Still would make a fair bit if we opened some of the places up as museums. I wonder how much Prince Andrew etc bring in to the country... The biggest annoyance I have with the royals is the have a hell of a lot of family that do nothing.
I agree we shouldn't really be paying for some of the hangers on. I find myself liking Prince Harry though.
Buckingham Palace is not the property of the queen, she does reside there though. I used to live above a pub I was chef at, and i was never asked to chip in for the painting. They do charge around 40 quid so a % of this should go to the cost. Maybe increase her rent
I am very pro Royal Family, I think they Bring in more to the than they cost, but also think that a line should be drawn as to who receives public money, probably down to the Queen's immediate family
I don't believe it's a case of being a fan or not, or whether the royal family are good value or not. It is more an immoral case of a cossetted [and remember un-elected] family who live a life under the glare of the media, but have been that way forever, so don't think for a second they aren't used to it or found plenty of mechanisms to keep themselves to themselves. All for someone else to pay, and usually those who do are individually by far the poorer. Nobody should have an un-earned advantage over anyone else. That might be idealistic, but having a royal family only reinforces the patronage structure and demonstrates that it is fundamentally OK to have a group of people who want for nothing, paid for, while there are those who, through an opposite accident of birth, find themselves at life's bottom of the pile, and we can spare barely anything for them, and we moan about that. There are several fairer alternatives.
Strewth alive I really was not going to get involved in this debate but hells bells its bloody hard not to. Some I must say seem to have had blinkered lives. Do tell me a country whether the head of that country has a royal as its head, or a president or a dictator that does not have poverty. The queen does not own Buckingham Palace and is not responsible for its upkeep. No she is not elected it is true but she does not govern either. Unlike the beaurocrats running Europe they too are not elected. The hangers on as you call them normally collect a living from the queens estates although they do get an allowance from the government according to their contribution to official duties. They don't get anything if they do nowt. Yes I have been to the palace a couple of times. As for comparing our country to others all I can say is having been to and seen real indescribable poverty in other countries, this country, despite its short comings, is a palace to live in, in comparison. Yes we don't always get it right in what we do, but we do do something........yes I am proud of what we do achieve in comparison to other countries.
Beddy and TSS are both right in their accounts re- Royal Family. As an entity the UK, the European countries that we could aspire to are Germany, the Netherlands, the Scandinavian countries and Finland with their strong manufacturing base, higher levels of investment in their infrastructure and levels of welfare and importantly the educational levels achieved by the citizens in these countries. One only has to witness the ability of many Northern Europeans to speak three languages at a high level. My level of Spanish is still elementary but I am starting to speak more confidently over the phone with clients in the language and that is some achievement. You listen for key words and phrases and then fill in the gaps yourself to comprehend the message. At another level we could adopt a Mediterranean philosophy with regard to food and drink. Here in Mallorca you do not get hordes of people rolling around drunk on a Friday or Saturday evening. Why is it acceptable in the UK, or is it that it brings the "chain pubs" money with people spending lots of money to get hammered and end up in hospital after a fist fight?
It's not acceptable in my eyes. If people would stop getting out of their heads on drink and just know when to stop we would have our police dealing with proper crime instead of drunk dickheads and our hospitals less overstretched. It's hard to feel sorry for anyone who gets so drunk they don't know what they are doing and gets into trouble. Did you see the drunk idiots dodging trains on the news this morning? Some don't survive leaving devastated family behind not to mention the traumatised people who have to clear up what's left of them. If you make the decision to lose control you only have yourself to blame if you end up in trouble. It's easy to have a brilliant time without going that far. *Steps off of soapbox.*
I so agree....but how on earth do you persuade people not to make wrong decisions? How many of those people actually set out to drink themselves silly? Oh we all have heard them say I'm off to have a skin full or some such words. But surely the reality is with few exceptions perhaps they just want to have a good time but not necessarily get blind drunk? That's when the poor decision making comes into play they nearly all think there is no consequences to having that extra drink or two. Trouble is by that time they are usually past caring....and to heck with consequences. Thankfully have not particularly gone down that road myself, never thought of the need to. Errr I still enjoyed myself to the full though.....oh and still got into the odd ruckus when I was younger. Although mainly when I was in the forces......and the civilians wanted to see how tough we were. ( in my day you were honour bound to wear your uniform went on a night out)
Well said. Whilst I will admit to partaking of the occasional small sweet sherry and, on one or two occasions, woke up the next morning with only a vague recollection of what went on the night before, I've never felt the need to go looking for trouble or doing anything absolutely stupid. I simply don't understand why people do this sort of thing - and, it appears, it's the Brits who are worst (or have the worst reputations). I've been with a bunch of Amerkun kids who were on spring break (an eye-opener indeed) and they were well away, but content to have a great time and still be polite to the "elders" (ahem) around them. I couldn't see that happening in the downtown of Ibiza or Mallorca .....
