Palace Renovations

dinyull

I wish I could apply for £370m for renovations to my house over the next 10 years.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-38025513

How much are the royals worth again?

fenix

I think we each pay about 50p each for them per year. And we do get to take the pee out of them, have them rescue us in helicopters and get to see baby pics. Oh and the tourists come in too.

It's not a bad deal.

You can get grants for houses - I got free insulation the other year - its really made a difference. No hassle getting it at all.

dinyull

On the face of it, it might not be a bad deal. It's tough to stomach though when funding for so many services has been cut to such drastic levels, people relying on foodbanks etc and they have a property portfolio worth £11.5b.

Garry H

Cheaper than having to rebuild it once it burns down to the ground due to dodgy wiring.

fat daddy

allegedly the royals generate £500m a year in tourism so I guess the £365m to renovate one of their 3 ain tourist atractions isn't too bad

Garry H

Get rid of them. The tourist attraction will still be there.

fat daddy

Garry H wrote:

Get rid of them. The tourist attraction will still be there.

and so would the £365m renovation bill :?

Bobbinogs

Garry H wrote:

Get rid of them. The tourist attraction will still be there.

Yepp, I would go with this. Sick to death of seeing the dim chinless wonders and their tarts in the press. Yes, the property would still need renovating but I would rather see that as an investment in the country's estate...than just money given away to the royal's country estate!

Garry H

I know, but we wouldn't have to pay them dole money.

Seen Lenin lately?

Edit: That was in response to Fat Daddy

Anonymous

France seems to do ok without the royals. People buy Hello to see the royals, and visit London to see the palaces.

I bet you could make more income from selling entry tickets to the royal estate than you would lose otherwise.

DeVlaeminck

The true cost of the royals is over 300m a year if you include security, income on estates etc. As for them bringing in 500m a year - France seems to do ok with cultural and historical tourism and they got shot of their royalty a few hundred years ago.

X-post with above

kingstongraham

I want to see a presidential race between Alan Sugar and Cherie Blair.

Bobbinogs

KingstonGraham wrote:

I want to see a presidential race between Alan Sugar and Cherie Blair.

I would rather see the same two but with egg and spoons...

fat daddy

DeVlaeminck wrote:

The true cost of the royals is over 300m a year if you include security, income on estates etc. As for them bringing in 500m a year - France seems to do ok with cultural and historical tourism and they got shot of their royalty a few hundred years ago.

Buckingham Palace without the Monarchy would do ok I am sure .. it would be a like the less impressive Versaillis

But, ok so they cost £300m and make £500m ... get rid of them then, you are only loosing £200m a year ..... my point was they don't actually cost us that much as they bring in money as well as chew through it.

Personally I like having stuff like a royal Family .. its part of British heritage and arguably a significant part of what makes England an international destination but if the rest of the UK wants to go ahead and get rid of it I am not going to argue about it. ... Just be amused when people start banging on that Immigration is ruining our culture without realising that it was infact them that added to it

Bobbinogs

Have I strayed into the Brexit thread again???

fat daddy

dunno .... too much hatred in there so don't read it

Garry H

The Black Death is part of British heritage. I don't want that back either.

mr_goo

I think I'm missing something here. The UK is in its worst housing crisis in decades. I watched the BBC news last night and saw that gut wrenching interview of a single mother with two kids living in one room in a guest house with shared facilities. She had been evicted despite having paid all her bills, never been in arears. Having to eat, live and sleep in a pokey room on your own is bad enough but with two young children?
And here we have the most privileged family in the land. Who want for nothing, now getting a £300m+ makeover for their shack. Perhaps they should watch the news more often and see what is happening to the real people.

Can we have a referendum on whether we should become a Republic?

Bobbinogs

Mr Goo wrote:

I think I'm missing something here. The UK is in its worst housing crisis in decades. I watched the BBC news last night and saw that gut wrenching interview of a single mother with two kids living in one room in a guest house with shared facilities. She had been evicted despite having paid all her bills, never been in arears. Having to eat, live and sleep in a pokey room on your own is bad enough but with two young children?
And here we have the most privileged family in the land. Who want for nothing, now getting a £300m+ makeover for their shack. Perhaps they should watch the news more often and see what is happening to the real people.

Can we have a referendum on whether we should become a Republic?

