bashamwonderland
Well-known member
- Joined
- 19 Dec 2017
- Messages
- 3,660
If you've got an issue with the methodology or calculations in the article, that's probably a question for you to raise with Forbes or Brand Finance, the analytics company. I'm happy to trust their assessment. As for your argument that abolishing the monarchy and opening the houses on a full time basis would earn us even more money, that's an entirely unproven guess.Hmmm, it's not quite the clear cut argument you would have us believe........so if we abolished the royal family and opened up all of these royal palaces and houses on a full-time basis, there is an argument to say we would earn even more money for the public purse, not less. After all, the French and Austrians seem to do very nicely out Versaille and the Schonbrunn Palace respectively.
Likewise, abolition wouldn't make difference to the money generated by the Crown Estate - that is, in a sense, passive income based on years of unmerited inheritance and publicly funded acquisition.
Personally, I find it depressing that the Crown 'owns' nearly 2 million acres of our agricultural land and forest and vast swathes of expensive real estate. They key word here being 'our'.
It also neglects the fact that admission income for visiting properties only actually accounts for less than £50m of the 2.5bn value, so I would question your logic? Even if the houses were open for 5x the amount that they are now, it would be a drop in the ocean against the total £2.5bn.
What do you mean by "our"? They've owned it in some form or another for over 1000 years. How are you defining "our"? People with a British passport? People who simply come here and settle on the land? People who have some form of legal title? People who can trace their lineage in the UK back to pre-royal origins? Anyone who happens to be in the UK at any given time?