OT- The Queen's Christmas Day Message to the Commonwealth

[roger_ramjet]

Ah you must learn, Rom, that Swale and "expert opinion" are very often many miles apart and whilst I agree with some of what he says, his extreme vitriol on this one is too strong for my stomach. Im guessing Willie Hamilton has a long lost brother....

[MadAmster]

Benefit scroungers eh? In reality, the Crown Estates provide for Royal Expenditure. The Royal Family pockets 15% to cover all royal expenses, upkeep and events. The balance goes to HM's Treasury. The estate has paid over 2.4 billion pounds to HM's Treasury for public use over the past 10 years. Some benefit scroungers they are!

That is almost a quarter of a billion pounds a year Romanis. May I have the link to this information so that I can debunk the "scrounger" label whenever FB posters have a go at our Lizzie please?

[Andy_Faber]

That is almost a quarter of a billion pounds a year Romanis. May I have the link to this information so that I can debunk the "scrounger" label whenever FB posters have a go at our Lizzie please?

I'll help

http://www.thecrownestate.co.uk/our-...l-information/

Even Swale's much publicised pension pot can't be that big surely

[Romanis]

Oh sorry MA I'm WRONG. They provided 2.6 billion not 2.4.
Horrible really this Queen. Paying to be Head of State.
She should be paid instead in line with other monarchies.
Remove and replace.

[Andy_Faber]

Oh sorry MA I'm WRONG. They provided 2.6 billion not 2.4.
Horrible really this Queen. Paying to be Head of State.
She should be paid instead in line with other monarchies.
Remove and replace.

The point I was hoping Rog was going to help me make was that Queenie takes less income from the Crown Estates than an owner in normal life would. Clearly he was off in his counting house at the time.

[swaledale]

Ah but there comes swale with his 'expert opinion.' And I dunno who, who said there's no need for a HoS tier, that politicians will be able to settle the issue of leadership and governance by themselves without a quarrel And the Civil Service actually does the job of Monarchy. Might as well dispense with politicians, elections and Parliament and let the Civil Service run the country.

They already do to a great extent, you don't have to read many political books or speak to people who work in that field to understand the ability of a thee civil service to frustrate politicians aims. Nor to understand the undue influence of a tiny minority of the population an unelected elite who dont work in anyone's interests but their own, but you revel in the "power" of an irrelevant anachonistic, foreign born ruling class, tip your hat, a bow your head, though funny how you don't actually live in the country where you claim to believe such a system is so good!

But then the most fevernt monarchists and so called patriotic people are often those who live abroad...nostalgia aint what it used to be.

[swaledale]

Oh sorry MA I'm WRONG. They provided 2.6 billion not 2.4.
Horrible really this Queen. Paying to be Head of State.
She should be paid instead in line with other monarchies.
Remove and replace.

Indeed remove and restore the land to its rightful owners, I'm sure just as one can trace the ownership back through the royal family's lineage, you would eventually come across the poor *******s who it was appropriated from all those years ago! In fact in the 1700's public park land was appropriated by the Monarch for the grounds of Kensington Palace, so one does not have to go very far back to find evidence of misappropriation!

Anyway the cost or otherwise of the Monarchy is irrelevant, how can you possibly have a section of society who have a "right" and power by accident of birth, how is that democratic? How does that promote we are equal in society and how does that square with being head of a church in direct contradiction of the teachings of one of its adopted prophets?

None of it makes sense, unless your a natural ass kisser!

[Romanis]

It's when you live abroad that you see how foreign govts struggle and oppress.
So your expert opinion comes from speaking to 2 or 3 persons who claim to know the inner workings.

Oh dear how then I as a former civil servant don't know this? Or rather I do and also know and just like you know them better to know that bluster and exaggeration from civil servants trying claim stuff and their self importance is commonplace.

Foreign born? In that case half the British population should be deported or declared non citizens. Because they have some foreign line in their family. Nice to know that the 'Aryan race thingy' is alive and kicking. Where were Elizabeth Charles and William born to make them foreign?

Some public park was appropriated you say by whom? How did the monarchy do that when there was a Govt of the day and the King had lost his absolute power?

Better to described an ass kisser than a myopic fool who stubbornly sticks to a few hearsay irrelevant facts to convince himself that his argument is right.

[Andy_Faber]

Indeed remove and restore the land to its rightful owners.....

your bitterness about who knows what really does blind you to the daftness of your arguments. What happens when you discover that your own property was appropriated in the past? And what about the millions of other folk to whom that would apply? Get real. Ironically your idea would disadvantage the very people you seem to champion, the late-comers to the UK - you can be damned sure that following your poppycock to its conclusion would deprive almost all recent immigrants of what's legally theirs. Try to think things through a little.

[ramAnag]

I find your ‘it’s only when you live abroad you see how foreign governments struggle and oppress’ argument to justify the Monarchy increasingly bizarre Rom.

Of course some foreign governments are oppressive just as some Monarchs have behaved like despots in the past. I’m not certain where you live to have reached your conclusion, but if we look at modern democracies such as Germany, Italy, France and the U.S. I doubt the people would consider themselves oppressed and they seem to be managing very well without a Royal Family.

Andy, I know you and Swale will never see eye to eye but you can’t just be blind to everything he says because of it’s source and, at the risk of again being accused of acting like his ‘rear gunner’, what is there to object to in the second paragraph of #147? It’s surely true isn’t it...there is a huge contradiction in having a ‘leader’ and ‘section of society’ within a modern democracy who are there by ‘birthright’ alone and the same is true as regards the paradox of having a ‘head of the CoE’ who’s existence is in direct conflict with at least some of the teachings of Christ.