When Edward VIII abdicated he retained ownership of Sandringham and Balmoral. His successor, George VI, actually had to buy them from him.
I’ve heard this before but never understood what it means.
I know there are people who buy tickets for whale-watching, and I assume in California there are a few dollars to be made in bus tours to the stars’ homes. But are there more than a handful of people out there that fly to England, stand in a queue for an hour, and then pay money to watch the royals parade about? Like in Arlington with the changing of the guard?
I always assumed that if you boxed up the royals and shipped them off to the Fletcher Memorial Home, the Brits would still get buckets of duckets from people flying in to see the palace (with or without the chalice), the fuzzy hats, the crows, the fog, and everything else English.
Or is it like Paris and Britney? That is, no one would really give too much thought to those little rat-dogs or some hip n trendy bar, but pay them enough to carry one about or throw them a couple dollars to flash their cooches in the parking lot, and you’ve got an instant tourist attraction.
I think what it means is that pro-royal surveys ask foreigners (i.e. prospective tourists) “what they think of when they think of Britain”…“errrrr…the Queen? Buckingham Palace?..”
I think it’s more that, if the UK had never had a monarchy, there wouldn’t be all these palaces and rituals and things that the tourists come to see, so Britain as a whole would get much less tourist income.
Oh great. Now I have an image of the Queen, who looks a great deal like my grandmother, flashing her cooches in the car park. Thanks a lot.
:: shudder ::
People don’t come to see cathedrals, castles, museums, whole cities, countryside, the Cavern, or Stonehenge?
Edit: ‘Never had’ is different to ‘should not now have’. Count me in the latter.
Yes, quite. After all, the lack of monarchy in France killed off the tourist trade at Versailles, didn’t it? Or maybe not.
This is being discussed here in the Kingdom of Sweden every now and then. Right now because of the marriage that been announced recently, between the crown princess Victoria and that bloke from Ockelbo. A grand wedding next year which the tax paying citizens of this democracy will pay for.
While I’m a democrat at heart and feel that a Kingdom is an undemocratic institution (though the King has no real power) that naturally should be abolished, I get some of the the points the royalists are putting forward, a few being of economic importance,
namely that the fact that Sweden is a kingdom generates a lot of interest in our land, both tourist-wise and not the least, company-wise.
Fact is, I agree, that when a Swedish company or organization is doing a thing somewhere around the world, and the King happens to be present, the amount of media time and general interest surpasses anything any non-kingdom country gets.
Say that Swedish trade and industry organizations are doing a PR campaign in Japan, just to get the attention of Japanese trade and industry organizations, in itself if would probably disappear in the media flow.
However, if the King of Sweden is present at the time, it will get a lot of media time, which no president (from an unsignificant European country) could ever master.
The amount of money these stunts generates, and the amounts of money that flows into Sweden because of the tourism we get because of it being a Kingdom - with castles and everything - is impossible to establish.
Hence the discussion. But if I would guess, having a King and a Queen, and a crown princess who will sport a wedding next year, is probably a good deal.
Now, this was slightly off topic I realize, but I aint gonna delete this long post now.
Sure they do. It’s just that they also come to see Buckingham Palace, Royal Coronations, the Crown Jewels, etc, as well. That’s surely accounts for some additional tourist draw, right?
If they come for coronations, they must have been disappointed. The other things I’m sure would still exist even if we stopped assigning importance to people through accident of birth. (Edit: do people lose interest in pyramids or colosseums because pharaohs and Roman emporers aren’t in charge?)
Well, what I meant is that the mere fact that Britain still has a royal family living in those palaces and whatnot casts a certain glamour on the whole country for a lot of people, who are willing to pay lots of money to go see places where royals still hang out. Remember how enamored so many people were with Charles and Diana’s wedding? Stuff like that translates directly into tourist cash, which profits a good many ordinary British citizens. Of course the monarchy is considerably more ragged and tarnished these days than they were in 1981, but it’s still true.
I think it’s particularly true in the UK for Americans, because we hear far more about the UK royals than about, say, the Danish royal family. Lots of democracy-minded Americans who wouldn’t actually want to live under a real king (though some probably would!) are still slightly in love with the idea of having real live kings and queens and princesses, not to mention handsome prince Williams to have little crushes on (if they’re under 20).
Now me personally, I’m more of an Avebury, Chawton and Oxford kind of gal, but there’s no denying that having living royals is a moneymaker in modern Britain.
The point about Charles and the Duchy of Cornwall is well-made: products from the duchy are sold all over the world, usually in packaging featuring Charles’ watercolour paintings.
Elizabeth II is also Queen of Australia and various other places - do any members of the Commonwealth chip in?
My in-laws are Swedish and have some funny ideas about the Swedish royal family. They’re obsessed with them but hate them at the same time.
It certainly did, at the time 
When the Queen came to visit here in Alberta (Canada) I heard on the news that the trip cost us 400,000$ cdn. Not sure if that’s our portion of security, or the cost of shutting down various public buildings and streets, though it might suggest they don’t pick up the tab everywhere they go. All I know is that before she came our north/south artery was called the Number 2 Highway, now it’s called the Queen Elizabeth 2 (QE2).
Not as far as I know, but of course we pay (not a whole lot, considering) for our Governor General and Lieutenant-Governors.
Well being nitpicky Liz is the Queen of Canada which is a job in its own right,if we had a revolution over here and ousted her she would still be your own queen until you decided otherwise.
That aside when the Canadian P.M. comes over here no doubt the British taxpayer pays for the major part of his security just as we are paying millions of pounds sterling for the security of the world leaders attending the G20 summit being held in the U.K. at the moment.
That apart, on another topic and unfortunatly I have no cite I read somewhere that when the Queen makes a state visit somewhere shortly afterwards British exports rocket in the country she has visited though for how long I dont know.
Hey, don’t worry about a cite, it’s not that kind of message board.
You are undoubtedly correct, however, at least in general. But does this have anything to do with her royal status? Or is it just the natural result of any kind of state visit and the paraphernalia that goes with it (business and governmental contacts etc. etc.).
Undoubtedly the hype associated with a visit of this sort helps but she is very much a superstar in her own right,when she visited some London businesses(Last week?) BBC London TV said that receiving the Royal Warrant (As in this particular brand is bought and used by H.R.H.)boosted sales particulary in Japan.
Another point is that, as stated above, without the Queen, we would land up paying for a ‘President’
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what really concerns me about that, is that the ‘President’ would almost certainly be some slimy, time-serving toe rag
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keep firm hold of nurse, for fear of finding something worse
I’m not sure how much the Queen costs New Zealand but I would rather have her as Head of State than some washed up old politician as a president.
Fidji? Or did you mean Fiji. Considering Fiji has always been part of the Commonwealth I’m not sure Chirac would have been doing any good sniffing around there.
Right now not even the Commonwealth is happy with Fiji…well not the country just their little despot!
I’ve had two enjoyable vacations in England, so I’ll play devil’s advocate. Would most of these cathedrals and castles, some museums (the Victoria and Albert springs to mind), and several estates in the countryside have existed if the UK never had a monarchy? Would the museums and estates have such compelling works of art (jewels, armours, portraits) if no royals had commissioned them? That’s besides contemporary contributions to the performing arts such as the Royal Shakespeare Company, and historical ones such as Elizabeth I’s patronage of Shakespeare himself. Also to consider: if the monarchy had been dissolved at some point in history (as in France or Russia), how much would have been lost? Would there have been wanton destruction or wholesale distribution and subsequent loss to the public as happened in these countries?