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Comment by bjourne | Hacker News Reader

The queen was a public figure whose lavish livelihood were paid for by British tax-payers. So it seems to me that British people should have the right to celebrate her death in any way they please. Curtailing people's freedom of speech by misusing public order laws (the queen's funeral is not comparable to any normal funeral) is curtailing freedom of speech.

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So you see it as a business transaction, where one party is somehow allowed to be rude to the other party because they paid them money?

Am I allowed to be rude to a cashier because I pay them?

Do you not see what (non-monetary) price public figures pay for their role?

Err, yes. At least in my country rudeness is not a crime so you are, in fact, allowed to be rude to cashiers.

This is actually an incredibly false point. The royal family (if treated like anonymous land-owners) would cause a sudden and drastic drop in fundraising within the UK. Assuming their property wasn't seized having them retain their current station is actually a net positive to the British tax-payers - they lose far more potential income each year in free land leases and charitable donations (known collectively as the Crown Estate) to the state then they receive in benefits (known as the Sovereign Grant). This arrangement is financially detrimental to the royal family in terms of absolute value.

I mean… why would the royal family be allowed to “keep” anything in an abolished monarchy? Obviously you should just seize roughly all the property. It’s a product of the State, not the royal family working hard

if the government tried it they'd take it to judicial review

and they'd win

Maybe? That's a really complicated question honestly - how much of their personal property actually is hereditary wealth and how much is a benefit of their station. I can tell you the answer is neither 0% nor 100% - the royal family (if dethroned) shouldn't be thrown out as paupers and it shouldn't be granted personal control of spaces that enjoy public use. Where precisely that line should be drawn is complicated but if that line leaves them with any significant portion of their current titular wealth the UK will end up losing money. The Crown Estate might be worth around 15.6 Billion, so a few hundred million every year is far less then the family would receive if they liquidated the lands at value and just invested it into an index fund. The actual income of the estate is significantly higher - with a lot of those assets under reporting their actual yield in terms of tourism and public benefits.

I think it's a really complicated question.

Lastly, while we're on this topic - why hasn't the US seized the wealth of the 100 most wealthy individuals unilaterally - that money would be of immense amount of benefit to the country so why do we let wealth accrue?

It's a complicated question with regards to some of their property. It's not at all complicated with the Crown Estates. That is clearly public property. Otherwise Edward VIII would have kept it when he abdicated.

Edward VIII was pressured into giving up a lot of stuff he legally should have been able to keep.

He wasn’t good at making decisions.

"Legally", based on laws made law by kings of previous generations. The whole point is people asking to change the laws, democratically.

King Georges stamp collection is worth 10s of millions. It’s also 100% private property.

When King George died, his stamp collection went to his widow, who kept it until her death at 102.

There’s probably personal property like that scattered throughout the family tree.

This is wrong. Seize it. Make it National Trust property. Job done. Doesn’t need an aristocracy present in it.

Also The Queen has a hell of a lot of hidden wealth.

The National Trust is a corporation ( registered company 01083105 ), it doesn't contribute anything to the State coffers.

You are completely wrong on the basic facts of this. The Crown Estate belongs to the state, not the royal family. The Sovereign Grant is an arrangement to pay the monarch is paid 25% of the revenue, which would otherwise flow to government coffers like the rest of the revenue. Were the UK to become a republic, the state would simply stop paying this to the monarch, and thus gain revenue.

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