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Royal wedding v Diabetic bread line?????

Its what we call an opinion thread
the fact being that anyone like yourself can say what ever they think no one person is right or wrong .If you feel offended by it you can choose not to join in :D
thankyou for your opinion JF.
 
Justfocus, I think you may have read me wrong there, I respect all opinions, I was just asking about this trend of having a go at the royals, it seems a generation thing, as being 60, it seems only recently that this, has cropped up regarding what they do or what they cost, seems to trouble some people?
 
You could be right about the generation thing, Trand. I think we're about the same age.

I can see and understand the arguments for a republic - I personally just think that a constitutional monarchy is the preferable alternative, and I have no problem with my few pence a year going to our present royal family if that is what it takes to stop us having an elected politician in their place. Since I don't trust any politician of whatever side or colour - with the possible exception of Paddy Ashdown who is (was!) eye-candy to my generation :lol: , I'd rather have the status quo.

Or even the Status Quo :lol:

They are a pleasant-enough young couple, they brought in lots of visitors, the weather was nice and we all had a good time. Nobody got killed. JF didn't intend this to get political, so let's not go any further. End of!

Viv 8)
 
Our royal family work tirelessly all year and every year supporting British interests at home and abroad, they have no political sway here at home so IMHO getting rid of them and becoming a republic would be a waste of time and have no political impact other than to replace our apolitical monarchy with an elected political figure and if we get the alternative voting system we could theoretically end up with a BNP President. Not a good day by any stretch of the imagination.

Yes their Germans, no they were not elected but our royal family are well respected around the world, bring in billions in revenue for this country and IMHO are great for Great Britain. I am not really interested in them but at least I know who they are, I have no idea who our elected trade minister is, and neither I suspect do most businessmen around the world, but like me they all know the British royal family.
 
Loathe them or love them, it makes no difference.
The budget for the Royal Wedding is a separate entity and would not have been diverted to the NHS if the wedding had not gone ahead.
I know that diabetics feel hard done by because of the inconsistent care around the country and for Type 2's being denied test strips. Most chronic and acute illnesses are short funded and nothing is going to change soon. We have the remodelling of the NHS to look forward to, that is what fills me with dread.
 
Hi Cartherine
could you just clear your point regarding ( do you think the royal family dont get funded of the United Kingdom people?) or do you think they do? :? :?
manythanks JF :D :D
 
Hi JF,

There are budgets that the taxpayer pays for. Say for example the Police Budget was underfunded, they would not take funds from the NHS or Education to pay for the shortfall. The money put aside for the security needed for the Royal Wedding would not have gone into the NHS budget or any other budget if the wedding had not gone ahead but back into the coffers.

I know that the Royal Family costs the taxpayer about 69p per head. The money needed for the security was on top of this.
 
I've just Googled 'Civil List' (which is what the money the Queen gets from the State is called). The Wikipedia entry is quite interesting.

She gets £7.9 million from the State (us) which is a sum fixed in 2000 - so no inflation increases since then.

72% of that (about five-and-three-quarter million) goes on staff salaries (cleaners, chauffeurs, grooms, secretaries, cooks etc etc.). I think some bankers get paid more than that as individuals?

The Civil List is not for the Queen's personal use, but to spend on staff, premises (eg Buckingham House belongs to the State) and other offical expenses such as state functions - the garden parties are included in that, as are Honours ceremonies etc. Maintenance for State-owned properties that the Queen uses is paid for by the State, but would be even if we became a Republic - Buck House would be turned into a museum, I expect. She personally pays for her own private properties, eg Sandringham.

I'm sure Catherine's 69p per tax payer is correct, but if you look at it another way -

she gets £8 million (approx);
there are 60 million of us (again approx; it's more)

so she gets less than 13p per head of population.

The Crown Estates generate over £210 million for the Treasury; this is not the Queen's money.

She pays income tax now, though she didn't always. She is, privately, a very rich woman; I'd be interested to know how much income tax she pays (I didn't try to find the figure). It may be more than the Civil List figure :shock: :lol: - though I'll bet she's got a good accountant!

