Now the Scots are Grabbing the Queens Cash!

mcdonnelBy Mike Small

‘Scots grab Queen’s cash!’ bleats the Daily Mail in full indignant Jockophobic glory. Yes the Most Dangerous Woman in Britain is at it again, stealing from a poor defenceless old lady. Of course pitching the Queen (legal owner of about 6.6 billion acres of land, one-sixth of the earth’s land surface) as the underdog is just a wee bit cheeky, but, hey who cares, it’s a good excuse to have ago at those terrible money-grubbing Scots, innit?

Actually this story isn’t just wrong (as in just fatally completely not true) but it’s a re-tread of a story last tried-out in December last year. Andy Wightman comprehensively demolished it then and we do so again today: “Having a long-standing interest in the Crown Estate and the strange circumstances in which, in 2011, the Sovereign Grant Bill had been rushed through Parliament , I knew this story made no sense for the simple reason that responsibility for the financing of the Royal Family is a reserved matter and that there are no proposals to change this state of affairs.

The story was then regurgitated by Hamish in the Spectator blog with even more extravagant claims such as “Scotland will simply be taking the money that currently goes to pay for the Royal Family and spending it on whatever it likes”, that the refusal to hand the money over was a “snub” designed to appeal to SNP members who “still harbour grievances over the referendum”.

By this point a number of journalists who were interested in following up the story contacted me. I told them that there were no proposals to devolve responsibility for financing the Royal Family and that the entire story appeared to be what I described in my blog as “a dung heap of unadulterated, fabricated crap”.

The plain facts are that the Crown Estate revenues do not finance the Royal Family but merely provide a benchmark against which the Sovereign Grant is calculated (using an initial figure of 15%), that the matter is reserved to Westminster, and that the Smith Commission (which recommended devolution of the Crown Estate) had correctly noted that “responsibility for financing the Sovereign grant will need to reflect this revised settlement for the Crown Estate.”

Now no-one expects the Mail to do any research or to remember its failed smear of six months ago but the BBC and the Guardian (Caroline Davies) repeat the nonsense here.

Might this have something to do with desperate Palace spinning today as its announced that public funding of the Queen is expected to rise by £2m next year – to £42.8m?

 

Comments (33)

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  1. stanb says:

    Similar story spun in Telegraph – but then there is a repair bill of around £150m for Bucks Palace.

  2. Dan Huil says:

    Result: More support for the Scottish government.

  3. Angry Weegie says:

    Just another

  4. sandy ritchie says:

    Well that’s a bloody shame…the “news” nearly had me congratulating Mrs Sturgeon…ah well..one can only live in hope…lol

    1. Airconditioned says:

      Completely agree.

      I thought Nicola Sturgeon was breaking away from the outdated policy of her old sensei and manoeuvring Scotland into line with the modern world.

      I know the SNP favours and gradualist approach to achieving independence but really…

  5. C Rober says:

    Well you know its what it is , a headline , wonder what real news went on at the same time?

    ISIS drowning executions.Isis rocket launcher executions.

    Surely its time then that FRONT PAGE retractions are enacted in HOllYROOD , Westminster has shown that the NOTW and phone hacking was brush and carpeted as well as as alwasy suspected having judges in their pockets when it comes to perjury from editors.

    Cmon Nicola , theres nothing to prevent Media laws being created in Hollyrood , apart from owning the radio waves.Allowing the papers to police themselves has not worked , so like a spoilt brat , its time for the punishment.

  6. Angry Weegie says:

    Just another example of MSM desperation to find any old garbage to smear SNP, Scottish Government and/or Scots. There can’t be many left in Scotland who still believe this pish, but it’ll get lapped up in England and fuel the anti-Scotland sentiment the Tories are so keen to foster.

  7. Keith Hynd says:

    I would say this is simply more propaganda prior to the debate next week in HoC on Scotland Bill and Smith particularly “the Crown Estate”. Angry Weegie! it’s not “desperation” it is all part of the obvious co-operation between MSM and the unionists at WM!

  8. Shehanne Moore says:

    Why don’t they just let us go seeing as we’re such bandits.

