The Queen: Costly? Photocredit: The Telegraph
The background
The Queen’s Diamond Jubilee is a time for celebration. Surely? Well, the governor of the Bank of England doesn’t think so – there will be a four day weekend which he thinks won’t help Britain’s economic growth, said The Financial Times. Britain will have nine bank holidays this year because of the Jubilee, and Gross Domestic Product is expected to be effected.
In these times of austerity, even the Duchess of Cambridge is “recycling” her clothes, reported The Mirror. She’d worn the dress she put on for her first Buckingham Palace garden party before. The Monarchy itself has been valued at £44 billion, reported GulfNews, by BrandFinance – making it one of the most valuable of British brands. It also said the the Jubilee would give a £924 million “uplift” to the leisure and tourism industry, offsetting the apparent loss. The Jubilee is causing most people great joy – except for republicans, who say that the Queen’s lived on state benefits all her life; but isn’t measuring the cost of holidays rather Scroogeish anyway?
The Queen lives off the state
Avowed republican Kevin Maguire said in The Mirror that he wanted the Queen to be “Elizabeth the Last.” Despite her popularity, he values “democracy over the gene loterry of feudalism.” How about having people like J K Rowling as president? The royal family legitimise “unearned wealth and inequality.” Britain will be “brighter as a self-confident republic.” He raised an ironic glass to the Queen – “60 glorious years on state benefits.”
Stop carping about the cost – it’s happiness that counts
John Kay on The Financial Times said it wasn’t so bad – the London Olympics will help to boost output. The Centre for Economic and Business Research has suggested that Britain should have fewer events such as the Jubilee. But most countries have 10 or 12 – compared to our nine. It’s hard to “assess” the effect of the Jubilee on Gross domestic product. But why even bother? We could “raise GDP further by cancelling Christmas” – though we’d lose the expenditure on gifts. We could raise it by “working till we drop.” But why should we? The economy isn’t separable from the citizens’ welfare. The holiday should make us better off – and that is a question that “answers itself without need of economic statistics.”
