Britain’s glory built on Firm foundation
OPINION polls can be informative but also quite mistaken. A recent poll claimed that 55 per cent of people thought the Coronation was not worth the money spent on it.
Some of those were beyond doubt die-hard republicans but the monarchists were simply mistaken – which is very easy. In fact, the huge majority of those thousands of soldiers, sailors, airmen, grooms, ostlers, officials and palace staff were on the payroll by career choice and cost not a penny extra. And so were the police, more thousands of them.
Apart from providing a spectacle that the planet watched with awe, the Coronation brought in millions of pounds in tourist money and millions more for the hospitality industry.
There is so much never recognised about royal finances. For example, the Civil List is not the same as the Crown Estate. The former is an allowance from public funds to run the monarchy.
The Crown Estate is the yield of the thousands of leased lands, houses and farms owned by the Crown. The Estate vastly outweighs the List.
The late Queen decreed that a sum from this huge income would be retained to supplement the Civil List but the balance would be donated to the people via the Government.
King Charles intends to continue this practice. As that sum hugely outweighs the Civil List I have sad news for republicans; the British people actually make a profit out of the monarchy. A president would be a public
expenditure from the first penny to the last.
But there is more – in the form of two extra advantages to monarchy over presidency. Our royal house and the pageantry that surrounds it and all royal occasions
draw in a cornucopia of tourist money which many who voted among those 55 per cent in the not-worth-it figure overlook.
You have to travel widely to learn of the reverence and envy directed at the Royal Family and we Brits for having it. That just highlights Advantage Two.
Because our crowned head stands above politics we do not have presidential elections which can rip a nation in half. Look at present-day France or the US. Could we really be content under President Scargill or President Corbyn? Could thousands of soldiers, sailors, airmen and police take the knee to swear allegiance to President Mandelson?
Surely not. A figure above politics and respected by all factions bar one very small minority, and ditto across the world, suits most of us very nicely. And, as stated, we actually make a modest profit out of the monarchy.