  9. Drew Campbell says:

    A former colleague of mine – a staunch royalist – was on social media this morning posting fulminating broadsides against the perfidious SNP and their rabid republican hangers-on. I tuned in, as it were, specifically to take the temperature of the apoplexy in one of the key target markets for this latest drip in the drip, drip, drip of poison. It was off the scale.

    Several people posted links to this article and others debunking the story, explaining how contrived and deliberately misleading this was. One person, a friend of hers I believe, contributed a long, patient post explaining the ridiculousness and sinister undertones of the entire onslaught, and the double whammy agenda of deflecting any scrutiny of the royals’ increased income as Westminster contemplates £12bn cuts to the welfare budget.

    You may not be surprised to learn my ex-colleague’s allegiance to the House of Windsor is so teflon-coated, asbestos-lined and bullet-proofed that she not only poured scorn on the very idea of linking to “Sturgeon’s cybernat propaganda machine” (that’s you, Bella, and apparently the Huffington Post) but declared she was unfriending several of the posters.

    She signed off accusing her erstwhile friends of being blinded by and/or part of “the SNP cult” that attacks any who dares to question Nicola Sturgeon or the Nationalist orthodoxy.

    Ohhhhh, the irony.

    1. JBS says:

      Shame. Maybe she can go off and be Twitterpals with Jill Stephenson and Effie Deans. That would be cosy for her.

      Actually, I wish the story were true, then some of the money saved could be directed to help the people who currently have to depend on foodbanks to eat.

      1. Drew Campbell says:

        Indeed, JBS. Just think of the reaction if we had a truly radical government – a black Friday in George Sqaure, perhaps?

  10. Bill Fraser says:

    How can the Mail justify this stupid full front page of nonsense.The Mail is what I regard as a toilet roll paper .

    1. Laura Dunbar says:

      Steady on! Toilet paper is at least useful – I wouldn’t put the Daily Mail anywhere near any bit of me.

  11. James Campbell says:

    Some basic psychology is lacking. The more you overreact to someone’s behaviour (real or imagined), the sooner the time comes when that person wants to give up and move on.

    The establishment who so desperately want to keep Scotland in the union, worsen the political relationship between Scotland and England every time this kind of story is pushed.

  12. Chasbah says:

    The real irony is that it is the royal household who grab our (the taxpayers) money. It is amazing that this deflection tactic still gets used and even more that it seems to work.

  13. Shen says:

    Why does the Scottish government not complain to (IPSO) https://www.ipso.co.uk/IPSO/index.html The daily mail should be accountable for spewing pish which in reality is encouraging hatred toward Scots. I will go as far as saying the Daily Hate Mail is a Dangerous Racist organization.

  14. Iain More says:

    They really aren’t all that happy about what is a rather lame Land Reform Bill. They are trying to water it down by any vile means they can. I hope the SNP toughens it up significantly.

  15. Iain More says:

    I couldn’t help but notice that bit about Kate and her £32,000 dinner date. That is one expensive s!!!

  16. bringiton says:

    Unlike the Queen of England,the Queen of Scots is only Queen with our consent.
    This concept of accountability does not compute with England’s right wing feudalistic press.
    Getting a bit tired of all the primitive shouting coming from their caves with respect to Scottish affairs.

  17. David Agnew says:

    The UK media – talking utter shite in some desperate hope it can make the SNP unpopular.

    If this could have worked, it would have worked by now. It didn’t work because it doesn’t work.
    Anyone with a lick of sense would know to change the record. But the UK media and UK party politics can’t come to terms with the fact that it failed on May 7th. Like Jim Murphy, it has concluded that it failed because they didn’t do enough of it first time round.

    It is a willful cognitive dissonance from an array of cartoonishly inept chancers. The only people who can take succor from this are the people who write it and preach it. Belligerent imbecility passing for reportage to be consumed by zoomer unionists, whose relationship with reality is not on good terms at the moment.

    As Derek Bateman said a wee while back on his blog: All this can do is to embed the support for the SNP.