It illustrates the importance of education and the values that society inculcates. To my mind it is shocking journalism to print that Wayne Rooney has been on a drinking spree or that two England footballers stepped into a strip club. Journalism should be responsible, informative and educative. The parts that are in any way informative are well away from the sports stories or the sleeezy headlines that makes the news and perhaps sells the newpaper.
Again comparing poverty isn't right. There are people in this country still unable to afford food, heating etc etc. There are still people dying from poverty in this country which shouldn't be happening (400 last year meant to double this year). We have record amounts of children homeless as well. Also have record amounts of people that go to food banks. I dare you to go to a mother who only eats one solid meal once a week, so she can afford to send her child to school, that some child in Africa is what you call real poverty. It's only going to get worse with more and more benefits being cut. But as long as the rich are ok everything is ok. I just don't get people that compare poverty. At the end of the day poverty is poverty. It doesn't matter what country you are from. If this doesn't tell you we have a huge problem nothing will: Although the UK is the seventh richest country in the world, many people struggle to afford food. In 2012-13, the Trussell Trust foodbank network, an Oxfam partner, provided over 350,000 people in the UK with food parcels - more than double the year before. Oxfam and Church Action on Poverty estimate that over 500,000 people in the UK are now reliant on food parcels. Over 2 million people in the UK are estimated to be malnourished, and 3 million are at risk of becoming so. 36% of the UK population are just one heating bill or a broken washing machine away from hardship. 1 in 6 parents have gone without food themselves to afford to feed their families "People at the upper end of the income scale have no idea of what's going on down at the bottom of the scale. They don't realise how much people are really hurting."Sir Michael Marmot, health inequality expert and author of Fair Society, Healthy Lives. http://policy-practice.oxfam.org.uk/our-work/inequality/food-poverty And this: More than 8 million in UK struggle to put food on table, survey says Food Foundation reveals scale of food insecurity, with 4.7 million thought to be regularly going a day without eating More than 8 million people in Britain live in households that struggle to put enough food on the table, with over half regularly going a whole day without eating, according to estimates of hunger in the UK. One in 10 adults suffered moderate levels of food insecurity in 2014, placing the UK in the bottom half of European countries on hunger measures, below Hungary, Estonia, Slovakia and Malta. Around 17 times the number of people who use Trussell Trust food banks were insecure about getting enough to eat, suggesting hunger in the UK is far more widespread than rising charity food use indicates, according to the analysis of UN data by the Food Foundation thinktank. https://www.theguardian.com/society...-uk-struggle-to-put-food-on-table-survey-says Doesn't look like a decent country to me.. I have volunteered at a few places and it was a huge eye opener on how bad this country actually is for many. A hell of a lot of people don't see it
Not every one that gets drunk becomes a idiot. When I am drunk I just tell ****ter jokes and laugh at nothing. But I have been in hospital twice drunk. Once was when some guy smashed a bottle over my face and another is when the club sold gone off alcohol so I ended up with poisoning. Glad I wasn't labeled a drunkern idiot then. The biggest problem we have in this country is stress. So many people are over worked and under paided. It says something when depression will be the largest illness in this country in the next few years. But the UK is seen as a place were you have to work crazy hours just to get ahead. Not condoning people being idiots, but I can see why this leads to alcohol problems.
There are people who turn to alcohol when suffering from stress and this is sad and they need support. I don't think that Whiteley is on about this as there is a much larger number of people who get pissed and behave badly because it is the thing they do. Don't read a statement and take it as a washout. It was a generalised statement that applies to lots of those people and a pretty fair comment. There will always be some people that have other reasons or situations.
What I was getting at is it's not the idiots that are messing up the NHS. It is the people with alcohol problems due to stress etc. More than 9 million people in England drink more than the recommended daily limits The number of older people between the ages of 60 and 74 admitted to hospitals in England with mental and behavioural disorders associated with alcohol use has risen by over 150% in the past ten years, while the figure for 15-59 years old has increased by 94% https://www.alcoholconcern.org.uk/alcohol-statistics We have a serious problem in this country.
