I haven't heard much from the Queen since she did that speech, a speech so riveting that a page boy fainted. She did pop up to smash a bottle of whisky on a big warship, but other than that she must have been working on other, more quiet, things or taking some time off.
But "work" has never been more important than now, with the vastly wealthy United Kingdom having realised that it's also incredibly poor. With public accounts in a mess, welfare spending has been squished; scrutiny has been levelled on people who are deemed to have too much undeserved stuff or space in their homes. Private employers have realised that they can't hire people unless contracts become more flexible. So how should UK plc deal with its most favoured employee, the Queen?
The Day Job.
On Royal.gov.uk a day in the life of the Queen is set out. There aren't set hours but we are assured she works hard "reading letters from the public, official papers and briefing notes: audiences with political ministers or ambassadors; and meetings with her Private Secretaries..."
In the morning she scans the daily newspapers before being thrust 200-300 letters from the public, which have to be answered by staff. Then she receives a collection of policy documents, before perhaps having an official meetings with an ambassador or two. After lunch she might go on some kind of 'engagement'. She has about 430 such engagements a year, mostly to visit lord-lieutenants (the Queen's representatives throughout the land), but they could also include visits to schools, art galleries, homeless hostels, factories, and so on.
A weekly evening meeting with the PM on Wednesdays at 6:30pm goes unrecorded, but, as we all know, David Cameron has nothing to say that is worth remembering seeing that most of it is lies. Some evenings she might go to a film premiere or charity concert, or some other event in which she has some kind of stake. On other evenings Buckingham Palace might hold a reception for a special event.
Makes it sound like a full day of work.
Wages.
The Royal Household costs anything between £35m and £200m, depending on what you include as costs. The figure which is closer to the official Royal report (referring to the Sovereign Grant, i.e. money from Government) was an estimated £36.1 Million for 2013-14. That spreads out at £98,904 and 11p for every day in a 365 day year. Let's say she does a 48 hour week like many other hardworking citizens – 8 hours a day including Saturday, Sunday off. That comes to an hourly wage of £14,423.52. Not bad at all – and that's at the lower end of estimates.
One should bear in mind that this is the money given to the family, rather than thrust directly into the Queen's purse. But one should also consider that this figure doesn't include things like security, thought to be about £100 Million, and other expenses. With generous payouts going to the family, subsidising the work she does, you'd have to conclude that this setup is akin to an ordinary welfare claim. Indeed, most benefits claimants are in work, and Queen is no different.
Private Wealth.
The Queen's private wealth is unknown. I find this is a little strange, seeing that whenever I have had to claim benefits, I'm sure I had to calculate and declare my private wealth (fortunately this is quickly done because I have nothing). Estimates of the Queen's net wealth go as high as £349,000,000 (2008).
Money raised for the UK.
Money from the Crown Estate is seen as money brought in from the Monarchy, and the profits (£200 Million plus) go in to the UK Treasury (except for 15% which the Queen keeps). But it's not money that is earned by the Royal Family as such. If your local pub was in the Crown Estate, its profits would go to the Treasury, and the monarchy would get the credit for that. The money that comes in from the Crown Estate outweighs the amount officially given to the royals, but groups like Republic point out that this money is being raised regardless of ownership.
A counter argument to Republic could be questioning whether selling off, say, Regent Street – which is in the Crown Estate – would bring in more cash in the long term. Not with the way privatisation currently tends to work, one suspects. Crown Estate cash seems pretty dependable. Still, as a principle, it's still the case that beyond owning it, the monarchy do bugger all to bring in money from the Crown Estate.
Property.
The Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh have eight houses (4 official and 4 private): two palaces, three castles, one 'house' (which looks like a palace to me) and two 'lodges' in the grounds of one of the castles. Buckingham Palace has 19 state rooms, 52 Royal and guest bedrooms, 188 staff bedrooms, 92 offices, and 78 bathrooms. Other Royal residences are the homes of other family members, bringing the total to 10. There are 23 more which are unoccupied by Royalty – the Palace of Westminster, Somerset House, Edinburgh Castle, etc.
Conclusion.
