Archive: Profligate, anti-British, dangerous nincompoop watch

First published at Luikkerland, June 2011

In February we looked at how the Queen and Charles were being protected by the government’s “information blackout” regarding how much they each received through EU farming subsidies. Charles (the focus of this post) was said to be in receipt of a quarter of a million. We wondered if Charles’ explicit support for the EU was anything to do with this, or indeed related to the revenue that the Crown Estate might raise from the wind farms on the coastal sea-beds that it “owns”. Government is looking to meet EU green energy directives, and gives planning permission for energy companies to build the farms. The Crown Estate either receives rent, or it owns its own.

I discovered latterly that the Queen had already purchased the world’s largest offshore wind farm in 2008. With the Coalition’s Sovereign Support Grant – which comes into effect in 2013 – the Queen will be able to take cuts from Crown Estate profits (reckoned at a rate of probably 15%) meaning that the Royal Family will rake in around £38 million a year. The Queen is set to be better off under the new funding arrangement. The trade-off is supposed to be the cutting of public money spent on the Royals through the Civil List, however, what has been lost is the taxpayers’ power to restrict the Monarch’s wealth. And there is no escaping that the Monarch will be profiting through the joint efforts of the EU and the British Parliament.

Just this month we were looking at how the Royals appaer to be sponsored by corporations, and wondered if it was a good idea for the Head of State and heirs to be in the pocket of the super rich. The Monarch is supposed to be answerable to the people through Parliament, but it seems that Parliament is more interested in protecting it in efforts and introducing measures that put it at risk of falling under the influence of, or aligning with powers that are potentially anti-British. This implicates Parliament. Indeed, it’s a fact widely understood that the British Government as a whole is already up to its ears in treason; the concern should be for restricting how much damage these people can do until, through due process, preferably, the country can be taken back from them and they are punished.

This is why the Royals must be kept under scrutiny, and their activity brought to the attention of the British Citizenry (and hopefully, the horse will drink when it has been led to the water, rather than pretending that the pool doesn’t exist). I hope that people will eventually decide that the Royals are shocking criminals and are redundant in a grown-up constitutional democracy.

Today, we look at a report out of AFP about Prince Charles’ income and expenditure. I’ve already written more than I intended to, so just going to fisk the highlights:

The heir to the throne’s income from the government rose 17.9 percent from £1.66 million in 2009-10 to £1.96 million in the past year, according to his official accounts.

Much of the funds covered travel costs with Charles and his wife Camilla travelling 34,000 miles to and from official engagements, including more than 14,000 miles on overseas trips.

The stock defence to this is that the government decides where Charles goes. In that case, we, the people, want him to go less. Got that?

Spending on the royal couple’s travel by air and rail jumped 56 percent in 2010-11 to £1.08 million, despite having travelled 8,600 fewer miles than the previous year.

Charles of course is a rampant hypocrite because we are not even supposed to have showers for the sake of the planet, while he belches carbon, vapour trails, and burnt money that is converted and drawn up through the third rail to motivate him on his way to wherever there are people who haven’t realised that he is pointless.

Michael Peat, the prince’s principal private secretary, said costs were lower in 2009-10 as the longest journey, to Canada, was paid for by the Canadian government.

Lucky old the Canadian tax-payer! As we in the UK are the bosses of our government, the Canadians are the bosses of theirs, and I’m sure a day will come when they will firmly remind the Canadian government and (by-then) Citizen Charles, that if he wants a Hudson Holiday, he will have to pay for it himself like the rest of us.

At the same time Charles’s private earnings from the Duchy of Cornwall, his estate in southwest England, went up by nearly four percent to £17.7 million — although his tax bill rose 26.2 percent to £4.4 million.

Is that a 24.8% tax rate, then? Previously, he was paying about 3.5 million on 17 million flat – so that was a rate of 21%. The rate went up a little, the tax went up a lot because he earned a lot more.

His personal spending, which is not funded by the public, rose 50 percent to £2.5 million, partly to cover the marriage of his son Prince William to Catherine in April, but mainly because Charles increased his donations to charity.

Well, the state-propaganda also cost the nation a pretty packet in lost work days. Charles increasing donations to charity, or deposits into shadow banking facilities?

The jump in public funding for the prince immediately drew criticism at a time the British government is pushing through deep cuts to public sector spending which will lead to hundreds of thousands of job losses.

As well it should.