  18. Welsh Sion says:

    Shurely no coinsidensh that this story emerged today, too …

    http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-33250274

  19. Sam Mitchell says:

    Well I have to disagree with Derek Bateman as I thought when I first heard this magnificent piece of news that FINALLY the SNP had found some B++++…. & then …. the awakening….. within minutes another one of my social media misfits had debunked the story…. & was I disappointed…. MEGA… But not in the msm… they are performing their unionist function in their usual britnatz way…..it was the SNP who let me down… they were elected by a huge majority to make changes… and they have not…. they could do so much more than play the establishments game using the establishments rules …. they could quite simply say NO MORE… but they haven’t…. as tinkering around the edges may have some long term benefit… which only those who follow social media will find out about … while the rest will swallow what msm & the bbc decide they need to know…

    1. muttley79 says:

      The SNP do not have the power to do anything about the sovereign grant anyway, and they were elected on their manifesto of 2011.

  20. Clive Scott says:

    The more Scotland acts as an independent country the sooner Independence will come. In the interim it enrages Unionists. Please enrage them some more by signing the Holyrood petition for the Scottish Red Ensign (that has the Saltire in the top left quadrant) to return into use for maritime purposes. It was in use up until 1707 and increasing numbers of boat owners in Scotland are using it again despite the Merchant Shipping Act 1995 threatening a fine of up to £50,000 and 2 years in prison for flying anything other than the Red Ensign (that has the Union Flag in the top left quadrant) or certain permitted derivatives of it. The Scottish Red Ensign is not a permitted derivative and the petition seeks to rectify this. Isn’t it amazing how frightened the British State is of a piece of cotton on a pole that they feel the need for such draconian sanctions to extinguish Scottish identity.

    http:www.scottish.parliament.uk/gettinginvolved/petitions/PE01569

  21. Kenny Smith says:

    Its no coincidence that now the land reform bill is coming to fruit as was mentioned above we now see this kind of shengite from the press. I don’t hate the queen personally but I would rather have an independent republic because she sits at the top of a class system that holds Scotland and rUK for that matter back. I know lots of Indy supporters that would like to keep the monarchy and I understand the historical links and if that proves to be the majority then fine but this is about Tory peers pissed off and for that reason alone the bill should be worth supporting. A Mugabe style land grab it ain’t, community 1st it is. I know many on the left are saying it doesn’t go far enough and they have a valid point but at least applaud the effort

  22. Alastair McIntosh says:

    £2 million a year to keep the queen? Since 1997, the average amount per annum spent by the Scottish Govt on community buyouts to further land reform has been £2 m. No comment.

  23. Susanna Farley says:

    Ahhh….the Daily Mail. The paper with such a illustrious journalistic history! Celebrated originator of the Zinoviev Letter and fellow traveller of fascism (“Hurrah for the Blackshirts!”).

  24. Macart763 says:

    The respect agenda is working out well then.

    Mind you, I’m sure the palace climb down will have all of those titles issuing a fulsome front page apology to both the first minister and the Scottish electorate…

  25. john young says:

    This country was/is/and always will be lagging behind the rest of the developed world,quislings/forelock tuggers to the fore,they lack confidence they lack bravery they wallow in whingeing,no wonder the English and others can pour buckets of bile over them they know they will accept any and every level of scorn/disdain on them safe in the knowledge they will roll over.We have a huge uphill battle to overturn the referendum result.

  26. Heidstaethefire says:

    This whole story indicates a panic at the heart of the U.K. establishment. They can neither understand nor control events in Scotland, since they happen outwith the Westminster/Whitehall/M25 bubble, so they resort to panic measures. It does however point to the one downside of sending 56 M.Ps into the Liars’ Den.

  27. Neil says:

    I always wonder how the royals managed to scam it so we pay them any money at all. Liz2 is in the world rich list top 10. They are more than capable of financing themselves.

    1. C Rober says:

      For cash she isnt , quick google will show you that.

      However in these times of bedroom tax , benefits taken back for empty bedrooms from your benefits.

      Then surely with the hundreds of bedrooms the Queen owns it should be as vigorously applied….after all , Auld liz in Easterhouse gets her giro fae the govt , Auld liz fae London gets her giro fae the govt , but only wan o them hud actually paid their taxes fur thier giro in the first place.

      When ye hink aboot it were those that moved intae Bucky Palace naw immigrants anaw ?

      And wan o them a Greek with their questionable accounting practices?

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