This BBC article spells out exactly how much the British taxpayer spent on the plush existence and travel itineraries enjoyed by the royals. It comes to £36.7m, or “61p” (pence?) per taxpayer.

As a citizen of a constitutional republic that has no role for and does not fund the lives of royalty (unless celebrities are considered royalty and ticket prices to see mediocre movies is akin to taxation), I find this news very amusing. Time to ramble on…

Royalty to me is a throwback to a time when people believed that coming from a certain family line automatically made a person more fit to rule. In many cases, Kings had a religious role within an official church, and they and their family often were thought to have been chosen by god for service as pampered rulers. This meaning may be preserved in the title of the current Queen of England (who also “holds” 15 other crowns), which begins “Elizabeth the Second, by the Grace of God”.

AFAIK, the Queen of England doesn’t really have much of a hand in the politics of Britain. She promised at her coronation to be a constitutional monarch, which means that (although Britain doesn’t actually have a constitution) she’ll let the people rule themselves via statutes and customs. Quite an abdication of authority there, voluntarily becoming a mere figurehead, but undoubtedly a smart choice in order to avoid being overthrown one day. It’s cheaper and more pleasant this way (who knows what amount of damage the palace would incur in a revolution).

On the plus side, continuing the traditions related to royalty offers people a connection to the past and a way of indicating reverence for the customs of their ancestors, a source of nice gossip for the tabloids and news, and a public face for a kingdom. It may seem like a bunch of silly pageantry to me, but there’s no lack of silly pageantry in countries that eschew the very idea of royalty.

But as the “value-for-money” quote from the “keeper of the privy purse” implies, if you’re going to have royalty, at least they should come at a low low price to the public. Keep the costs low enough and the subjects/public won’t ever have to decide whether the value has been exceeded and move on to an era in which royal folk will be regarded as simple human beings like everyone else.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, June 22nd, 2005 at 1:27 am and is filed under Media, Politics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.