ARmy Rumour SErvice

At least the broadcast was trimmed down to only 2 hours when it was shown on NBC here in the States. Didn't see a single British comic turn. But then all the good ones are dead are they not? Where are you Benny Hill when we need you?

There were a surprisingly large number of brown lids in the crowd. Mainly Guardsmen on pass no doubt getting a gawp at 'er Majesty. One young minx wearing the AGC cap badge was stood up on someone's shoulders to get a better view. I thought for a minute she would get 'em out, but the BBC cameraman turned away. I wonder if it could have been the Snail? She still has 173 days left in the Army I'm told before she becomes a stinking civilian, so maybe she wants to go out with a bang so to speak.

I'd bang her!

Originally Posted by exbleep

Why bollocks? Sarkozy cost €90 million euros to the French in 2011. POTUS costs a staggering $220 million dollars a year. The Queens costs £35 million a year plus the £7.9 million Civil list. She does, however, pay most of that back in income tax (brought in by the Tories in the early 90s). The previous King and Queen also served the country magnificently as did the ones before that. Why would Charles, then William, be any different? You are definitely in the minority and you don't have to be a Royalist to actually like the system we have got. Regardless of how many were in the Royal box, they don't get paid by the taxpayer. Only the Queen gets that and she subsidises royal duties for the rest, Charles' income is from the Duchy of Cornwall which costs you nothing.
Members of the Royal Family carry out public duties; these individuals receive an annual payment known as a Parliamentary Annuity, the funds being supplied to cover office costs.
These amounts are repaid by HM The Queen from her private funds.

Still don't think a President would cost the same or more?

Somwhere on here, is a thread about the anti-royalist demo during the Royle flotilla show.

In it a good number of folk were praising the Queen, for her important role in defending our democracy by holding Parliament to account.

Apower that she chose NOT to exercise during the recent allowances scandal.

I offered an analysis of why that might have been so. And that thread went very quiet.

Popular she may be. Powerful, she is not - not since Tony B. eased all but a handful of hereditary peers out of the TheLords, effectively eliminating her natural power base in Parliament. Now we have rats (oops, for rats read 'Rt Hon Gentlemen') proposing further parliamentary reforms, one of which is to empower the rats to recall Parliament, so that rats can hold rats to account. As in 'My arrse they will'. Not that any one of the rats would ever concede the idea that this is intended to supplant, rather than to supplement the Royal prerogative, either.

Then there is the business of further reform of the Lords.

Anyone who imagines for one moment that that is not another effort to further reduce the accountability of, and/or to increase the power of the ruling party, needs to take a good long look at the history of this Nation, and remind themself that our unwritten constitution (to borrow a phrase from Hollywood legend Sam Goldwyn) "ain't worth the paper it's written on".

Least of all if we sit meekly by, gulled by displays of pomp and circumstance, into overlooking the erosion of checks and balances that once made great, The Mother Of All Parliamentary Democracies.

Think on.