Sir Ralph

No it wouldn’t. Do you understand how the government use the royal family to drum up trade interest and investment in the country as well as entertaining dignitaries whilst discussing international matters? There is a reason that the government use them regularly. The Royal Family own their palaces (Buckingham, Windsor, etc etc) and land so they could just shut them if they wanted to. That would be really good for tourism. You can’t strip them of their wealth it’s theirs. I suspect they could become richer if they were deposed as they would no longer be accountable to the public

My point was that if you are concerned about the democratic will of the people as to the royal family remaining, the outcome of any vote would likely be yes We will obviously disagree on that but I take from that that their decisions have no impact on your life or outcome. Do you know how much the royal family cost the uk taxpayer versus the income it generates? I obviously googled this. Annual cost is £86 to £132 million. Income from tourism annually estimated £500million, with broader benefits associated with media and trade influence around £1 billion to £2.5 billion per annum. Why do the royal family always get rolled out for visiting dignitaries do you think? This is before any taxes paid by the Royal family which will also contribute to the treasury We obviously come at this from different angles so fair enough

This is one of your most ill informed post yet. You clearly have no idea about tourism in the capital

But they don’t have any power and don’t align themselves with a political position. How have they made any decisions in your lifetime that have impacted you? If you spoke to the numerous charities and businesses / employees of tourism that benefit from the royal family they would highlight the positive benefit. As a whole the country wants to keep the monarchy based on polls. If there was a democratic vote on this it’s highly likely people would vote to keep it

They are off again, the self proclaimed know it all and his lackey, Mickey. Stick to the thread about Andrew chaps.

For services to this Forum in providing an alternative perspective

Cause they don’t generate any value to our country, support good causes or encourage tourism do they? Talk about throwing the baby out with the bath water. The Royal Family is one of the reasons that the UK is best known across the globe. Having lived abroad there is huge interest and respect for them and the heritage of the royal family. Having said this Andrew is clearly a complete idiot and an embarrassment

I know I can’t take it. It makes it even more painful that I’m obsessed with you (you’re sort of like a hero to me, particularly being a titan of industry) and you shun me every time. I’m looking for validation from you. Must have been something in my childhood.

This is pointless - let’s end it now

Ok great we agree. You think I’m a fool and I don’t care. I think you have an overflated ego and tell people too much about yourself that it’s not believable and screams for attention. From experience of working with people that are truly successful none of them would act like this. Cheerio

I really don’t care. Like zilch. From your avoidance of the question I take you agree welfare spending should be in excess of education. What a guy.

Again you ignore the main point but that’s just you. From this I take you agree with welfare spending being in excess of education. What a guy!

Send me a photo of your bookshelf again. Meant to say increased “to”. Not like you to pick up on a single wording error but miss the main point. So you support welfare spending in excess of education spending then. Ok. Of course I googled the welfare budget figure, like I have that stashed in my brain.

Thats a “wel-fare” comment

I agree that’s one of the ways you reduce the budget. The thresholds for claiming disability and health benefits are, in my experience, too low with more and more people taking advantage. Possibly not therefore all fraudulent claims

Welfare spending increased by £334 billion this year! Some of the reasons for this include disability benefits and increases in universal credit and working age support. Circa 12% of government spending is on working age benefits. 10% of government spending is on eduction. Just think about that for a minute and what that says about our priorities as a country 1. Reduce disability claims in particular an increase in young people claiming benefits for health and disability related matters. I believe the threshold for claiming such benefits is too low. People go into GPs and say that they have ADHD or alike, get a GP sign off and get hundreds of pounds a month. I know people who could easily do desk based jobs who have lived very well off the welfare state for years without lifting a finger. The government have acknowledged this as a concern but it needs to be addressed. The threshold for obtaining benefits for having a disability are too low and the GP tests should be more rigorous. 2. The recent increase in the two child cap should be restored. People that can’t afford more than two children shouldn’t have them. I know people that don’t have two kids or more cause they can’t afford them and are responsible people. Why should they work hard, pay tax and not have the extra kids they would like to have whereas other people can because the state will cover them 3. I would also remove the triple lock to reduce the pension liability. Lastly, as I understand it, in some circumstances if you refuse work your benefits can be reduced. There are some people on benefits that aren’t in work. What I don’t understand is why there isn’t a government programme for these people to do work in the local community to justify their welfare payments. Even if the programme was cost neutral at least it would give those people structure within some form of working environment. Maybe this is a naive suggestion for legal reasons…. Heres another idea - cut the welfare budget and use it to give tax breaks to firms who employ more younger people who were otherwise unemployed. Again whilst possobly cost neutral up front those young people are more likely to become tax payers in the future rather than state reliant. I often hear from certain people on this forum cries of anguish whenever welfare cuts are mentioned but rarely an acknowledgment that this is possible. Maybe they think we should spend more on working age benefits than education of kids that would lift them into employment and out of poverty - a proactive rather than reactive system

So what about reducing the welfare budget to reduce abuse of it and reduce the number of people that get assistance that don’t need it is “vile”. Shaming people who have different political views from lefties is an old tradition that has now been called out so that’s unfortunate. You now have to answer with real reasons not stupid and unfounded accusations.

You always get so angry when I mention about reducing the welfare budget. What is your objection to it? Do you not think there is abuse and wastage or is this objection more from a self interest perspective? Its useful to understand as the constant objection with no explanation (a typical trait of yours) is boring.

HMRC are already putting measures in place for tax evasion and have increased spending and officers to do so (and rightly so). As this is an issue the government have increased spending to address it. I’m not an expert in this so I don’t know exactly how they will do this. I’m more concerned with increasing welfare spending. Unlike tax evasion which they addressed by increasing spending, with welfare, despite abuse of the system and too much spending, they increased the welfare budget!. Whilst the usual crowd on here suggest I’m some sort of extremist, back in the real world of working people this is a commonly held view. Rather than change the angle of the discussion do you think welfare spending is excessive and should not have been increased?

Out of interest, who did you vote for in the last election?

Agree with you - that’s also about education as I think that people that may be more educated on the surface aren’t aware of the real damage they are doing to themselves. Maybe if more money was spent on education it might reduce costs, who knows. The upside is the younger generation seem to be more aware of the impacts of excessive alcohol consumption

I agree - isn’t this related to education and the populations understanding of how to look after themselves, get involved in sport, eating properly etc?

I’ll leave it to others to work out who has a brain or not. The wording I used in my post was specific. Im surprised you understood my post in that way but to drip feed you, what I’m saying a party that doesn’t pander to the requirement of these people and doesn’t worry about their vote. Instead a party that focuses on those who contribute to the system. I assume you agree with increased welfare spending based on your previous posts, even higher than the current rate?

It often appears that those who contribute the least are those that use / abuse it the most. I have a family member who works in the NHS in London and regularly talks about the abuse of the system. To make it sustainable and accessible for those who work and pay into the system, there needs to be some sort of control of this type of overuse and abuse.

It’s a reflection of a society that expects government and taxpayers to solve their own problems. As @Dr. Kucho said it needs a party who will make hard decisions and, in my opinion, ignore the votes of those in society who are unreasonably reliant on the state. The question is which party is going to do that?