Good day to be Zara and have this pass without notice. Already having 9 points before this offence suggests she is indeed a speed demon!
I am generally also there with you and - absent the creepy sex trafficking stuff obviously - I actually think this is very similar to the space where Andrew wants to sit, except he is there with successful businesspeople rather than Hollywood celebrities.
there are racism issues in Britain that M has brought to the fore, and it’s awful to see and I do feel for her on that front. The pressure must be immense. That doesn’t mean she is not trying to use it to her advantage, for her own ends.
equally the tabloids did go after Kate a lot in her early years with William because we also have class issues, yay! Her family were seen as social climbers, now they’re saints.
i think my advice would be - just don’t marry royal. ?
I believe the main argument goes that the money from the crown state is intended to be used for the administration of the country as a whole (so the plebs don’t get upset about the fact one family basically owns the island by virtue of being borne, you know? ).
Anything that is then given “back” to the Queen could technically otherwise have been used by the government to fund other public services like the NHS, education, police etc instead - so by giving an amount to the Queen it then requires the taxpayers to make up the gap in funding for those services (through higher taxation than would theoretically otherwise be required). I don’t think it’s direct taxpayer funding as such, it’s almost more an opportunity cost?
the reality is way more complicated obviously - you can argue the royal family results in the country collecting more money by way of tourism than it otherwise would. But then the counter to that is how much does the family itself actually add, if people would still come to see the palaces even without active royals? Edinburgh castle hasn’t been used in centuries but is still a major visitor attraction, for example.
so the taxpayers money argument is potentially because a lot of people would like to pay less tax but still maintain or improve public services, and this is a clearly visible outflow of money that doesn’t necessarily create value for those people, so it’s an easy target. Reality is again that the civil service as a whole is hugely inefficient (in my experience, as I work a lot with a government department) and likely ‘wastes’ far more money than the Queen gets.
or it’s just that we like a moan when it’s cold and raining, which is most of the time
this is long, and just my take on it - I grumble but reality is I don’t care that much day to day ?