It's not like she's cleaning offices for 40 hours a week, though. I'm sure every old dear in the country would 'work' full time if they had a shot at the luxury Betty enjoys.

When people mention just how hard the Queen works and what a tough gig it is being a royal, it's telling that in the whole history of the British throne, there has only ever been one voluntary abdication

We wouldn't sponk a fortune of money on a whole family of people who it appears the only justifiable contribution to the country is a few foreigners like to take pictures outside of their big house. Which we sponk a fortune on maintaining.

There is nothing to say the royal properties would not continue to be a tourist trap without a family of spongers in there.

show me the figures.

The first difficulty come in determining just how the figures are calculated.

Are the Royal lands & properties her own personal wealth or do they belong to the nation? Prince Andrew has just trousered £3m from the sale of a house that was given to him by the Queen as a wedding present. The Royal estates are major beneficiaries of CAP grants, would that be added to the "support" she receives?

The lack of clarity on what is personal and public wealth suits both sides of the argument and that won't be resolved anytime soon.

But gerald grosvener and the church are also similarly endowed with land and property thats debatably theirs. get rid of them too? they bring less to the nation than the Queen.........

I'm a republican, but wouldn't wanna make a decision without knowing all the ins and outs.

Well, I'm sitting here with a union jack top on (that I actually bought in the States) looking forward to going along to a jubilee street party that is going to be held in a local church hall because the weather is crap, and I'm doing it all because I think Liz is terrific. One reason that I think she is terrific is because of what she symbolises to me: stability, dignity, respect and adaptability. I think she has also been a great ambassador for our country and we have needed that many times, not least when the politicians have chosen to undermine our image abroad through decisions like war in Iraq (to name just one recent example).

She has had to make a lot of changes in the last 60 years but has done so without public complaint or melodrama (unlike her offspring). She gives the impression of either instructing or listening to her advisors with wisdom and confidence as she has managed to reinvent the monchary in recent times to such a degree that two opinion polls over the last few weeks have suggested public support for the monarchy is at its highest for 20 years (the latest one, by Mori, giving it at 73%). When St Helens Council puts bunting up in the town centre to celebrate a royal occasion (a town centre which looks like a replica of some eastern bloc hellhole), everyone should know that the monarchy is officially popular.

Forelock well and truly tugged.

wearing a union jack doesn't have to mean you support the royal family, the two don't have to be intrinsically linked - I will wave the famous flag to support GB in whatever sport and I would fight for Britain but I don't have to support the royal family. I would fight for my country but not my queen and especially not the hundreds of hangers on...

the four qualities "stability, dignity, respect and adaptability" exist in France (as well as other republics ) also and the people disposed of it's monachy 200 odd years ago !

yes, she has been a great ambasador for the country but it's a pity about her her old man Phil the Greek who has been nothing but an ambarasment to the country and as for the others in the family ? well.............not exactly shining examples are they ?

If 'Liz' is so great then why did she allow the Iraq debacle as well as the Falklands conflict and not mention the horrors of Afghanistan to go ahead ? She is powerless and a complete nondescript figurehead politically.

regarding St Helens town centre why not write to Her Majesty and ask for a small slice of her billions to tart the place up a bit ?

Charles Kenedy made a good point earlier on a show I watched.

"If it aint broke don't fix it".

Still drinking, then.