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That £100,000 bill for the chandeliers at Buck House

Apologies to Richard and sundry others.

But I simply don\’t see what spending £100,000 to clean the chandeliers at Buckingham Palace has to do with the Queen.

Are we saying that if we were a Republic, with a President, that the chandeliers would not get cleaned (Elysee anyone?)? That we would tear Buck House to the ground? That a Peoples\’ Commissar would not live in luxurious surroundings (Kremlin anyone?)?

The £100,000 bill is a function of the existence of the house with chandeliers in it, not of the form of State that we inhabit.

7 thoughts on “That £100,000 bill for the chandeliers at Buck House”

  1. I’m guessing, from a position of ignorance, it’s the concept of fairness.
    What’s the tendering process? If there isn’t a public tendering process then maybe there ought to be one?
    And, of course, the voters have no direct choice in who uses the house. There is a minority (sizable?not?) who would prefer a direct choice.
    So you’re right, it’s not to do with the queen, it’s a different category.

  2. In a sense the Queen is a squatter not the landlord. The Government is the landlord and is maintaining the property.

    Cleaning chandeliers gives an opportunity to inspect them and see if anything might need repairing.

    Of the spending highlighted by the Daily Mail some of it may or may not be paying over the odds, how can we know?

    Only the games room looks objectionable but then there might be a lot of staff. The rest are for function rooms and staff facilities. Nowt to do with the Queen oneself.

  3. I’ll guarantee you that if we did away with the Windsors and replaced them with a revolving door of failed politicos and weird ‘celebrities'(cos you just know they’d get in on the act somehow in our X Factor/Big Brother obsessed world) it would end up costing more than the Royals do now. Loads more. For one thing each ex Pres would need round the clock security a la Tony B. There could be 2,3 4 ex presidents to guard at any one time, plus their pensions to pay as well. All the building would need upkeep as now, once the State got involved in the running of it all you can be sure the costs would go through the roof.

    Be Republican by all means but don’t imagine it would be cheaper.

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