over it didn’t make a difference if you watched it or not, those who wanted to did.
And to be honest…I was actually considering going to London for the wedding with a group of my friends but I couldn’t make it…so I’d be a tourist spending money in your country because of the royal family…so the royal family would be therefore generating tourism yes?
And I do still intend on visiting London…the big draw card being the royal family and Buckingham Palace.
Considering #proudtobebritish is trending worldwide on twitter it’s evident people do care.
Moreover you are completely uniformed about the financial aspects of the royal family. About £39 million in taxpayers money is paid in taxpayers money to the royal family annually. A tiny figure when considering other ways our money is spent, for example the 7billion in afghanistan. Further, the royal family generates an estimated £180 million in tourism per year, greatly off setting the previous figure anyway. This doesn’t even take into account all the charity work they do.
They’re part of our culture and, despite the fact i thought i was going to have little interest in today, found myself full of british pride.
sorry, my figure was out of date – it’s £500million the royal family generates
Camera-toting royal-chasers are now a bigger threat than ever; -anyone taking bets how long it will be ’til one/both of them are killed in a car crash on some Paris highway?? :-\
Tom: Ozzy Osbourne would generate that, would he not?
And to say that a tourist’s only reason for visiting England was for a royal family they will never get to meet is akin to saying people only go to the zoo for ice cream.
Imagine the revenue that could be produced if the Royal Family were disbanded and we could pay admission to see the Queen’s bedroom etc. (That is just an example by the way – not a total justification).
>This post
>good
pick one.
Andy, you seem upset.
The total cost of keeping the monarchy increased by £1.5 million to £41.5 million during the 2008-09 financial year.
Palace accounts also showed that the Queen dipped into a reserve fund to boost her Civil List by £6 million.
This is the highest amount ever drawn from the reserve which comes from surplus Civil List money accumulated in the 1990s.
The total cost of the Queen’s Civil List – which pays for the running of the Royal Household including staff salaries – was £13.9 million in 2008.
It was made up of £7.9 million from the Government and £6 million from the reserve. The boost from the reserve accounted for 43% of the total.
This prompts speculation as to how much the Queen will ask the Government to increase the Civil List by when the current financial deal runs out in December 2010.
If she continues drawing on the reserve at the current rate, she will run out of funds by the start of 2012 – the year of her Diamond Jubilee.
The pot of money has gone down from £35 million to £21 million over the last decade.
The current deal – in which the Queen gets £7.9 million a year – was agreed by Sir John Major in 1990.
The total £41.5 million cost for the Royal Family excludes the cost security provided by the police and Army, and the ceremonial duties performed by the Armed Forces.
The amount spent on royal travel – which come from the taxpayer through grants-in-aid – increased by £300,000 from £6.2 million to £6.5 million.
The most expensive journeys were the Prince of Wales and the Duchess of Cornwall’s long-haul overseas tours, which were mentioned in Charles’s annual review last week.
Today’s accounts revealed the actual figures, showing that the cost came to £1,310,669 including staff reconnaissance trips.
Their charter flights to the Far East cost £655,675, a train ride from Tokyo cost £2,596, their flights to South America came to £645,127 and the charter yachts cost £7,271.
In addition, a staff reconnaissance ahead of the trip to the Far East cost £35,810 in flights, while the one to South America was £41,423.
A charter flight by the Duke of York from RAF Northolt to Sharm el Sheikh in Egypt in May last year to attend the World Economic Forum cost £55,269.
from: metro.co.uk
Sharon and Ozzy? Are you kidding me?
Poor piece of journalism, with little or no substance to it.
Must try harder.
Absolute total and utter baloney. If you don\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\’t like it go and crawl back under the stone from which you emerged. Long live all the royals and best of luck to Will & Kate. The only decent thing Britain has left.