If we do have a referendum on that one, can we have a timescale mentioned this time round??

dinyull

Mr Goo wrote:

I think I'm missing something here. The UK is in its worst housing crisis in decades. I watched the BBC news last night and saw that gut wrenching interview of a single mother with two kids living in one room in a guest house with shared facilities. She had been evicted despite having paid all her bills, never been in arears. Having to eat, live and sleep in a pokey room on your own is bad enough but with two young children?
And here we have the most privileged family in the land. Who want for nothing, now getting a £300m+ makeover for their shack. Perhaps they should watch the news more often and see what is happening to the real people.

Can we have a referendum on whether we should become a Republic?

That's the crux.

What do we expect though after this cracker: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-11403544

mr_goo

Dinyull wrote:

Mr Goo wrote:

I think I'm missing something here. The UK is in its worst housing crisis in decades. I watched the BBC news last night and saw that gut wrenching interview of a single mother with two kids living in one room in a guest house with shared facilities. She had been evicted despite having paid all her bills, never been in arears. Having to eat, live and sleep in a pokey room on your own is bad enough but with two young children?
And here we have the most privileged family in the land. Who want for nothing, now getting a £300m+ makeover for their shack. Perhaps they should watch the news more often and see what is happening to the real people.

Can we have a referendum on whether we should become a Republic?

That's the crux.

What do we expect though after this cracker: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-11403544

Good grief. She's got more neck than a giraffe.

And in answer to time scale on a Republic Referendum. I'd say a fortnight is plenty time to pack belongings and move into just one of their many residences. That's just Queen and Phil the Greek. Then the vacant properties can be used as centres for the homeless.
The rest of the hangers on I'll give 3 months to sort out a private house to move into. Chazza could move into one of the places down at Poundbury.

rjsterry

Supposing we did abolish the monarchy, we would then presumably have another elected head of state, who would need some form of official residence. Given - just for starters - the security requirements and the need to be able to entertain foreign heads of state on official visits, it would need to be quite a special building, probably in a central location befitting the office of president... that empty palace would do nicely.

Garry H

Nothing to stop the PM of the day from being head of state. He/she can stay put at No 10 and any visiting dignataries can kip at the nearest Premier Inn

fenix

In the scheme of things- the money for the Royals is nothing.

Remember Fred the Shred and RBS ? 45 Billion they got off the tax payer.

That would have gone some way toward the housing crisis.

Brexit is just going to cost us billions more whilst the people who lied to create it have fantastic salaries and plenty of options for extra cash.

mamba80

yes fix up the Palace, its a great attraction, the Q is much "loved" and she has stayed out of political debate, however, who is next in line?
by the time the renovations have been done and trebled in cost, charlie will be there and he is lets face it, he is an idiot.
His contribution to the homeless is that twee village down in Dorset ffs!

coopster_the_1st

These renovations are a tenth of the cost of renovating the Palace of Westminster where the UK parliament sits. I don't see the huge negative comments on the cost of that!

These buildings and their history are what differentiates Great Britain and we only benefit as a country (tourism) from maintaining and selling that history to the world. Why would anyone visit Windsor Castle or Buckingham Palace if we no longer have the Royal family creating the intrigue for tourists.

Anonymous

Not sure about all those French palaces and Chateaux are doing brimming with tourists either?

rick_chasey

I'm sympathetic to upkeep of buildings of specific historical and national importance.But then I studied history so I would say that.

Turning the UK into a republic would be a constitutional ballache, and the costs wouldn't disappear, as rjsterry has illustrated.

Anonymous

I think it's the ridiculous notion of being being born into such privilege without it really having been earned.

The ultimate state-funded celebrity.

ugo.santalucia

Dinyull wrote:

I wish I could apply for £370m for renovations to my house over the next 10 years.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-38025513

How much are the royals worth again?

I suppose if you had millions of visitors coming to your town from all over the world because of your house, you'd have good grounds to ask for that...

Most likely you'd struggle to fight a demolition order, should your property get in the way of HS3

rjsterry

Garry H wrote:

Nothing to stop the PM of the day from being head of state. He/she can stay put at No 10 and any visiting dignataries can kip at the nearest Premier Inn

That'll really sell us as a bright, outward-looking nation, keen to do business with the world.

More seriously, given the fairly polarised nature of politics in this country, a non partisan head of state is far more likely to be an effective representative of the entire country.