Brits are complaining of the recent cost of living, as the King’s Coronation nears. It is expected for about millions of Brits to troop to the roadsides and the Coronation grounds to witness this historical event.
“It felt degrading. I was a bit down about it,” Angela Davis complained over a cup of tea and biscuit served at the community cafe at St. John the Evangelist Church in Doncaster. The church operates the cafe alongside a food bank which offers free food, clothes, household items and other necessities to locals who are struggling.” Angela Davis is a single mother of five, who has been hit hard on the recent cost of living in UK, and how it has affected her finances.
When the food bank first opened before the pandemic, it was serving mostly homeless people. These days, many of those coming through the door are people working full time.
“They are using all of their wages to pay the bills and they’ve got no money left for food. It’s really sad that it’s got to the point where someone is working full time and not making enough money to cover basic human necessities,” Andy Unsworth, a minister at the church who manages the Given Freely Given food bank, said.
Doncaster is among the United Kingdom’s more economically deprived areas, but it’s not unique. Like many parts of northern England, South Yorkshire, a city of just over 300,000 people has never quite recovered from the industrial decline and mine closures of the 1980s and 90s. Whiles in struggling mood, the region has been hit hard by the severe cost of living crisis that has now impacted the whole of United Kingdom.
Moreover, sporadic high inflation, years of wage stagnation and the sudden rise in energy prices have left millions of Brits on the brink of poverty and struggling to meet daily needs. Yet at the same time, the UK government is ready to spend tens of millions of taxpayers’ money on a glitzy event celebrating one very, very rich man, King Charles III.
The King’s coronation this Saturday, will display the enormous wealth accumulated by the British monarchy over the centuries. There will be golden carriages and priceless jewels and custom-made designer outfits that cost more than most people make in years. The government has refused to put a figure on the cost of the coronation, but British media estimates the cost from £50 million to more than £100 million.
“I am a bit of a royalist and I do like the royal family, but I think they haven’t really read the room as it were. A lot of it should have come from their own pocket rather than the taxpayer. And I think it should have been toned down a little bit,” said Laura Billington, a teacher at a school in the city.
Billington has also felt the pinch of the current cost of living in UK. Her bills have gone up and her salary has not risen in line with inflation, making her significantly worse off in real terms. She’s not alone, across Great Britain, real wages including bonuses fell 3% in the three months to February, according to the Office for National Statistics. That’s one of the largest falls since records began in 2001.
The Wealth Of Monarchy
The King’s enormous private wealth and lavish lifestyle stand in stark contrast to the realities most people in the UK are currently living. Buckingham Palace refuses to comment on the royal family’s financial situation, arguing they have the right to privacy.
King Charles’ private wealth is estimated to be more than £1.8 billion, although the Palace has refuted the figure, describing it as “a highly creative mix of speculation, assumption and inaccuracy.”
Last year, that the personal fortune of the late Queen Elizabeth II was worth $500 million, which included her jewels, art collection, investments and two residences, Balmoral Castle in Scotland and Sandringham House in the English county of Norfolk. The Queen inherited both properties from her father, King George VI and passed them onto Charles.
That’s where the biggest financial advantage of being the monarch kicked in. The King is exempted from paying taxes and while he chooses to pay income tax voluntarily, he did not have to pay any inheritance tax, normally set at 40% on what his mother left him. That saved him tens of millions of pounds, that would otherwise go to the UK Treasury.
Craig Prescott, a UK constitutional law expert and a Bangor University lecturer, said, the inheritance tax exemption boils down to the desire to keep the monarchy independent. “In theory, the monarchy has constitutional powers.”
“In the most extreme scenario, you don’t necessarily want a prime minister to say ‘you must grant royal assent to this enormously controversial and democratically subversive piece of legislation, or I’m going to cut your funding,’” he said. “Keeping the assets in the direct line of succession ensures that the monarchy does have some independence from the government of the day,” Prescott explained further.
READ ALSO:Parents Jailed For Child’s Death
