The Warring States of NPF - Queen of England has 5 million more pounds with which to perform her duties this year

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Queen of England has 5 million more pounds with which to perform her duties this year

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In case you had any doubt, it's good to be the Queen.

British taxpayers just gave the Queen of England a boost of 5 million pounds, or $7.56 million, in the amount of money available to her to carry out her duties, the Guardian reports.

Meanwhile, the UK is considering freezing or even cutting its minimum wage at the same time, the Financial Times reports. In addition, the British government is embarking on a dramatic pullback of its famed welfare state, which includes cuts to subsidized housing, caps on welfare benefits and changes to the system so that benefits and tax credits no longer rise with inflation, according to a separate Guardian report.

If the UK moves forward with the minimum wage plan -- which could affect the nearly 1 million employees working at that level -- it would be the first time ever the country has frozen the pay floor, according to the Telegraph. UK officials are considering the freeze this time because they�re concerned that the yearly rises in the minimum wage, which is currently 6.19 pounds, have been having an adverse effect on the country�s employment situation. UK unemployment rose in February, though the jobless rate held at 7.8 percent, according to the BBC.

But British job-seekers aren�t the only ones in a tough spot. The number of working British people in poverty rose by one-fifth over the last decade, the Guardian reports, indicating that now may not the most opportune time to cut already low pay or government benefits.

At least lawmakers in the U.S. aren�t mirroring their (unintentionally) ironic colleagues across the pond. House Republicans unanimously rejected a rise in the minimum wage last month, but congressional leaders also voted to block an increase in their own pay.

The Guardian's story.

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Queen gets �5m pay rise from taxpayer

Grant to cover household running costs rises to �36.1m � up from �31m in diamond jubilee year

The Queen
The Queen's sovereign grant, which replaces the old civil list, has been set at �36.1m for 2013-14. Photograph: Chris Radburn/PA

The Queen has received a �5m boost in the funds she receives from the taxpayer to carry out her official duties.

The sovereign grant, which covers the running costs of the Queen's household, has been set at �36.1m for the 2013-14 financial year.

The figure has increased from the �31m allocated during the previous 12 months which included �1m to cover the extra costs of the diamond jubilee.

The sovereign grant replaces the old funding system of the civil list and grants-in-aid and came into full effect at the start of the new financial year, which began on Monday. It also covers the maintenance of the royal palaces in England and the cost of royal travel for official engagements in the UK and overseas tours.

Under the new grant the Queen receives 15% of the profits from the Crown Estate, but from funds two years in arrears.

The Crown Estate's 2011-12 accounts revealed profits of �240.2m and the final figure for the grant was rounded up to �36.1m � very close to the estimated amount � by the royal trustees in December.

Royal accounts released last year showed the cost to the taxpayer of supporting the monarchy rose marginally during 2011-12. The Queen's official expenditure increased from �32.1m in 2010-11 to �32.3m in 2011-12.

Around �10m is spent on the salaries of the Queen's staff, from footmen to chefs in the royal kitchen � but wages have been frozen for a number of years. The figure for official expenditure does not include the cost of providing security and police protection for members of the monarchy.

Clearly the Queen's department needs an extra $7.56 million dollars worth of money to help her perform her "duties". She also needs her vast personal wealth of 500 million dollars that she and the rest of the royal family enjoys by virtue of being born, and cannot spend any of that on performing her "duties".

While British lawmakers imposed austerity over the past few years and now seek to lower the British minimum wage.

Anybody from the U.K. want to explain what her "duties" are, anyway?

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Originally Posted by Magus (Post 1227461)

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The Guardian's story.

Clearly the Queen's department needs an extra $7.56 million dollars worth of money to help her perform her "duties". She also needs her vast personal wealth of 500 million dollars that she and the rest of the royal family enjoys by virtue of being born, and cannot spend any of that on performing her "duties".

While British lawmakers imposed austerity over the past few years and now seek to lower the British minimum wage.

Anybody from the U.K. want to explain what her "duties" are, anyway?

being an evil rich fuck.

Off with the bastards heads.

