The Queen was in the counting

It's such a bind after trudging around the shops and signing all those cheques to actually have to wait on the pavement for a taxi. Still the doorman will always carry your goodies for you. Middle right:

Of course, if it's only a couple of carrier bags and a box of booze, you can always carry it yourself to your little sports saloon. Below right: Mind 'you, it's so difficult to make up your mind. 'I can't quite decide whether to take the £450 candle holders, or perhaps one of lose cut-glass decanters for daddy.' do love looking at diamonds, she said, bending forward inside a luxurious fur coat big enough to walk about by itself.

She jabbed a bloated finger at shelves heavy with rings, bracelets and necklaces.

Diamond solitaire perfumed read over her shoulder, '£1,250'—equal to month's fighting fund for 'Isn't it gorgeous', she breathed as my back collided with the elbow of a pinkfaced ex-guardsman with white hair, tooth brush moustache and a bowler.

'No, no, it goes like._ this' he boomed In cloud cigar smoke to another ramrod figure on his left struggling to master the appropriate materialist words of The Twelve Days of Christmas' Others for whom St Christopher has always played second fiddle to the cash register strolled past the glittering tableau In the Burlington Arcade, with the easy confidence of wealth, peering and poking at champagne buckets, muffineers knick-knacks and other little for the tree.

A half-blind old soldier in intererent Night' from an coat was squeezaccordion in front of a shop selling shoes £55 a time. His hat was as empty as the pockets of his listeners were full Across Piccadilly at Fortnum and Mason's, groups of shoppers spewed out onto the staggering under armfuls and parcels done up with broad red-andwhite ribbons.

A blue Rolls-Royce glide silently away, happy childre up with the chauffeur on the front seat, mummy and daddy wedged in with a mountain ° Spent much? ask a well. dressed chap hovering around theon, yes. Much more than £70 bargain hampers.

last year. Much, much mere?

and the Tories, rise about prices haven't even thought about it. It hasn't affected me. I suppose some of the people on lower incomes might be feeling it, but fortunately I don't have to worry.' * 12 AN 'YEATS ILOOKS, ATI THE: XMASI SPENDERS IN 'THE WIEST END peted cloisters where nothing so vulgar as common permitted muted rustle cheque books.

Two hundred guise sees sweaters at 21 gns, from £10 to, £10,000—tantalizing, flaunting their gaudy opulence like a challenge.

Up at Class's own e meetic.

Prices are pocket of the 'average man' this week, ferreting about in ghoulish droves after little things like chess sets at £450, candle holders at £350 and clocks for £200.

two of the base es anally wanted a cup of tea. Two women from Harrods carrying bags walked into the Dorcheste abrough sipped in behindenTea and cakes inside them and legs rested, they look round for their car and their man' on the way through the revolving doors stopping t gaze with open fascination af that 1 raise £980,000.

decade has elapsed.

financial anxiety'.

increase of £25,000. band.

rise of £10,000). to periodic increases.

£10,000 each. ture as Sovereign.

own private fortune.

down ON MAY 19 last, the Queen sent a 'most Gracious Message' to parliament complaining about the erosive effects of inflation and demanding more cash. As a result, from January 1, the BY amount paid over for the expenses of the JACK GALE Royal Household sister, she does very badly will go up from indeed. Apart from her £35,000 a year, she's only £475,000 a year to had a mere £80,000 of taxpayers' money spent on her Kensington Palace resiArrangements will be dence. And in 1970 she had to built in for a further spend 31 whole days on official visits outside Lonincrease if this proves to don. be insufficient before the Talk about earning your bread by the sweat of your brow!

This, according to the The exhausting demands Report from the Select made on this poor working Committee on the Civil girl in 1970 included watchList, is 'to relieve her ing 24 • charitable performMajesty of any avoidable ances, eating three dinsand Therefore, provision has swilling a few down to be made for the rest of cocktail parties. the bunch as well — • you But at least we can can't bring up a tamily on calculate what she got for just under £20,000 a week. what she did.

The Duke of Edinburgh That year it worked out will get £65,000 a year-an at £500 for every offcial day's 'work' outside LonPrincess Anne will get don. But that, of course, £15,000 (a rise of £9,000) was before the rise. and this will rise to £35,000. If she keeps up the same if she gets married. There breakneck pace in 1972, it is, however, no suggestion Will be £1,127 per day. that the extra £20,000 tied By contrast it's hard to to this horsey young lady cost-price Prince Philip's is to help her get a hus- labour power. In his case, The Queen Mother will get £95,000 a year—a rise Princess Margaret is on £35,000 (£20,000 up) while the Duke of Gloucester soldiers on with £45,000 (a There is no. separate parliamentary provision for the unfortunate Charles, Prince of Wales. However, as Duke of Cornwall he is entitled to the whole of the net revenues of that Duchy. In 1970, this came to EJun,84 members of the Royal Family also have to be taken care of. In 1970 they were given £22,000 under Clause 5 of the Civil List. Now they are to get £60,000, subject, of course, The Royals' 1969 Christmas card-aboard 'The Britannia', But the payments menthe Royal Yacht, which costs the taxpayer £839,000 a year tioned so far are only for ... and It was only used twice In 1971. the 'in-group'. Those on the fringe, like Princess Alexandra and the Duke of Kent, as Labour MP Willie Hamstruggle by on a mere ilton declared to the Committee: 'Evidence on the However, in case you are scope of the Duke's activiwondering how nine people ties [sic] was received but, manage to live for a whole as in other cases, it was year on a measly £1,399,845 found impossible to disbetween them—relax. The tinguish between public and payments that are being private spending.' increased now are from Certainly, this trifling difthe Civil List and these ficulty-which might be a are concerned only with bit embarrassing for somethe Queen's public expendi- one in another walk of life - didn't stop, the modest Her private expenditure fellow from demanding a as Sovereign comes from lot more for his missus. He the Privy Purse and is in wants an increase both from addition to the £980,000. the Civil. List and the On top of this she has her Privy Purse.

