I was watching CBS Sunday Morning and it was mentioned that Prince William’s wedding cost about $30M (or was is 30M pounds?). Has anyone seen a breakdown of how much of this money comes from the Royal Family’s vast fortune vs. London’s (or the UK’s) coffers?
Also, it is accurate to say that all of the money for the wedding ultimately came from the British taxpayers since they pay an annual stipend to the Royal Family, or is that an oversimplification?
I can’t answer the first part, but the royal family paid for all of the weding itself. It was the security costs that were shouldered by the taxpayer, but those were considerable.
Only the Queen is directly funded by the taxpayer, most of which goes on maintaining the palaces and the staff within them. The rest get income through land and other holdings.
… except “an undisclosed sum” from the Middletons. I suspect this was a face-saving way to allow them to contribute a small amount that they could afford while the Windsors bore the brunt of the expenses.
SciFiSam is closest. The Windsors and Middletons did, apparently, split the cost of the actual wedding, but to the best of my knowledge (and what’s been publicly released), there’s been nothing about who paid what.
I’d suspect that 30,000,000 wouldn’t be far off the total. Though I’d bet that at least half of that was security.
The problem is, is that stuff like the carriages are maintained by the state, so who technically paid for that ? Yes, the crown does have “private” holdings, but seeing as royalty has pillaged the “public purse” for centuries, it’s hard to guess.
For example, Charlie isn’t just the Prince of Wales, he’s also the Duke of Cornwall - and the “Duchy of Cornwall” is a vast holding that generates millions of £’s a year
Personally, I reckon we should “sack” the bloody lot. Work out what they would have earned if their positions were “paid” ones, give them that and sequester the rest for return to the public purse.
Most of them would have enough to be comfortable. Those that don’t/didn’t would just have to learn the meaning of the term “UB40”…
Money well-spent, I’d say: Bloomberg - Are you a robot?
Presumably, if you “sack the bloody lot,” they will get to keep their private land holdings. It’s my understanding that currently the royal family turns over about 200 million pounds of their annual private earnings in exchange for about 8 million pounds on the civil list.
So who’s costing whom?
Absolutely. Not to mention that a lot of this money (for security, for flowers, etc.) was spent was spent in and around London, so now those citizens have extra income to spend in turn. I can’t see how this was “wasted” money, whether you support the Royal system or not. It’s the perfect example of “trickle down” economics that actually trickled down instead of being hoarded!
Money well spent from London’s perspective, perhaps. Not so much for the UK as a whole. I don’t quite follow the logic of how spending money on stuff you don’t need or particularly want benefits the economy. Seems to me like it would divert money from more justifiable uses.
Anyway, I too would like to see who exactly paid for this huge operation. I doubt that it was the Windsors to any significant degree (they’re rich but they’re not that rich), and rather suspect that it was us taxpayers.
Are there any cost/benefit analyses of the wedding that factor in the cost to the economy of the extra bank holiday? I’m very curious to see what the actual net figures are, whether it was a boost or a drag.
Why would you presume that? Historically, when monarchies have been abolished, a large part, or even the entirety, of their estates pass to the republican state. You don’t really think that, say, the Hofburg and Schönbrunn Palaces, and all their priceless works of art, solid silver furniture, gilt dinner services, royal carriages, huge tracts of land, etc., still belong to the Habsburg family, do you? I think it’s safer to presume that, as in Austria, Hungary, Germany, Russia, etc., if and when the British monarchy is abolished, the vast majority of royal holdings will be nationalized, and thereafter sold off to private concerns, or in the case of palaces and other holdings of historical, artistic, or other national importance, operated by the state as museums, art galleries, parks, etc.
just compensation in such an eventuality does not come into play?
I suppose it depends on the circumstances under which the monarchy is abolished. “Just compensation” certainly didn’t figure into the removal of the Russian imperial family. In any case, it’s unlikely that any monarchial family would be given more than a small fraction of their holdings’ worth in compensation for nationalization. Many of them hold works of art which are quite literally priceless.
That assumes that those properties are the personal properties of the Queen. However, British law (and laws in Commonwealth realms) have long recognised that much of what is held in the name of the Crown is public property. The Crown is the embodiment of the Executive branch of government, and holds property on behalf of the public. Since Her [hypothetically former] Majesty had no personal interest in the property, she would have no right to compensation.
A possible analogy is a trust. The trustee holds property on behalf of the beneficiaries. If the beneficiaries decide to wind up the trust and distribute the property amongst themselves, the trustee does not have any claim to compensation, even if the trust property had been held in the name of the trustee.
Similarly, if the people of the United Kingdom were to establish a republic which provides that all public property is held in the name of “the people of the U.K.”, that would be a change in legal title, but not really a change in the reality - most Crown property has been held by the Crown on behalf of the people.
There’s no constitutional right to compensation for property taken by the government in the U.K. If the monarchy were abolished in the U.K., the Parliament could make any arrangements it liked with respect to crown property and personal property of H.M. In any case, the legislation would have to be signed by H.M., unless there was a revolution as in 1649 or 1688.
A revolution involving violence, or the threat of violence, may not be necessary. If, for example, Parliament abolishes the monarchy with overwhelming popular support, and then chooses not to seek ratification by the queen (or if the queen refuses to sign the instrument), the royal family and its tiny minority of supporters may well consider the prospect of violent resistance to be futile.
I’d heard that the wedding cost the British economy several billion in lost productivity due to the holiday it provided. It doesn’t look like that’s factored into the overall cost.
Any circumstance might be possible. There might be a Bolshevik revolution in Britain and the new Politburo might have all the members of the royal family shot.
However, should Britain become a republic, what scenario is most likely? I should think that it’s likely that Elizabeth of the House of Windsor, ex-queen, would come out of it remaining one of the wealthiest private property owners in Britain, including Balmoral and Sandringham. She’d probably only lose the properties that are already considered part of the state, like Buckingham and Windsor.
But that’s because employers hate their employees ever having a day off. It’s not as if you decide not to buy a washing machine or whatever just because you couldn’t buy it that particular Friday.
What? Bank holiday economic costs aren’t just retail - it’s things like hourly workers not getting any wages for that day (or alternatively, companies having to pay overtime), companies losing productivity (for example, the weekly publication I edit didn’t run an issue last week because of the three-day work week), etc.
Well, did I say it was only retail?
Do you really think bank holidays actually do cost money then? We must lose hundreds of billions by not forcing workers to go in seven days a week.