Criticises Windsors But Fails the People
The Public Accounts Committee (PAC) has gently criticised queen Windsor for spending above her income from the “sovereign grant” and for neglect of the public properties in which she lives. But it has failed the people of Britain by ignoring the burden her family places on both the rights and the pockets of the people.
The “sovereign grant”, currently £36m, is paid to support Windsor’s “official duties” including accommodation and travel. It is only a fraction of the massive amount that her family is allowed to loot each year.
The 8 Conservative, 5 Labour and 1 Liberal Democrat legislators who produced the 35-page report each swore their allegiance to the Windsors before they could become “representatives of the people”. And in their 35-page report they implicitly endorse the fraud against the people which is monarchy. Not once do they question, other than in minor detail, the lavish and unnecessary spending of the people’s money to support the feudal institution.
The committee criticises the effectiveness of Treasury oversight. And it wants the Windsors to find more “efficiency savings” . But it does not ask how it can be right for them to live as they do at the expense of the people.
Instead of asking why the people are made to provide the Windsor clan with a portfolio of luxurious accommodation the committee merely criticises their failure to maintain it properly. It does not ask why they need so many homes with so many bedrooms, at the public expense, while many poor people are not allowed a spare room without a cut in their benefit.
Instead of recommending that the Windsors be evicted from palaces that have no place in a democratic society other than as tourist attractions, it merely asks that Buckingham Palace be open to visitors a little more often. They fail to see that when the Windsors are gone, all their homes can be open and earning tourist pounds throughout the year.
These representatives of the people are happy to leave it to the Windsors to decide whether they need a new train to carry them around their dominion in the style they like. After all, they spend £4.5m of the people’s money each year for their travels whether by train or plane. But it is likely that if the Prime Minister wanted his very own train or plane for his official duties Conservatives, Labour and Liberal Democrats would be anything but deferential.
The report does reveal that Windsor has chosen not to cut her 430 staff during the years of austerity. No doubt there is many a local authority councillor who would have liked the same freedom. But of course there is no comparison to be made between public service and monarchy.
Maybe it is forgivable however that the Committee has behaved as it has. For when a country is foolish enough to see some of its citizens as “royal” it should not complain when they act with the arrogance and disregard for the rights of the people that is inherent in such a status.