Politicians in the US might get paid stupidly high salaries for three freakin weeks of work, but they still work three more weeks than the Royal family

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Originally Posted by Sifright (Post 1227463)

being an evil rich fuck.

Off with the bastards heads.

Sorry, what has the Queen done that was evil exactly? The things I know about her are that she willingly pays taxes when she doesn't have to and spent most of her life involved in charity and helping as many people as possible. Obviously she's a bit old to be doing much charity work at this point so there's not as much of that to do, but still. The fuck. If there's a reason for this hate, please elaborate. Because really, I've never heard anything that went against the image of her as a sweet old woman who just happened to be born into the monarchy.

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Originally Posted by Aerozord (Post 1227464)

Politicians in the US might get paid stupidly high salaries for three freakin weeks of work, but they still work three more weeks than the Royal family

Yet everything I've ever heard points toward the Monarchy as an entity being profitable for the country. It's not quantifiable how much in tourism they actually bring into the nation, but I've never heard someone who was talking about it suggest they weren't making a net gain for what the Government pays.

---------- Post added at 01:33 PM ---------- Previous post was at 01:17 PM ----------

Looking into it more, what I can see says that legally speaking King George agreed that in his lifetime he would surrender all profits from his lands in exchange for a lump sum payment from Parliament and the wiping of his debts. Every single Monarch since has agreed to continue this deal, and every Parliament has accepted the offer.

The numbers I'm looking at shows that the revenue of those lands in modern times is �200,000,000. So, deducting the money they've paid to the Queen, (bout 65 pence a head) the people of the United Kingdom make about 2.60 pound. Taxes would have to go up, not down.

And, as I said earlier, all this is even before we consider the lucrative nature of having a Monarchy for the tourism business in the United Kingdom. I think the average annual revenue for tourism in the United Kingdom is 12 billion. 12,000,000,000 I can't say for sure how much of it actually is from the Royal family, but I know the most expensive and popular spots in England are usually the ones that involve them, so like looking at the record of an Athlete on steroids, I can't say what would or wouldn't have been, but I do know that the average is much higher with than without.

---------- Post added at 01:35 PM ---------- Previous post was at 01:33 PM ----------

If I'm wrong, feel free to tell me so! But I don't think I am. If even one of every three hundred pounds of the revenue from Tourism can be attributed to the Royal Family, that accounts for them taking in 40 million pounds.

I just question the benefit to the country that they are actively impoverishing the regular common man so they can give some ancient relic of monarchist history a boatload of money.

Tourism be damned, it's not going to be fun to be a tourist in a country of starving people who have demonstrated a willingness to riot in the past. I daresay the politics of austerity in europe are going to fail spectacularly in the coming decade.

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Originally Posted by shiney (Post 1227472)

I daresay the politics of austerity in europe are going to fail spectacularly in the coming decade.

Decade? well, arent you the optimist...

The whole thing is more that the Royal Family brings more money than it takes. Removing it doesn't add that money to helping other people, it seems mathematically plausible that removing it would actually take more money away from those people.

Everyone pays 65 pence for the monarchy. They make 2.60 pounds in return. Removing the stipend would make taxes go up, not down and hurt programs, not help.

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Originally Posted by K-Resh (Post 1227476)

That would be because your expenses figures are very very heavily massaged.

the real figure for their cost is closer to 200+ million.

http://www.republic.org.uk/valueformoneymyth.pdf

You can start with the above link.

This is ignoring the nazi ties between the royals, not to mention the fact that the royal family has a lot of influence in politics which they try to keep under cover and which was accidentally slipped a few years back and the bbc anchor that exposed it got in some hot water and was forced to apologize about revealing it.

I would really like to learn more about it to see if there are other good reasons to get rid of monarchs, but personally I'm opposed to monarchies and royals because of what they represent.

---------- Post added at 10:04 PM ---------- Previous post was at 10:03 PM ----------

Right, well time to do some reading!

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Originally Posted by Sifright (Post 1227482)

Dunno what you're talking about with nazis, but if we just take your 200 million figure that doesn't really seem to actually change the end result at all? Its less of a gain to be sure but still totally a gain.