We're all in it together, said one wise man a few years ago. Times are tough, said another. The country is broke, said a third. If these things are all true – and why should we believe otherwise? – then surely no one could argue with a rethink of the Queen's contract, something more in line with the general trends of the new and appealingly buoyant labour market.
Statistics show that some 1.5 million new jobs have been created since 2008, putting about 30.5 million people in work (April 2014). The Spectator blog which explains why these figures are so "miraculous" has to admit that wages are still falling in real terms. There are 22.2m full time workers, 8.2 part-time workers, and 1.4m zero hours contracts and non-guaranteed hours contracts (ONS, April 2014). (Note that one person can have more than one zero hours contract.) "Self-employed" workers make up about 44% of the rise, according to the TUC.
This table from Gov.uk shows how worker's rights are changed by zero hours contracts (Employee shareholder, worker, and self-employed are all statuses of zero hours workers.
The great benefit of zero hours contracts is that, for the company, it's a zero responsibility contract. All those workers' rights that have been slowly accrued over painstakingly long and arduous union battles with capitalists are swept aside in one simple contract, especially if a company gives you a job but you remain nominally "self-employed". A quick search on Indeed shows jobs going for self-employed sales advisors, tele-sales people, event staff, drivers, etc. – these aren't people "working for themselves" any more than Ford's factory labourers were.
But that's not a problem, you see, because it's all about choice. Choosing a flexible contract to suit your lifestyle is like a Pakistani child having the "choice" to work for a dollar a day for Nike, or starve. Choice is important – no one's making you do anything.
On occasion the worker does legitimately want a no-strings-attached job, to coincide with an increasingly NSA culture. Students are an oft-cited example, but the Queen may well find that zero hours favours her "lifestyle" too. The average hourly wage on a zero hours contract is £9, which is a bit below the Queen's current £14,423.52 an hour, but for the flexibility of such a contract she can spend a little more time greeting friends, playing with dogs, and reading the papers (things the rest of us do for free). Or she could pull up her socks and start reeling out dozens of Speeches every week, smashing bottles into boats all over the place, doubling the "engagements" and pocket a half-decent wage as a result.
Which brings up another question. How would a zero hour Queen be able to afford all the servants, that blingin' carriage, and the upkeep of her sizeable abodes? £9 an hour just isn't going to cut it, even if she works a 60 hour week like a primary school teacher – she might still end up needing some taxpayer help! Oh, I think Iain Duncan Smith might have the answer...
In a Telegraph article Smith, orchestrator of the "bedroom tax"/"spare room subsidy", makes the case for cuts for people with too many rooms. "We have a problem that needs addressing," he writes. "There are over quarter of a million households living in overcrowded social housing in England alone and another 1.8 million households stuck on the social housing waiting list. It is not right to make families wait and wait for a house that is big enough, while other households on benefits are allowed to live in homes that are too big for their needs, at no extra cost."
Couldn't have put it better myself!
Under the new rules, people who receive money from the state are penalised if they have spare rooms to the tune of 14% for 1 extra bedroom; 25% if you have 2 or more extra bedrooms. That's a 25% deduction for the Queen, bringing her £36.1 Million payout down to £27,075,000, saving the taxpayer £9,025,000.
There's always opposition to the controversial bedroom tax, and we should expect nothing less from the Royals who are sure to say that these so-called "extra" rooms are all important. I'd direct those complainants to consider the disabled people who are penalised because they have an extra room containing equipment for their disability.
One has to remember that the bedroom tax is a 'nudge' policy to encourage families to find houses more suited to their size, to take responsibility for their lifestyle and play fair. Housing is scarce, it's true, so people should leave their homes and find tiny new ones for their lonely souls: the fact that these one bed homes hardly exist is not the issue. As for the Royals, a nice four-bed home in west London suburbia should be enough for the Queen and her husband, Prince Andrew, Prince Edward and wife, and their daughter. It's a lot more than many of us get, and just think how many rooms there are spread over their newly vacated palaces and castles! That's a lot of new homes.
Meanwhile, if they all get on their bikes and get down the JobCentre, then the whole family could be off benefits, which, in George Osborne's words, would be more fair to people "who get up, go out to work, pay [their] taxes and pay for those benefits."
