value for money?

[ramtops]

"The Royal Family cost Britons £36.7m last year, equivalent to 61p per taxpayer, figures show."

more here.

are they worth it?

Comments

[burkesworks.livejournal.com]

I'm no great fan of the royals, but unfortunately the alternative is likely to be either President Blair or President Thatcher rather than some kind of post-anarchosyndicalist utopia; hence I get rather less worked up about a Royal waste of taxpayers' money than I would about a Parliamentary one.

[ramtops.livejournal.com]

yesm but we'd get to elect them. And not re-elect them, if necessary.

[captainblue.livejournal.com]

{hollow laugh}

Yeah, that might work...

[aca.livejournal.com]

We give 36.7m in the civil list, they give 170m from the income of the Crown Estates. Exactly how are we losing out?

http://www.thecrownestate.co.uk/anrep/2004/index.asp?page=cr12

[ramtops.livejournal.com]

I didn't say we were losing out, did I?

[aca.livejournal.com]

So, are the Royals worth keeping for a 135m net gain per year, not including the income tax they also pay on their private income. I'd say so.

Surely one can infer profit/loss from a question of worth or and absence thereof?

[captainblue.livejournal.com]

Exactly.

[thewingedteapot.livejournal.com]

But if we got rid of them we could have the income from the Crown Estates (which they only own because their ancestors were better robber barons than ours) and not have to pay them.
The tourists would still come; after all, they still go to Versailles 216 years after the royals left. You just have to keep up the external frills like the Changing of the Guard; that's what the Greeks have done and the tourists still turn up in droves to photograph men in weird white kilts and pop-pom shoes.

[captainblue.livejournal.com]

Hmm. Good point.

[gmul.livejournal.com]

I think *a* Royal Family is broadly worth it, certainly given current running costs. I'm not exactly sure about some of the specific members of it but no more unsure than about some elected officials who do cause significant damage to the country, be it financial or otherwise.

[drpete.livejournal.com]

I am more ambivalent towards them now they pay income tax and the Crown Estates contribute lots to the treasury. There's all the income from coo-ing tourists as well to consider. I mean, without a Royal family, who'd actually *want* to come to the UK on holiday?

[ffutures.livejournal.com]

It's always handy to have someone around to mock.

[ex-stevewpal562.livejournal.com]

I'm not much of a royalist but they're part of our culture and have been for hundreds of years. The present monarch holds her bearing quite well, all things considered, and we've had far worse sitting on the throne in the past. I suspect that even Cromwell would have been a staunch defender of the present House of Windsor.