The Royal Family Discussion Thread

[Voice of reason]

18 minutes ago, the_bloke said:

When you pay £343m into the Treasury through a commercial enterprise like the Royal Family do via the Crown Estate, I'm sure you wouldn't see a problem taking back less than 1% of it to restore a property to live in.

They've worked damn hard to build that enterprise up. Late nights, weekends the lot. Oh, hold on.....

[Pettytom]

2 hours ago, the_bloke said:

When you pay £343m into the Treasury through a commercial enterprise like the Royal Family do via the Crown Estate, I'm sure you wouldn't see a problem taking back less than 1% of it to restore a property to live in.

When your family have jurisdiction over a country that features the burned out wreck of Grenfell Tower, maybe you should show better judgement.

 

They already had a palace to live in anyway.

[catmiss]

3 hours ago, Pettytom said:

When your family have jurisdiction over a country that features the burned out wreck of Grenfell Tower, maybe you should show better judgement.

 

They already had a palace to live in anyway.

Why would they have any sympathy when their temporary accommodation is one of several palaces and the one that caught fire is repaired poste haste at public expense and one reluctantly agrees to pay some tax

[Cyclone]

14 hours ago, the_bloke said:

When you pay £343m into the Treasury through a commercial enterprise like the Royal Family do via the Crown Estate, I'm sure you wouldn't see a problem taking back less than 1% of it to restore a property to live in.

The crown estate isn't owned by the royal family though, it's owned by the state.

[the_bloke]

5 minutes ago, Cyclone said:

The crown estate isn't owned by the royal family though, it's owned by the state.

No it isn't.

 

https://www.thecrownestate.co.uk/en-gb/resources/faqs/#whoownsthecrownestate

 

Quote

 

The Crown Estate belongs to the reigning monarch 'in right of The Crown', that is, it is owned by the monarch for the duration of their reign, by virtue of their accession to the throne. But it is not the private property of the monarch - it cannot be sold by the monarch, nor do revenues from it belong to the monarch.

The Government also does not own The Crown Estate. It is managed by an independent organisation - established by statute - headed by a Board (also known as The Crown Estate Commissioners), and the surplus revenue from the estate is paid each year to the Treasury for the benefit of the nation's finances.

 

 

[Cyclone]

Right, so not owned privately by the monarch, and excess revenue IS owned by the state...  The independent board was established by statute (ie the thing the government creates)...  To all intents and purposes it is owned by the state, although the specific legal arrangement is as you've described.

[the_bloke]

5 minutes ago, Cyclone said:

Right, so not owned privately by the monarch, and excess revenue IS owned by the state...  The independent board was established by statute (ie the thing the government creates)...  To all intents and purposes it is owned by the state, although the specific legal arrangement is as you've described.

I do believe it explicitly says it is owned by the Monarch. It is not owned by the state. How it operates on a day to day basis is up to those board members, who operate independently and who saw fit to spend £2.4m on restoring a property they manage, which is what they are duty bound to do as per the 1961 Crown Estate Act.

 

The only way you can say it's taxpayers money is that by spending £2.4m on restoring a property they have reduced the surplus revenues that gets fed back to the Treasury for that year. 

[Cyclone]

Not "PRIVATELY" owned was what I said.

 

Quote

in right of The Crown', that is, it is owned by the monarch for the duration of their reign, by virtue of their accession to the throne. But it is not the private property of the monarch - it cannot be sold by the monarch, nor do revenues from it belong to the monarch.

 

Yes, the argument that they had an obligation to restore the property is a good one.  But I can see why people find it rather perverse that private individuals get to benefit in this way.

[bendix]

I can never get animated by Royal Family discussions.  It's such a minor side show to much more important issues.  It's like getting worked up over what happened on last night's Love Island.

 

[the_bloke]

1 hour ago, Cyclone said:

Not "PRIVATELY" owned was what I said.

 

 

Yes, the argument that they had an obligation to restore the property is a good one.  But I can see why people find it rather perverse that private individuals get to benefit in this way.

Depends if you consider that the money the Crown Estate earns and the properties it owns to belong to the state or not. I don't, any more than I consider the state to own Channel 4.

 

I think if people find it perverse or not is a reflection of their viewpoint on the Royal Family itself, not about the fact that someone actually gets to live in this restored building.