As we’ve discussed, Buckingham Palace released a lot of Sovereign Grant numbers to show where the taxpayers’ money has gone during 2020 and the first half of 2021. It should be noted that a lot of these numbers and press releases are purposefully obtuse – this is not meant to be any kind of comprehensive audit, and internal palace numbers will never be broken down and itemized in any way. Plus, for the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge specifically, they’re being financially supported by both the Sovereign Grant and Prince Charles’ Duchy of Cornwall money. Charles pays for the Cambridges’ upkeep, office staff, keen fancams and all of those buttons. But taxpayers (through the Sovereign Grant) are paying for Will and Kate’s travels, security, and transportation. Remember how the Queen bribed Will & Kate with their own helicopter? Yeah, that goes on BP’s ledger. Remember the Covid Choo-Choo tour? The travel expenses are on BP’s ledger. Speaking of:
The 1,250-mile royal journey by rail set off from London, a few weeks before Christmas last year, to thank communities, outstanding individuals and key workers for their efforts during the coronavirus pandemic. The couple made stops in Edinburgh, Manchester, Berwick, Batley, Cardiff and Bath Spa and ended their three-day tour by visiting the Queen at Windsor Castle.
The cost of the train is met by the taxpayer and has long been controversial with the service nearly scrapped in 2013 when it was feared the rolling stock would have to be replaced. During the Golden Jubilee year of 2002, the train’s journeys cost £872,000.
The royal accounts revealed the Cambridges’ journey cost £47,965 and the monarchy only made a handful of major royal trips due to the pandemic.
The most expensive was the Prince of Wales’ charter flight in October to Kuwait to pay his condolences following the death of the country’s Emir, Sheikh Sabah al-Ahmad al-Sabah, at a cost of £58,993.
The overall cost for royal travel during 2020-21 was £3.2 million, down by £2.1 million on the previous financial year, but despite the reduced number of trips a significant amount of the funds was used for leasing payments for the transportation.
The cost of helicopters was £2.1 million, including operating lease payments of £600,000, large and small fixed wing aircraft cost £100,000 each, rail travel was £700,000, which included lease payments of £200,000, and vehicles £200,000.
[From The Scotsman]
I kind of think they’re low-balling the cost of the Covid Choo Choo tour. The £47,965 just accounts for the cost of the train, I believe, and that definitely seems like a low number. But then you have to take into account all of the buttons, extra staffers, dumbass videos and such. All for their stupid super-spreader tour which no one wanted.
The cost of the helicopters is of particular interest to me – think about how infrequently most royals were traveling in 2020. It was really just Charles, Camilla, William and Kate doing any kind of traveling. So why is that helicopter flight number so high? How often were Will and Kate flying back and forth from London to Norfolk, not to mention all of the other helicopter trips they take? As Omid points out, no one dares itemize the helicopter trips either.
— Omid Scobie (@scobie) June 23, 2021
Photos courtesy of Backgrid, Avalon Red.
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