Fuck that - I'd rather have Churchill DNA in my family than Walter Prince of the Softies spunk there!

Biped - just had a thought. We could have Prince Edward as Chancellor (sadly Di missed that one, but her O level maths would have been exactly the right qual for it), Fergie as Home Sec and (best of all and a natural choice) Phil the Greek as Foreign Secretary!

Biped as Bum Licker - in - Chief, but only if he has enough blue blood squirted up him?

Well.....technicaly he's self financing, living mostly on the Income of the Duchy of Cornwall....

Which is exactly how the Crown survived for the 1000 odd years England has been under a single Crown. The Crown was expected to live on the income generated by their own land and a very few taxes levied on those able to afford it. If the Crown wanted to go to war, the Commons and Lords Temporal and Spirtual had to agree to pay a war tax..........

Underpaid so fail to atract good minds? Nonsense! Scientists get paid far less, and I would venture that their intelect might be as good as the average politico. The more money = better people argument does not stand up to scrutiny.

Vote for a truly representative president? Pah! Everyone who didn't vote for the president would feel agrieved to be represented by said person.

Hence, I suppose, the title of this thread?

One of the differences between science and politics is, of course, that the latter needs to attract the cream of the crop who have had experience in the public and the private sector. A significant proportion of those who might have been interested in moving into a political life will be put off by the relatively parlous wages currently offered (amongst other factors). Scientists, by and large, start at a young age, but the same argument applies to science as it does politics - people need to be incentivised and one significant incentive (or disincentive) is pay. If we want to open the playing field up to people who might not currently be able to afford to go into politics, but have significant talent and experience that would benefit parliament, then we need to consider paying them enough to attract them away from senior positions elsewhere.

Your last comment is relatively true - there is no way around that in democracy. But the same is true of any system.

Can't afford to go into politics and yet £60K plus expenses is the going rate. Who can't afford to go into politics on that?

Oh yes, I forgot - Gordon Brown has a degree in economics . . . . . er, mathematics . . . . . erm, English . . . . . . ah, Politics . . . . . . . DOH!

£1 Bilion cost of our democracy?

Financial cost of our democratic system to the country, not including screw-ups, bad oversight, theft and a general incompetence:

650 MP Salaries
650 ACA
650 Expenses
4000 approx. pensions for ex-MPs, not Lords.
House of Lords Salaries, plus perks, expenses, day-rate + ex-MP Pensions.
House of Commons Staff salaries - clerks, researchers, maintenance staff, policing, security, plus pensions of previous staff.
Same for House of Lords.
Building maintenance - not just the Houses of Parliament, but that god-awful building across the road.
Special security arrangements for cabinet and PM, including admin staff, police, training, firearms and subsequent pensions for all those involved in that who've retired.
Entertaiment budgets both in the houses, eslewhere and abroad.
Charter aircraft, using the Queen's flight, plus attendant staff wages.
'The Cabinet/cabal of the unelected, such as Mandelbottom, plus salaries, plus pensions, plus staff.
House of Commons/House of Lords cars, plus staff, plus pensions.
International junkets to Barbados and other locations, taking families, various assorted researchers and the like . . . .

Just off the top of my head my head you understand. Do YOU want to do the maths?

I'm thinking somewhere around £1 billion per annum, yes. Do you know, that's enough to feed 100 million African babies for a week?! Well, that and help pay for a new aircraft carrier . . . . . for the starving of India.


PRINCE OF WALES COSTS US £3 MILLION!!!!

Gordon Brown costs us £329,000 per annum in directly applied for costs and wages, not including pension contributions, security and travel on government sponsored visits . . . . . . like the ones Prince Charles has been sent on.

Last edited by Biped on Sat Jun 27, 2009 7:45 am; edited 1 time in total

But the £3 Million cost was based on the undertaking of duties on behalf on HM Government. If HM Government hadn't asked him to carry out those duties what would HM the Prince of Wales have cost us?

Mind you, seems that the latest Report on the POW spending indicates that 70% plus of his Offical and Chartiable Duties costs were paid for out of his income

www.princeofwales.gov....maller.pdf

Your democracy costs too much. You Party has created an underclass who now choose the Benefits System as a lifestyle choice and a so many non-jobs in Governmental and quasi-Governmental jobs that they can't afford NOT to vote for the Party of One-Eye and Mandybum - feudalism by another name perhaps. They are tied in.

That argument is flawed because you know that Charles could never take on the role of parliament alone and he, as an individual, is considerably more expensive than any politician. You also forget that his income is derived from an estate that is a legacy of the monarchy - if it belonged to the people rather than one family then the true cost of that single individual and his household would be seen. You also forget that there was considerable pressure from the Windsor's not to pay tax and that they only agreed so to do on the back of considerable pressure form politicians. Now you may think that it is right for them to be above taxation, but I certainly don't.

You also seem to want to ascribe to them some sort of virtue that is unique to the royals, which is nonsense - they are as fallible as the rest of us, with the same emotions etc that we all have. Charles's behaviour twds his first wife was appalling; he was dishonest, unfaithful, disloyal etc etc etc (and he is not unique amongst them) - so please don't be naive about their intentions, abilities or fallibility.

