Queen to get royal pay freeze

[CountAllVotes]

Source: CBC News

Even the Royal Family is feeling the financial pinch these days, with the Queen's income to be frozen until 2015, according to reports.

From £38.3 milion ($60.7 million Cdn) of taxpayers' money in 2008, the Queen's pay has effectively fallen each year.

By 2013, that will be down to £30 million ($47.5 million).

Back in 1991-02, the Queen got £77.3 millon ($122 million) in taxpayer funding to cover household expenses.

No link yet.

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Must be rough trying to live on £30 million a year!

:nopity: :nopity: :nopity:

[leftyohiolib]

1. oh dear we are most certainly NOT amused! i'll be forced to eat one of my corgis

[dipsydoodle]

2. Royal family costs us about a dollar a year each

Good value as far as I and most of the population are concerned. What have you got for a dollar. :sarcasm:

[No Elephants]

12. Independence?

Sorry, could not resist.

In my defense (Sarah Palin voice) I can see the site of the Boston Tea Party (the REAL one, dammit) from my window.

[truebrit71]

13. ...from what????

At least we have contained our royalty...Yours is stilling the country (into the ground)....

Independence?? Don't make me :rofl:

[No Elephants]

17. Roll around on the floor all you want. We've never regretted it, which is more than

King George, et al. can say.

Cheerie bye.

[truebrit71]

19. No you are absolutely right...the UK would be much better off with all of your crushing debt...

...:-)

Toodles!!

[No Elephants]

21. Oh, gee. You really told me. Yet, I am not posting on a British board.

[dipsydoodle]

15. Hi Joe

:)

[dipsydoodle]

3. Link here for you

The Queen’s funding will now equal 15 per cent of the profits made two years previously by the Crown Estate, under the new law which passed six weeks ago.

The Crown Estate includes Regent Street, Windsor Great Park and over 50 per cent of the UK’s shoreline.

Chancellor George Osborne has imposed the freeze on the Queen’s taxpayer funding – setting payments at £30m per year until April 2013.

But she will receive a further one-off payment of £1m to fund the cost of the diamond jubilee.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2069742/Queen-income-frozen-2015-austerity-measures.html#ixzz1fgiRIrzw



Must be rough trying to live on £30 million a year! That's one side of the account : now produce the other half which shows expenditure.

[dmallind]

4. And yet this is one of the most effective investments in the UK budget

The royals no longer have any real power or even much influence in British life and politics. But by all the gods they bring in the tourists. Let's face it (and as a native-born Brit this is not any kind of unsavory prejudice) why would people want to go to a separated island nation away from mainland Europe that doesn't have as good a climate, doesn't have as spectacular scenery, doesn't have as low prices, and has at the best no more historical interest than the far more convenient and pleasant mainland if it didn't have all the pomp and circumstance?

Yes I'm more than aware that some of the best individual attractions are in the UK (Natural History Museum, Tate, etc), but if your average American or Asian tourist wanted to combine the best scenery, history, weather, attractions etc in Europe, there's precious little reason to add on the extra ferry/flight. What they do get the chance to see is more of the royal/unbroken line schtick. Even though other European nations have royalty, few of them have the same continuity and/or the same pagaentry. Unlike Spain and the Scandinavian nations, Britain has not been absorbed and separated and reabsorbed etc since 1066, and they do a better job of pimping out their royals in ceremonies and events too. Without the royals, why would the millions - literally - of tourists and their billions in spend come to a country known for rain, crap food and cramped accommodations more than anything else?

[dipsydoodle]

5. Some figures here

date unknown :

The cost to maintain the royal family today is 40 million pounds per year.

But the revenue paid to the UK from the royal lands is 200 million.

200 million in revenue subtract 40 million in salary costs equals 160 million pounds in profit.

That’s right: The United Kingdom earns 160 million pounds in profit, every year from the Royal Family.

http://blog.cgpgrey.com/the-true-cost-of-the-royal-family/

I knew we were not running them at a loss.

I came across a link which I then promptly lost which provided a comparison with Sarkozy and the Elysee Palace which cost £90 million a year to run !

[dmallind]

6. True enough. Even that is understated though

That's the old kind of feudal income - land rents and duties etc. A republican-minded government could easily say "we could get the 200M in income for nothing just by converting the lands to state ownership". What they would lose though is a huge chunk of the tourism dollars that get spent on heavily taxed and otherwise completely missed revenue items like hotel rooms, rental cars and so on. Who would come to see the changing of the guard and such if it were held at a museum or bed and breakfast?

[dipsydoodle]

8. I appreciate that didn't include income from tourism

but I couldn't find a link to that figure although I know its substantial.

They're actually money for old rope. :)

:hi:

[smirkymonkey]

7. I love the UK, with or without the Royals.

There is just something about it that draws me. Also, the food has gotten much better - I was last there in August.

[CountAllVotes]

9. the food has gotten much better

Now that is encouraging. Was perhaps planning a trip in 2012 ... :think: ...

[truebrit71]

14. Really? You haven't eaten at my mum's house then...

:ducks:

I'm kidding!!!

[dipsydoodle]

20. lol

:rofl:

[smirkymonkey]

16. Well, I went to a lot of ethnic restaurants, but it seems like the

quality and variety of options had greatly improved. Hope you have a great time if you go!

[CountAllVotes]

22. thanks!

:D

[dmallind]

10. And I'm glad you're happy with it believe me

I still have family there and I'm sure they appreciate the tourist taxes helping augment their own.

I'd be curious what it is that appeals rhough if you could spell it out. My wife and I have often discussed living in Europe at some time (I as a native-born person can live anywhere in the EU, and we have enough income and education to make her application easy enough) and the only strength we see in the UK is the lack of language barrier - although since I come from Full Monty territory it may not be that easy for her ;). It's not that I hate the place or anything, but just see it as objectively behind other alternatives. I was last there in April, but far from the tourist or cosmopolitan spots and I'm no gourmand either so I would admitttedly miss any foodie improvements. The meat pies and pasties still taste the same! ;)

[smirkymonkey]

18. I'm not sure what it is - I have been to London and the country

side (Cotswolds) and I just love the coziness, the history, the atmosphere. I watch a ton of BBC productions, both Comedy and Drama and perhaps I have a romanticized view of what life would actually be like there, but it's more of a visceral feeling than anything I can explain rationally.

I have traveled all over Europe, and I don't really feel that attached to other places as I do to England. I also really love Austria as well. The rest of the continent has many beautiful places such as Prague, Paris, Bruges, Venice, Florence, Germany (Munich and along the Rhine), Greece, Hungary, but they just don't draw me the way England does.

[No Elephants]

11. (Psst. Liz. You don't have to just accept this. Occupy Downing Street.)

I like the Queen.

Since she was very young, she's been the best royal she's known how to be, driving ambulances in WWII, becoming monarch at a very young age and so on, until today.

Well done, old girl, sez I.

Should England have a monarch? Hell, that's up to them.