We know this means a lot to Osborne, because he said, "we won’t stop until we make sure that everyone has the opportunity to enjoy the peace of mind that comes from having a job."
That's everyone.
The Tories also enjoy a good moral argument, opining that, for example, idle sponges on benefits are undeserved of social security even if prohibiting them makes little economic sense due to other costs incurred down the line. "Working Hard and Getting On" is the mantra for deserved poverty – i.e. badly paid job with long hours; those that don't work hard don't even deserve poverty – they deserve nothing. The fact that they have televisions is enough to condemn them as recklessly and unfairly benefitting from the foolish generosity of the State. With that logic, the economic considerations above can be disregarded, for the moral argument alone would be enough to state with some certainty that the Queen's wealth and continuing welfare payments are undeserved, and hence should be stopped.
We're often told that things like social security, wage rises, pensions, job security, and employment rights have to be considered against the backdrop of economic reality. But when you're dealing with figures such as £1,268.7 billion for the net public sector debt (in March 2014) and much more for private debt, it's seems that reality left us long ago.
But what could be a bigger disavowal of reality than having a Queen? There by bloodline and "divine right", immune to meritocracy and democracy, trotting out a job which is purely symbolic. Of course once you start looking into it, all of the Queen's work seems a little tenuous, and disbanding the whole show seems like a better idea than changing the contract to a zero hours one. But I'm willing to give her the benefit of the doubt. Let her stay on as a zero hour employee, working for her crust. We don't want her back on benefits after all!
Private Wealth.
The Queen's private wealth is unknown. I find this is a little strange, seeing that whenever I have had to claim benefits, I'm sure I had to calculate and declare my private wealth (fortunately this is quickly done because I have nothing). Estimates of the Queen's net wealth go as high as £349,000,000 (2008).
Money raised for the UK.
Money from the Crown Estate is seen as money brought in from the Monarchy, and the profits (£200 Million plus) go in to the UK Treasury (except for 15% which the Queen keeps). But it's not money that is earned by the Royal Family as such. If your local pub was in the Crown Estate, its profits would go to the Treasury, and the monarchy would get the credit for that. The money that comes in from the Crown Estate outweighs the amount officially given to the royals, but groups like Republic point out that this money is being raised regardless of ownership.
A counter argument to Republic could be questioning whether selling off, say, Regent Street – which is in the Crown Estate – would bring in more cash in the long term. Not with the way privatisation currently tends to work, one suspects. Crown Estate cash seems pretty dependable. Still, as a principle, it's still the case that beyond owning it, the monarchy do bugger all to bring in money from the Crown Estate.
Property.
The Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh have eight houses (4 official and 4 private): two palaces, three castles, one 'house' (which looks like a palace to me) and two 'lodges' in the grounds of one of the castles. Buckingham Palace has 19 state rooms, 52 Royal and guest bedrooms, 188 staff bedrooms, 92 offices, and 78 bathrooms. Other Royal residences are the homes of other family members, bringing the total to 10. There are 23 more which are unoccupied by Royalty – the Palace of Westminster, Somerset House, Edinburgh Castle, etc.
Conclusion.
We're all in it together, said one wise man a few years ago. Times are tough, said another. The country is broke, said a third. If these things are all true – and why should we believe otherwise? – then surely no one could argue with a rethink of the Queen's contract, something more in line with the general trends of the new and appealingly buoyant labour market.
Statistics show that some 1.5 million new jobs have been created since 2008, putting about 30.5 million people in work (April 2014). The Spectator blog which explains why these figures are so "miraculous" has to admit that wages are still falling in real terms. There are 22.2m full time workers, 8.2 part-time workers, and 1.4m zero hours contracts and non-guaranteed hours contracts (ONS, April 2014). (Note that one person can have more than one zero hours contract.) "Self-employed" workers make up about 44% of the rise, according to the TUC.
This table from Gov.uk shows how worker's rights are changed by zero hours contracts (Employee shareholder, worker, and self-employed are all statuses of zero hours workers.