Payments : to the Queen Moreover, not included from the Privy Purse are in any of these categories in part provided from the is the £2,932,000 paid out revenue here Dashen every year by government Lancaster. There has departments and the Post no recent valuation of this Office. This sum includes estate, but in 1970 our £974,000 on Royal Palaces beloved monarch received and Residences. The family £300,000 from it. have at their disposal Buck- The Duchy originated in ingham Palace, Windsor 1285 when Henry II gave Castle, St James's Palace, his son Edmund the posHampton Court Palace, sessions of the rebellious Kensington Palace, Kew Simon de Montfort and Palace and the Palace of the Earl of Ferrisas. The Duchy later profited from the dissolution of the monture on establishasteries.

Its properties today are mainly in Yorkshire, Lanin case pads aren't cashire, Cheshire and the enough, Queen also City of London. It includes the foreshores of Lancashire, plus half the bed of the Mersey. Only a half —they're not a greedy lot.

In the last 18 years the Queen has received nearly f3m from the Duchy.

The Duchy of Cornwall (see Prince Charles, above) dates back to 1337 and now includes such properties as Kennington Oval Flight and cricket ground and the flower farms of the Scillies, loyally sniffed by Harold Wilson several times a year.

The Crown Estate, which is administered by government-appointed commissioners, is separate from anything that is the personal of postal and property of the Queen. Its links with the Crown go back to the plunder followThe Post ing the Norman Conquest. Office can't pay decent So the little ceremony making the beginning of each reign when the monarch, 'hands over' claim to its: revenues in return for a Civil List, is a charade, pure and simple.

NoW, what about the Queen's personal fortune?

By her The Royal Palaces, the Crown Jewels, the Royal Art Collections etc., erc., must be of astronomical value in terms of money. The Queen says they shouldn't count in estimating her wealth since they are vested in the Sovereign as such and can't be alienated (not unless the vulgar proletariat carries out a revolution, that is).

But, even leaving all that opulence aside, the lady's personal wealth has been variously estimated at between £50m and £100m. (This did not stop the Civil List Committee from decidiurther turther? scope for 'there was little economies in the Royal Household'.)

But, how much has she got? The answer is simple. Nobody knows.

Although she has complained that £50m to £100m is an 'exaggeration', she won't say what the real figure is. Not even the Civil List Committee could nna out.

'Well,' unsophisticated people might ask, 'how can her tax payments be worked out, if nobody knows what income is?' Again-simple.

She doesn't pay any tax.

She gets the whole lot— state and private money— tax free.

She does, poor lass, pay rates on her Balmoral and Sandringham estates, but beyond that, not a penny, not even Death Duties. And if any Income Tax is suffered at source - company dividends, for example-shé can claim repayments.

Moreover, the Civil List annuities paid to other members of the Royal Family are exempted from taxation by Treasury Order, the exemption ranging from 100 per cent to 80 per cent. And Charles' income from the Duchy of Cornwall is exempt from all taxes as well.

And, just to make sure there's plenty of gilt on the gingerbread, the payments made by the Queen to other members of the Royal Family under Clause 5 of the Civil List, are not liable to tax either. These payments amounted to £22,000 in 1970—compared with £4,491 in 1952. Some inflation!

Still, didn't a parliamentary committee decide on these dole-outs? So wasn't it democratic?

Hang on a minute.

The select committee did not admit the public to any of its sittings.

And it also rejected a cuanactinn that avri- wal auy [V1dence of any kind should be taken from witnesses who were critical of the Monarchy. of the tremendous expenditure it swallows up. In consequence, the evidence was entirely one-sided, coming largely trom paid servants of the Monarch or her relatives.

Out of the 21 interviews conducted by the committee, 16 were with employees of the Family and two of the remaining five were with treasury officials.

So, what have we got? With real unemployment well over a million, with pensioners freezing and starving, with hundreds of homeless sleeping under bridges, with children being deprived of school milk, with sick people scraping pennies together to buy their medicines—we have a staggering total of:

£4,079,845 of public money practically tax free being dished out to ten people each and every year.