Don't Worry Will, Your Wedding's On Us...

There's been a huge piece of news come out this week, not really surprising but certainly very important for our country. No, it's not about Ireland being in financial meltdown, England losing again, or the floods in Cornwall. Two people in their late 20's are getting married, it's sure to be a grand affair in Westminster, with no expense spared on the ceremony, the reception, honey moon and all the thrills and spills that go with it. The happy couple don't need to worry about it - We'll pick up the bill.

At a time when the country is trying to get itself out of recession, cuts are being made left, right and centre and plenty of people are either struggling to hold on to their jobs, or struggling to get back into work, how the hell can anyone seriously justify the tax payer shelling out £20m on a fucking wedding?!

In the last financial year the Royal family cost the tax payer £38.2m, for general living costs, the salaries of their workers, their palace, their holidays and all the rest of it. Spoon fed by the state, without having worked a day in their lives. In this day and age, can we really justify this? As I said earlier, things are tough for the people and the government are having to make cuts in almost every department (including the monarchy, who's had a reduction of 7.9% from the previous financial year) and there's still millions upon millions being spent on a family of people, who at the end of the day are people just like you and I. Although none of them have never lifted a finger in their lives and have been bought up with a silver spoon in their mouths.

A good example to follow would be that of Spain, a country in a worse financial state than ourselves, where their monarchy have had their budget cut by 9%, which means they will now cost the Spanish economy £6.8m - Peanuts compared to the monarchy here.

People will argue that the Royals bring in a level of tourism to justify the expenditure, but when more people are visiting Legoland than Buckingham Palace or Windsor Castle, you need to seriously ask yourself if this claim is true? Also, would tourism really decline if the Monarchy no longer existed? The Palace of Versailles in France attracts over 10 million visitors per year, despite the fact that the French monarchy fell in 1848.

So as the media go into hysteria over-drive and people get genuinely excited over the prospect of a wedding between two 28 year olds that none of them have met or have any connections with and the government set up a committee to go about planning the ceremony and we have a bank holiday to "celebrate", spare a thought to the next public services worker who has their pay cut, or the next council office worker made redundant or as another school has to make cuts to the education of the future generation as the economy ploughs tens of millions into this event and every other Royal activity. Is this an expense that can really be justified?