The great benefit of zero hours contracts is that, for the company, it's a zero responsibility contract. All those workers' rights that have been slowly accrued over painstakingly long and arduous union battles with capitalists are swept aside in one simple contract, especially if a company gives you a job but you remain nominally "self-employed". A quick search on Indeed shows jobs going for self-employed sales advisors, tele-sales people, event staff, drivers, etc. – these aren't people "working for themselves" any more than Ford's factory labourers were.
But that's not a problem, you see, because it's all about choice. Choosing a flexible contract to suit your lifestyle is like a Pakistani child having the "choice" to work for a dollar a day for Nike, or starve. Choice is important – no one's making you do anything.
On occasion the worker does legitimately want a no-strings-attached job, to coincide with an increasingly NSA culture. Students are an oft-cited example, but the Queen may well find that zero hours favours her "lifestyle" too. The average hourly wage on a zero hours contract is £9, which is a bit below the Queen's current £14,423.52 an hour, but for the flexibility of such a contract she can spend a little more time greeting friends, playing with dogs, and reading the papers (things the rest of us do for free). Or she could pull up her socks and start reeling out dozens of Speeches every week, smashing bottles into boats all over the place, doubling the "engagements" and pocket a half-decent wage as a result.
Which brings up another question. How would a zero hour Queen be able to afford all the servants, that blingin' carriage, and the upkeep of her sizeable abodes? £9 an hour just isn't going to cut it, even if she works a 60 hour week like a primary school teacher – she might still end up needing some taxpayer help! Oh, I think Iain Duncan Smith might have the answer...
In a Telegraph article Smith, orchestrator of the "bedroom tax"/"spare room subsidy", makes the case for cuts for people with too many rooms. "We have a problem that needs addressing," he writes. "There are over quarter of a million households living in overcrowded social housing in England alone and another 1.8 million households stuck on the social housing waiting list. It is not right to make families wait and wait for a house that is big enough, while other households on benefits are allowed to live in homes that are too big for their needs, at no extra cost."
Couldn't have put it better myself!
Under the new rules, people who receive money from the state are penalised if they have spare rooms to the tune of 14% for 1 extra bedroom; 25% if you have 2 or more extra bedrooms. That's a 25% deduction for the Queen, bringing her £36.1 Million payout down to £27,075,000, saving the taxpayer £9,025,000.
There's always opposition to the controversial bedroom tax, and we should expect nothing less from the Royals who are sure to say that these so-called "extra" rooms are all important. I'd direct those complainants to consider the disabled people who are penalised because they have an extra room containing equipment for their disability.
One has to remember that the bedroom tax is a 'nudge' policy to encourage families to find houses more suited to their size, to take responsibility for their lifestyle and play fair. Housing is scarce, it's true, so people should leave their homes and find tiny new ones for their lonely souls: the fact that these one bed homes hardly exist is not the issue. As for the Royals, a nice four-bed home in west London suburbia should be enough for the Queen and her husband, Prince Andrew, Prince Edward and wife, and their daughter. It's a lot more than many of us get, and just think how many rooms there are spread over their newly vacated palaces and castles! That's a lot of new homes.
Meanwhile, if they all get on their bikes and get down the JobCentre, then the whole family could be off benefits, which, in George Osborne's words, would be more fair to people "who get up, go out to work, pay [their] taxes and pay for those benefits."
We know this means a lot to Osborne, because he said, "we won’t stop until we make sure that everyone has the opportunity to enjoy the peace of mind that comes from having a job."
That's everyone.
We're often told that things like social security, wage rises, pensions, job security, and employment rights have to be considered against the backdrop of economic reality. But when you're dealing with figures such as £1,268.7 billion for the net public sector debt (in March 2014) and much more for private debt, it's seems that reality left us long ago.
But what could be a bigger disavowal of reality than having a Queen? There by bloodline and "divine right", immune to meritocracy and democracy, trotting out a job which is purely symbolic. Of course once you start looking into it, all of the Queen's work seems a little tenuous, and disbanding the whole show seems like a better idea than changing the contract to a zero hours one. But I'm willing to give her the benefit of the doubt. Let her stay on as a zero hour employee, working for her crust. We don't want her back on benefits after all!
