Tag Archives: republicans

Kate Middleton and Prince William Heckled by Protesters in Canada.

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The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge are going to St Lawrence River on the third night of their tour of Canada.

The royal couple are going up river on board HMCS Montreal, a City Class Frigate of the Canadian Navy.
They will be surrounded by a crew of 225 for the 11 hour journey to Quebec. Although they have been given the most comfortable quarters, it seems incredibly unromantic for the newlyweds.

The couple will arrive in Quebec at 2pm BST and have been briefed about possible protesters and republicans.

The Quebec Resistance Network, which wants the province to become independent, have threatened to disrupt the visit where the couple will be given the freedom of the city. Previous royal visits have fared no better, being marred by violence between demonstrators and riot police. The Queen has not returned to Quebec City since protesters turned their backs on her and booed in 1964.

This comes after the Duke and Duchess facing their first organised protests against their visit to Canada on their arrival in Montreal on Saturday night.

Demonstrators had placards calling the couple “parasites” as they arrived at the world renowned Sainte-Justine university hospital. There were also lots of supporters to cheer the couple on. One of the main protesters, Guillaume Martin, told reporters: “We think the monarchy is something from the middle ages and we don’t want to pay for the trip.”

The Canadian government will be paying the £950,000 to host the couple, this amounts to only a few cents a head for the country’s population. The couple ignored the protesters and spent more than an hour chatting to child cancer patients inside the hospital.

Prince William welcomed the Canadians with; “Bonne fête, Canada, happy birthday,” in his speech.

Catherine Middleton had never been to Canada before, or America, which is also part of their tour.

Have you paid for the Royal Wedding?

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It’s the Royal Wedding soon – 29 April 2011. Have you bought your tea towel? Have you paid £3 for a bottle of Kiss me Kate from your local Weatherspoons pub?

If you haven’t yet then you need to be quick, the economy needs you! If conservative estimates are correct, £1bn could be injected into the economy as a consequence of this wedding, but it needs you, the consumer, to get out over the bank holiday weekend and spend like your children’s centre or maternity unit depended on it.

Of course that doesn’t matter much because the wedding will cost £5bn to the economy anyway, making the whole occasion a loss to the tune of £4bn – hey but it’s worth it, right? It’ll be the most expensive day that the nation has taken off for a long time but who hasn’t taken a sneaky day off before at the expense of a day’s wages (and a taxation loss of a few hundred frontline police staff)?

I suppose it would be a bit rich to ask either of the families to pay up. The Middleton’s, despite much fuss being made of Kate’s maternal family lineage, which includes coal miners from Byker (as in Byker Grove, I cannae believe that man), are worth £30m. True, that wouldn’t be able to re-pay the loss to the UK economy for an extra bank holiday, but it could’ve at least contributed to the cheesey pineapple sticks and cocktail sausages.

And the other family, the Royal Family, the most Royal of all UK families. They have a bit of cash lying around to see that Kate and Bill’s special day is, er, special, don’t they? Prince Charles, through entrepreneurial ventures, is worth something close to £36m himself. And if that’s the case, why does it matter that in 2009 the Royal Family cost the taxpayer 7p more than in 2010. It’s not a saving, it’s an insult.

The Civil List, which effectively is the Government subsidy for the family (around £38m a year), pays for Royal staff and transport. The Crown Estate says that 70% of that sum goes on staffing costs. But how much do they cost, if you consider that it cost the taxpayer £14,756 for the Prince of Wales to take the Royal Train from London to Cumbria to launch a Red Squirrel Survival Trust. Or consider that it cost £85,700 in charter flights to get him and the Duchess of Cornwall to Italy and Germany in 2009.

Those are some significant staff costs.

But – a big but – they are worth every penny for the money they bring to the economy. The Crown Estate estimates £304m. It doesn’t say exactly how, and I’d love to see some breakdown figures. I’ll give it a guess though: tourism and trade. Though France doesn’t have a Monarchy, and they’re doing okay aren’t they?

Not just okay. France is the second largest economy in Europe, fifth largest in the world and has been growing consistently since 2009. Wow. France attracted 78.95 million foreign tourists in 2010, making it the most popular tourist destination in the world. Their tower – the Eiffel tower – is the most visited paid monument in the world.

So France can do international trade well, and receive tourists without making losses literally all over the place. I’m not liking the sound of this, but perhaps there is no point having a Monarchy. But how do we tell them that?