'Let Them Eat From Foodbanks', Ma'am?
An alternative on Xmas day - a speech TO the Queen. You are not special. You are 'people'. You are not exempted from care because of your birth, any more than we are exempted from poverty because of ours.
However your are, rightly or wrongly, a monarch. Nevertheless you are 'people' and 'your' people are struggling, starving and freezing to death in the streets as you decide on pheasant or partridge.
You have a cold, it makes the national news - another nameless rough sleeper dies of hypothermia....not a whisper.
If we as a country are expected to live within our means, is it too much to ask that you might whittle down your household budget to share your staggering wealth with those in need in the country you are responsible for?
Since when did 'bringing in the tourists' become the raison d'etre of the British monarchy? And if there is no other use than this, what, exactly, is the point of maintaining our homegrown tax avoiders?
I'm not anti-monarchy, I'm sure they have their uses, nobody's chopping off heads here....I'm just anti any hugely wealthy structures in this country who are content to see the people they represent going to foodbanks or digging in bins to survive, to do something as basic as feed their children.
You have a duty of care to your people, I'm sure you'd agree - the royalty is historically very big on duty. So the question is this - what' do you give? I don't mean your many 'charitable interests' - serviced by your employees and probably (if you paid any) tax deductible. I don't mean lipservice.
The British taxpayer (that's us commoners) is expected to pay for the upkeep of your 'house'. Thousands of us are facing bills for the upkeep of of their own homes - we cannot call on the resources of the privileged to keep our roofs from leaking. We cannot milk the country to get the pointing done.
You on the other hand could pay for it in small change - or maybe sell a pair of earrings.
This Xmas, 140,000 children woke up homeless, while you store away treasures which could change their lives, treasures you will never use, some you have probably never seen, like a dragon on its hoard.
You do not need a Faberge egg - hell, you don't need the Kohinoor Diamond or the Star of India, but those 140,000 children need homes, and food, and to just feel safe. You don't need multiple 'houses' and luxury estates - when people in your care are sleeping in doorways. It is obscene.
It's a simple thing, really. You have plenty, you have never known anything but plenty, you were born to plenty - how hard would it really be to share a bit of that plenty out where it is desperately needed.
This Xmas hundreds of thousands of your 'subjects' are living in poverty. Do your job.