The True Cost of the Royal Family Explained

Look at that! What a waste! That Queen living it off the government in her castles with her corgis and gin. Just how much does this cost to maintain? £40 million. That's about 65p per person per year of tax money going to the royal family. Sure, it's still 23p short of a complete shield, but it might be more than you want to pay. After all, those are your coins. Why does the Queen get to steal them?

Well, it's a little complicated. The story starts with this guy, King George III, most well known as the monarch who lost the United States for the empire. Less well-known, but far more interesting, is he likely suffered from a mental illness called pereria, which has the unusual side effect of transforming your poop from its normal boring brown into a delightful shade of purple. But I digress.

Back to the reason the Royals get tax money: King George was having trouble paying his bills, and he had racked up debt. While he did own huge tracks of land, the profit from their rental was too small to cover his expenses. He offered Parliament a deal: for the rest of his life, he would surrender the profits from the rents on his land in exchange for getting a fixed annual salary and having his debts removed. They took him up on the deal, guessing that the profits from the rent would pay off long term.

Just how well did Parliament do from this? Back to the present day. Let's compare the profits and losses by using a tenor to represent £10 million. The cost to maintain the royal family today is £40 million per year, but the revenue paid to the UK from the royal lands is £200 million per year. £200 million in revenue subtract £40 million in salary costs equals £160 million in profit. That's right! The United Kingdom earns £160 million p in profit every year from the royal family.

Doing the math for an individual: £60 million divided by 62 million people is about £260. Because of the royal family, your taxes are actually £260 cheaper each year than they would otherwise be. But perhaps that's not enough for you because you're a real greedy gezer. Why not kick the Royals out and keep 100% of the revenue? Because it's still their land! King George the Crazy wasn't crazy enough to give up everything, just the profits.

But it wasn't only him; every monarch since King George III has voluntarily turned over the profits from their land to the United Kingdom. If the government stopped paying the royal family's living and state expenses, the Royals would be forced to take back the profits from their land, and your taxes, dear monarchy haters, would go up, not down. Plus, £160 million is just the easily measurable money the United Kingdom makes from the royal family.

Don't forget their huge indirect golden goose: tourists! Annoying though they might be to the locals by blocking the tube and refusing to stand on the right, they dump buckets of money on the UK to see the sights. They travel ludicrously short distances by public transport and generally act silly a long way from home. Sure, not everything they come to see is royal, but the most expensive stuff is.

And who are the biggest spenders? The Yanks! After they finished buying maple syrup, cheap pharmaceuticals, T1, professional services, and illegal pharmaceuticals, where do they go next? The United Kingdom! Americans fly across an ocean to see a land filled with castles that are in plastic.

And why do the Americans think France's castles are so boring and stinky and the UK's castles are so awesome? Because real monarchs still use them! The Tower of London is so stunning to visitors because the royal crest on the Yeoman Warder's uniform is real. It's not a lame historical reenactment or a modern LARPing quest; it's the embodiment of the living, breathing Queen.

Everywhere you look, she sprinkled fairy dust on all objects to make them magically attractive to tourists—12 million of whom visit every year, spending £7,000 million, which suddenly makes those direct profits look like rather small change. But perhaps you don't care that the monarchs are a perpetual gold mine for the United Kingdom.

You're a Republican, and you dislike the royal family because of their political power. After all, the government derives its right to rule through the crown, not the people. And yes, I'll grant you that back in the head-choppy days of yore, this was a legitimate concern. But the modern Queen isn't a dangerous political line, but a declawed kitten. Her powers are limited to a Kabuki theater act of approving what Parliament wants to do anyway.

Remove the royal family from government, and fundamentally, nothing would be different. Except now you wouldn't live in a magical United Kingdom, but a rather dull United Republic of England, Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland—aka OURSY for short. It doesn't quite have the same ring to it.

But maybe I'm wrong! Perhaps the Queen is a political ticking time bomb just waiting for her chance to declare random wars and dissolve Parliament for the laughs. But until that day comes—God save the Queen! Thank you very much for watching! [Music]