Category: Republic

According to research commissioned by the Department of Media people are “on average” willing to pay almost £163 a year at today’s prices for the BBC licence. This is more than the state broadcaster has asked to government to agree. The current fee payable by those who ask the BBC’s permission to watch TV is…

Charles Windsor, heir to Britain’s hereditary office of head of state, has published details of his tax payments for the first time in an apparent effort to counter criticisms that he is too highly paid. Mr. Windsor revealed that in the 2005 – 2006 tax year he paid £3.3m on his income of £14m from…

The BBC has contracted to pay at least £15m over three years to TV and radio celebrity Jonathan Ross. This news comes as the state broadcaster is lobbying for a licence fee increase of 2.3 per cent above inflation for ten years. To raise the money to pay fees such as this, the BBC already…

A law giving special rights to Anglicans has been declared a breach of human rights by the High Court. The Asylum and Immigration (Treatment of Claimants, etc.) Act 2004 required that immigrants pay a fee of £135 in order to marry in the UK. But those who married in an Anglican church were exempt from…

The BBC state broadcaster is asking the government to increase the licence fee by 2.3 per cent above inflation each year from 2007 to 2013. This would increase the price of the licence from the current £121 to £180. The corporation wants to spend another £5.5bn. £3.9bn of this would come from improved efficiency. The…

The Windsor family is resisting greater parliamentary scrutiny of its £21m annual income from the duchies of Lancaster and Cornwall. Parliament’s public accounts committee wants the Treasury to review the workings of the duchies and for their accounts to be audited by the National Audit Office. The family’s head of finance, Michael Peat, said that…

Many of the 2000 inhabitants of the Scilly Isles are “in a state of rebellion” against the son of Britain’s hereditary head of state, according to the conservative Sunday Telegraph newspaper. The newspaper reported that the Scilly islanders are “appalled and disgusted” because the Duchy of Cornwall, which is Mr. Windsor’s main source of income,…

British taxpayers were obliged to pick up a £36.7m bill for the Windsor family in the 2004 – 2005 financial year according to newly published figures. This was in addition to the £13m annual income that Charles Windsor takes from the public property holdings known as the Duchy of Cornwall and the £8.3m (March 2004…

The BBC state broadcasting giant, which has styled itself “the greatest force for cultural good on the face of the earth”, is spending public money glorifying graffiti vandalism. Its Web site is publishing a cartoon called Taggerz (a reference to the vandal’s practice of spraying their personal “tag” on private and public property) about a…

Charles Windsor, heir to the position of head of state, has been borrowing money from the Duchy of Cornwall and failing to pay it back, according to a report in The Guardian. The newspaper reported that as much as £1.2m had probably been spent on renovations at one of Mr. Windsor’s houses, extra personal staff…