But your political ideology seems to be based on two things; cost and the conduct of the current parliament - rather than principle or value and I'm not sure that is a sound way of selecting the optimum way of legislating and governing.

No RM - not my party. I am not, and never have been and never will be, a socialist. And it sounds as if you really do not approve of democracy, which I assume is incorrect?

Oh - it's your democracy too - and it chould be cherished and enhanced, not dismissed as dirt, else we all revert back to serfs and allow our dignity and humanity to be squandered by an autocratic system and we become chattels of the aristocracy. Fuck that - it's for dimwits and buffoons.

Last edited by tattybadger on Sat Jun 27, 2009 3:05 pm; edited 1 time in total

... and the other 30%?

And, if he hadn't carried out those quasi-diplomatic msns wtf value would he have had to the country? None, except for tourists to gawp at.

Is Charles cheaper than Gordon Brown - hell yes.
Is he self-funding apart from 'parliamentary missions'? Yes.
Does he pay taxes? Considerably more than Broon.

His income is derived from an estate that is a legacy of the feudal system. I believe it was handed to the crown in return for civil list income. If you object to the monarchy getting money off the civil list, be ready to give them back their properties - they've just turned a bunch of these into right old money-spinners I believe, so they'll be alright.


I'm not, but I don't ask them to be - I ask the people that put themselves forward for election, who make the laws and the rules to be morally upstanding, skilled, honourable, loyal and competent - THAT'S what we should expect from the representatives of the democratic system - that's why they have the title 'Right Honourable' - if they want the title, by christ they'd better earn it. Like you say, I didn't vote for Prince Charles, and he doesn't make the laws I have to abide by - so no harm done. I don't like being dictated to by some one-eyed jock freak about the immorality of 'tax loopholes', and 'closing tax avoidance schemes', when he and his ilk have simply changed the rules and laws to exempt themselves from as many tax laws as they thought they could get away with - even 'redacting' information demanded by the High Court that would have made them liable for unpaid taxes.

Fallibility from our Monarchy I can live with - it harms me not. The much worse weaknesses, fallibility, vice, lies, venality and greed I see demonstrated by our parliamentary democratic system affects me directly, in my pocket, in my freedom, in the lives of my children, in my work and in my rights. As a member of the electorate in this democracy, I have every right to demand that they buck their ideas up, or change the system so that the rights and freedoms my forebears and fellow citizens have died to protect are not abused by those who care not for their sacrifice, like Gordon Brown.

This is why I simply cannot understand why anyone in their right mind would even consider adding yet another tier of these venal oiks to the layers of this corrupted democracy, and consider such a thing a suitable replacement for a monarchy.


Cost is an important factor when Parliament has taken all the money they can from the people, then borrowed a good deal more, thus landing those people and their children in tax hock for many years to come.

It's not their money they are spending, it's ours. It's not the cost of government, it's the principle of them being incompetent and wasteful with OUR money, and then asking us to pay off the creditors to boot. I'm sorry if this ideology does not sit well with you. It offends me.

The conduct of the current parliament is a huge factor. How can you, in all conscience hold up this broken model as an exemplar and suggest that the Monarchy is faulty. This current parliament is in schtuck, not because of a few bad eggs, but because of a systemic failure of the participants, of their groupings and of their beliefs. They believe that they no longer serve us. They believe that they only answer to their party whips. They believe that fraud is merely 'an error'. They believe that they are not liable for taxation. They believe that they are above the laws they make, or they can exempt themselves from national laws as if they are a special case. This is not, on reflection, a problem of the 'current parliament' at all - it is the result of many successive parliaments, and thus it is a breakdown of a democracy and the moral right of that system to govern the rest of us.

Getting down to principle and value: In principle, representative democracy should do more representing; that of the will of the people, of the electorate - a good deal more.

There is a saying in the corridors of power, which goes along the lines of "They elect us to do this job as our consciences see fit". That time has ended, if it ever existed.

We should change the entire system, so that the new ethos is "We are servants of the electorate, and it is their needs we will address above all others, efficiently and honourably, as they express such needs. That is why they put us here."

With such a simple change of ethos, and a more complicated reassessment of how such a service is implemented, we get back to 'value' when we talk about democracy. We would 'add value' by demanding that our elected representatives are 'principled' and not venal, greedy liars.

We need root and branch reform of our democracy until we can say "Our democracy is something that we, the electorate have created, and it serves us well, and we are proud of it". That is still an awfully long way away, and a 'President' is a long way beyond that.

If you want a new spire on the church, make sure the foundations can take the strain.

And monarchy have never been self-serving greedy tyrants?

And you insist one is better than the other!

I've only skimmed the thread but this response has been made a few times. I would suggest that in a monarchy the individual IS the system. That's the whole point!

To clarify my position, whilst intellectually I can understand and even to an extent agree with the objections to a monarchy, I don't believe that we could do much better than Her Majesty and from what I've seen of PoW he shows every sign of having my full support when he finally succeeds her.

Well, that's political ideologies squared away until they do something you disagree with then.

Reminds me of the old Oscar Wilde quote (I think) - "he knows the cost of everything but the value of nothing".

BTW tattybadger, do you have to re-post the entire thing? Can't you be a bit selective in abusing my bandwidth?