It Turns Out Having a Royal Family Costs a Lot of Money!

By Kayleigh Donaldson | Celebrity | June 25, 2019 |

By Kayleigh Donaldson | Celebrity | June 25, 2019 |

I don’t mean to shock any of you fine readers with this unexpected news, but did you know that it’s a costly endeavor to have an unelected monarchy paid for by your taxes? I know, hold onto your monocles. Britain has a very torrid relationship with the House of Windsor. They’re immensely fetishistic of this institution but equally as vicious towards it, and that’s just the monarchists who don’t want the entire thing torn to shreds in the name of democracy. Every now and then, especially during politically and economically tough times, there will be a new slate of headlines of people getting mad at how much the royal family costs. Given that we’re about to get Prime Minister Boris and the American President is an accused rapist who locks up children, we were due for another round of royal expenses anger. It’s healthy. It gets the blood going.

The Queen’s Sovereign Grant from the Treasury was £82 million in 2018-19, as noted by the BBC. Excluding funds set aside for future building work, Liz 2’s official expenses last year were £67 million, a 41% year-on-year increase. Most of that is due to the ongoing renovations of Buckingham Palace, which is kind of falling apart.

But Kayleigh, I hear you cry. How much of this has been blamed on Meghan Markle? She’s due for another round of ‘Meghan destroys everything’, surely? Never fear, because as nearly every headline on the story has reminded us, Meghan and Harry have cost a fair penny or two for taxpayers. Their renovation of Frogmore Cottage, turning it from five separate homes into a single property, cost £2.4 million. This has made Piers Morgan, a very well-adjusted man with no grudges held against Megan, very cross indeed. But I won’t link to those videos because I care about your blood pressure.

But the Cambridges aren’t innocent in this either. William and Kate’s renovations on Kensington Palace cost more than £4 million, but something something Meghan ruins everything, etc.

Here’s the thing: This all sucks. It is blood boiling and truly wasteful, in my opinion, for the royals to blow this kind of cash, and for it to be justified as a necessary taxpayer expense at a time when austerity has smothered Britain and we’re only heading for further disaster under the leadership of a racist Labrador in an expensive suit. But this is also par for the course. They’re costly because monarchy is costly, and it’ll only become more so as we enter a post-Brexit world where the Windsors are further positioned as ambassadors of sorts to the world to represent us after we’ve burned all the other bridges. If we insist on placing this much importance on the institution then it feels a bit silly to demand they do it more cheaply. How do you prize thriftiness in a family with literal safes full of jewels in their golden palaces?