I could never understand the hysteria around Diana's death. Don't get me wrong, I'm sorry she died, nobody deserves to have their life cut short in those circumstances. But she was rich enough to be able to afford to do charity work, made rich by money that the bunch of unelected "royal" parasites leech off the British taxpayer, and we are supposed to be pathetically grateful that she filled in her time by doing "charity work"???? If somebody was bunging me  thousands of pounds a year from the Civil List I'd have lots of time free to go and shake a few hands and kiss a few babies too, it beats working and it doesn't make her a saint. Give me a  republic any day of the week!

 

 

As a fellow Brit you ought at least to make an effort to get your facts right before spouting off such nonsense as you've printed above.

At the time of her death Diana was no longer on the Civil List, that ended with her divorce more than a year earlier.

The Royal Family do not "leach" off the taxpayer. Take a look at the history of the Civil List and you'll see that it is we the taxpayer who benefit greatly from the arrangement made in 1760 to fund the Royal Family. If you'd like it to cease and go back to the way it was prior to the introduction of the Civil List we'd see the Royal Family's income increase dramatically as they, and not us, would receive the money accrued from the Crown Estates.

Would a Republic be any cheaper ? I doubt it. Most Presidents live in Royal style anyway.   

The agreement came about almost by mistake. In 1747 Frederick, Prince of Wales announced that he would, when he became King, surrender his income from the Crown Estates in return for a fixed income from Parliament of £800,000. He did this to support the Tories in the forthcoming General Election and to wrong foot the Whigs. £800,000 was less than he earned from the Crown Estates. Frederick died in 1751, but his son George took on his father's promise and the first Act of the new Parliament when he succeeded to the throne in 1760 was to institute the Civil List. Over the years the Civil List has increased to several million pounds, but the income from the Crown Estates is many times that.   

I've just looked up the figures. The Civil List is £7.9 million, the Crown Estates made a profit of £190.9 million in 2005/06. So who's leaching off who ?

!HERE HERE! a voice of sense. Thanks for that.

 

You're perfectly entitled to your opinion, but if you print factual nonsense I have to point that out. Luckily Socialism is dead in the UK and the monarchy is here to stay.

But it's not nonsense is it and all the insults in the world won't make it so. You carry on being happy to be a "subject" if you want to. Me? I'm as good as the next person, God didn't appoint anyone to "rule over" me, least of all Elizabeth Windsor. I'm proud to be a Socialist and we are far from finished.

 

The people who grinned themselves to death

Smiled so much they failed to take a breath

And even when their kids were starving

They all thought the Queen was "charming"

On reflection I'm going to leave this debate here, whilst I might pop in and look at any further postings I won't add anything further. Life's too short, I really can't be bothered to argue as nobody is going to change their mind and to continue it would probably p*ss off other members and the group moderator.

Once the British monarchy lost real power under the Hanoverians history isn't quite so interesting from that point of view. But instead it's just as rewarding to study their lives and the dynastic difficulties they got into.

Of course I'll continue to post to the group Amber, I just don't have anything further to say on this particular topic.