Why is everyone complaining the amount of money raised for Media attention alone covered the wedding and the amount of money spent on Tourism in England will jump massively because of this event. Stop crying about it, I’d rather have it spent on the Royal Family than some arsehole Labour MP
Countering the point that people all over the world actually do care about the royal wedding, with the statement that the media shoved it down everyones throats, only serves to make you look like a total fool. The media can only coerce you into watching/reading/listening to something that you don’t like if you have absolutely no mind of your own and are so weak in your own opinions that they can be easily swayed by tabloids and television. Wake up. If you REALLY don’t care, you REALLY don’t have to watch it and if you’re so strongly against it, surely the media can’t persuade you otherwise.
There has been a lot of media hype surrounding the event, but that is because it was an enormous event, whether you wanted it to be or not. And for once, it was something positive for the worlds media to turn their attention to… for once it gave people something to smile about and celebrate. Surely, in a world full of hardships, sadness and destruction, in a world full of terrible news stories night after night, people deserve a chance to feel united with the rest of the world’s population in a brief moment of celebration and joy.
This was not just about a pretty white frock, a nice old church and a union between two random individuals. It was more about what that union represents and what it says to people. It says that love, joy and old fashioned romance do still exist and that it’s ok to celebrate these things sometimes. It says that there is hope for mankind, despite all it’s anger, bitterness and cynicism. Stop being such a miserable, whinging pom, trying to turn the first positive global event to happen in a long time, into a negative one.
It’s so easy for you to say “what do the royal family do for us? why do we even need them anymore?” but you would be surprised how much of Britain’s identity would be washed away if the royal family were to cease to exist. Whether you like it or not they remain the figure heads of, not only the United Kingdom, but of the commonwealth to. They uphold the historic traditions that have made your country great and continue to make Britain particularly unique. People from all over the world flock to Britain every year, to drink in the history of the place, made as rich and as fascinating as it is by the existence of the royal family.
You can continue to moan about the money they cost you all, but in reality, they put an awful lot back into your country, not just financially, but in their time and effort and care. Politicians take home a truckload of money each year too and they don’t have the same duties and expectations placed on to them from the moment they are born till the moment they die. Sure they are under and enormous amount of pressure when they’re in office, but once they have served their short term and retired, they are no longer bound by the expectations of the nation. But the royal family can never escape these pressures, can never retire, can never close the door on the problems and demands of their people. You give them a lot of flack, but really, they’re jobs are harder than you give them credit for. It’s not all tea and scones and waving from horse drawn carriages.
William and Catherine’s wedding was a noble and dignified event. It is something that you ought to be proud of, as it is a true testament to Britain and it’s people that such dignity and nobility still exist in their country, and that it is something that they celebrate, rather than mock.
With all the negativity and badness going round in the world at the moment, it was quite nice to take time away from that for one day and concentrate on something a bit more uplifting. A lot of people enjoyed it so there is no need to but any sort of damper on it. Lighten up, it\’s so very rare.
God save our queen. Grow up little boy and go read a British history book and familiarise yourself with tradition. Rule Brittania!
God save our queen. Grow up little boy and go read a British history book and familiarise yourself with tradition. Rule Brittania!
This whole argument is pathetic to be honest, and some of you are so rude and seriously need to grow up. You all obviously have your own opinion so let Andy have his to, there is no need for all your foul language towards him. Get over it.
lol are you serious when you say youd want the ozbornes rather than the royal family? jesus this country would die with them. and they would spend tax payers money not on a wedding which was amazing to watch but on drugs booze and sex houses! andylaa you obviously dont have a clue in your thick skull. i love the royal family and billions more people do to. how about you go back to primary school and learn some figures eh?
right. you say that you’d be hard pushed to find a fan of the british monarchy. i think that point is quashed by the shear numbers of people that turned up in support of the wedding. you also say that the money that the taxpayer spent on the wedding was a waste. what your ignorance failed to let you see is the obvious impact of the tourist that come to this country to see such an event and the financial gain in the economy that we have because of the wedding.
i respect your opinion of the monarchy – everyone is entitled to one – but i lose all respect in your argument when you say that you’d prefer to see the ozbourne’s in charge. what a ridiculous thing to say, let me guess, you’re one of those people that’d refuse to vote, and the decide you want to protest against decisions that a voted in government would decide. you are pathetic, and ignorant for thinking the way you do
brilliant, i love how most people disagree with you