The total cost of the wedding is not the same as the cost to the taxpayer. The extra cost of the security would be met by the State, over and above the normal cost of employing the military and police personnel anyway. There'd be portaloos for the crowds and so on. As Catherine said, that money would not otherwise have gone to the NHS!

But I'll bet the actual cost of the wedding - the church fees, the catering and so on - was actually paid for by the two families. Media rumour said the Middletons were paying over £100,000. The State may have contributed to the costs for the guests who had to be invited (as opposed to friends and family).

I'd like to know whether the Middleton family is going to need security from now on. Pippa would be a prime target for a stalker.

Viv 8)
 
The actual costs of the wedding itself was met by both the Royal Family and the Middletons.

Yes, the 'taxpayers' paid for the security and safety aspects, as they do for ANY state occasion, and indeed non-state occassions (any idea how much it costs to put on the London Marathon year after year after year...?)

Also, to give a little perspective, the Royal wedding cost us less than did the Pope's visit last year; and I'd certainly rather watch the wedding of 2 young people than that old dolt getting more attention than he deserves.
 
From the Daily Mail so don't know how accurate!
Tower Hamlets Council said the cost of hosting the marathon last year was £80,000, but charged the race organizers just £5,000, adding that it was a charity event which raised the profile of the borough.
Lewisham would say only that it gave services 'a reduced rate'.
Greenwich Council charges the organisers nothing for cleaning up the after the race.
The Metropolitan Police said that in 2008 policing the marathon cost well over £400,000 – equivalent to overseeing the Cup Final.

The London Marathon informed Dispatches that they paid the Met only around £52,000 for policing in 2009. That’s because, the Met says unlike the Cup Final, it’s a charitable event

From my own observation it also brings a lot of money into London. We paid for accomodation, meals and transport for 2. Other members of the family also came on the day to support, again spending on food and transport. (the pubs on route seemd to be making a fortune this year). I also know that a lot...though obviously not all of the clearing up is done by the volunteers at the various water stations. The worst thing must be removing the empty sticky gel packets.
Things like the blue line and markers are (it says in the marathon bump) removed by the organisers at about the time a 7.5 hour runner passes .
 
For balance the VLM reply to that programme
http://www.virginlondonmarathon.com/new ... tches_faq/
I paid a 'normal' £30 entry fee through the ballot entry system (I applied unsucessfully for 5 years in succession and then got automatic entry for the 6th application). There was no onus on me to raise any money for charity (though I did). Many runners are very unhappy about the emphasis on the charity element. One runner interviewed for TV at the start was asked which charity she was running .She said' I'm running for my club, it's a running race! As I understand it the original intention of the London Marathon was not to be a vehicle to raise money for a variety of charities (other than an aim to raise some for recreation and sport in London). Brasher and Disley wanted it to , showcase London and it's abilities to organise a great sporting event, to be a fast international standard marathon event and to be a peoples marathon .. ie a sporting event for the masses. It has been rather taken over by the charity aspect.
 
I agree that the wedding brought in millions in revenue to the country plus the expectation of millions more in tourism as people across the world will now want to come and see things for themselves in the future such as the changing of the guard, the royal mews, etc. For every person who works because of all this, taxes get paid in to the country's coffers so I don't resent it and I am pretty sure that both families chipped in handsomely to pay for all the private celebrations, flowers, clothes, etc. I can't see that this has anything to do with the health service whatsoever.
 
It is good to see so many people are so passionate about the issue of the cost of the royal wedding to the taxpayer and the further debate of what the royal family costs the taxpayer.

Well in actual fact the royal family generates far more income for the UK ecomony than they cost. Last year we paid them £37million, the royal estates alone generated in excess of £200million - how much do you think the government hit them for in taxes?

There are so many ways that the Royal Family generates income for this country, tourism alone is worth £500million in a year.

It is reported that without looking at the net gains of business, from their trips abroad and tourism last year the royal family generated £127million more than we paid them.

I'm not a royalist, far from it but I am a business owner and I understand that the Royal Family is a very viable business that generates a lot more money for this country than it costs.
 
Out of interest, Cornfedpig, where do you get the £37 million from? I found the figure of just under £8 million for the Civil List from Google, (my post above) and I'd be interested to see the breakdown of the rest.

Viv 8)
 
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