14 DAY TRIAL // Late last week, word got out that the Queen and her royal aides had filed a petition asking for governmental funds to help pay heat and gas bills for Buckingham Palace and Windsor Castle. Now, details of the outrageous expenses she makes are out.
According to documents just released and cited by the Daily Mail, the royal camp argued that Buckingham Palace was a virtual ruin, with buckets being used to hold rainwater and other damages that needed urgent repair.
The Department for Culture assigned £1.5 million for these so-called vital repairs but did not check up to see what these were in more concrete terms.
As it turns out, much of this money went to dusting the chandeliers at Buckingham, converting one room into a functions room, buying a curtain to protect wine bottles from dust and other such things.
They’re far from “urgent” repairs, they’re “cosmetic improvements,” the Mail notes, adding that taxpayers’ money shouldn’t be spent on such trifles when there are other more important things to focus on.
“Nearly £100,000 went on cleaning chandeliers and £14,000 on a curtain to protect wine bottles in the Buckingham Palace cellars,” the Mail informs.
“Refurbishing a staff canteen and games room cost £808,000 while turning a private cinema into a State function room was £458,000, official expenses documents show,” says the same publication.
The revelations come in a context in which the royal house is struggling to get more funds as cuts are being operated everywhere else.
Useless to say, no one is happy about the situation, with some voices even calling such behavior a complete disgrace and utter disregards of the people.
“A couple of days ago we heard that Buckingham Palace was trying to take money from a poverty fund to pay their heating bills because of the financial pressure they claimed to be under. Now we find they have essentially been feathering their nest,” Graham Smith of the anti-monarchy campaign group Republic says.
“It’s an absolute disgrace. The Royal Family clearly holds the taxpayer in absolute contempt,” Smith adds.