And I watched a video yesterday that perfectly encapsulated everything that is wrong with Britain. The whole thing. A lifetime of systemic failure, of grotesque inequality, of ruling-class contempt disguised as concern, all of it distilled into a single glittering, nauseating image.
There he was. King Charles III. Dressed in his finest robes, the Imperial State Crown on his head (this is a solid gold construction studded with 2,868 diamonds, 17 sapphires, 11 emeralds, 269 pearls, and four rubies). The Sovereign’s Sceptre with Cross contains the largest clear-cut diamond in the world, weighing in at 530 carats…was present but not in the shot. The crown jewels are estimated to be worth up to $8 billion in total. And this man, wearing a hat that could solve homelessness in London, who holds a stick that could fund the NHS for a year, draped in robes worth more than most people will earn in a thousand lifetimes, was telling the British people to ‘weather the storm’ of the cost of living crisis.
Crosspost from https://lemmygrad.ml/post/11612563
To be fair, he didn’t pay for the crown jewels himself, so its not like he had the money to buy them – rather, they were stolen.
The wealth of all billionaires is stolen. The jewels were just solen a long time ago
So fucking sad.
sad and enraging
Fuck the royals so hard. I fucking can’t stand them. They preach “HELP THE POOR” while sitting pretty on stolen funds. They get paid millions, if not billions, to sit around and do jack fucking shit all day. Fuck them.
It’s still so weird to me to think about how we have more advanced technology and more trade across the planet, yet it seems like our quality of life is being lowered. Ultimately, the reason the 1950s felt different wasn’t because the technology was better, it’s because the economic guardrails were different. The system we have now isn’t broken; it’s functioning exactly as it was redesigned to function over the last 40 years: capturing the immense wealth generated by modern efficiency and funneling it straight to the top.
Wanker.
Wild that they still dress up like that. Read the fucking room.
Let them eat beans on toast
How would the hat solve homeless? You would need to find an 8 billion dollar buyer, probably from overseas, to buy that hat, then use so the cash to find programs and housing construction. It would say best, help people for a year before the money ran out. Then what? Key selling assets to foreign countries?
You asked how it would solve the homeless problem, then you answer your own question. Eight billion could buy a lot of housing. When the money runs out, the housing remains! It’s crazy. There are many other treasures and the best property in the UK besides. What for?
Why would you defend the extravagantly wealthy royal family? They won’t return the favor for you, you’re not in their club. They provide you with absolutely nothing and are parasites of the UK.
They’re an embarrassment, even more decrepit and almost as predatory as the USA.
If your country is at the point you need to start seeing off your national treasures to foreign countries to find homeless temporarily, you are living in a country that is already falling. I would move before the civil war bro.
The crown is made with valuables looted from foreign countries so those get returned. The real solution to a housing crisis is to sieze the royal assets and redistribute them to agencies that aid with housing placement. I’m sure you could turn the palaces and castles into massive apartments.
That would literally destroy the value of crown of you broke it up and returned the jewels. Turning the castles into apartments would solve 0.0001% of the homeless problem.
The crown’s value was made with blood and conquest. Returning the gems to the nations they were pillaged from doesn’t make up for the suffering that happened when they were acquired but it’s literally stolen property. There’s no obligation to reward thieves when you return what was stolen to the rightful owners.
And so what if their castles and palaces only house 0.0001% of the population? The UK has population of around 69.5 million, you’d be housing 6950 people in buildings that currently house one family.
It’s about numbers though, it doesn’t do anyone to solve the problem. And it would most likely make the problem worse and it scares the wealth to flee because they are next.
It’s not about numbers, it’s about people. You are correct, booting the royals out of their palaces and turning it into housing would not solve the entirety of the UK’s homeless problem, and while I’m guess you made up the percentage, housing for 6950 people currently unhoused or insecure living conditions is a better use of the buildings, which already exist. The royals also have multigenerational wealth that isn’t tied to stolen items you could transfer to agencies that serve the unhoused, build new developments. Even if didn’t use this moment to overthrow the entire capitalist system (which is unlikely) that wealth could be used to help the impoverished take steps within that system to get affordable housing.
And yes, wether symbolic monarchists holding on to the spoils of the previous centuries or the post-industrial/digital revolution corporatists that have risen in the last couple, the wealthy should be afraid that at some point the bulk of society is going to come kicking down the doors of their palaces, mansions, penthouses, and maybe even engage in a bit of piracy when they flee to their super yachts to reappropriate their estates for distribution to the masses. The world doesn’t need kings and billionaires.
Very well said! Bravo/brava!
The crown jewels are state-owned and might as well be part of the UK’s gold reserves worth 30 billion. Given the historical, cultural, and symbolic value, I’d say they should dip into the gold reserves first to solve homelessness and fund the NHS.
You can certainly have a debate about where some of those rocks came from and their ongoing possession by the UK tho!
Debate about what? Whether theft is theft?
They keep those jewels away from the brokers because they’re all hot and the countries they were stolen from will make a fuss and ruin that overinflated valuation of that cheap looking gaudy shit. Cultural reasons is a convenient cover.
Then any ol’ brit can just go wear it for, say, a low budget music video?
Can they do that with the gold reserves?
Ok ok, put it in a museum.
Or… Return jewels, PMs to those from whom they were stolen.
Is this my first AI guillotine?
Seems pretty easy to avoid that blade
Some people need a really close shave.
Imagine having a king and thinking you are a democracy 🤣
Despite having a King, the UK is a pretty good example of democracy. Better than the US ever was, that’s for sure.
Sometimes things just named names for no reason. North korea calls themselves Democratic Republic, a ceremonial clown calls himself King, those things happenThe DPRK is more democratic than the UK and you have no idea how its democratic and political system functions, and are invoking it as an anti-communist canard.
The UK is a democracy for the rich, where any wins that are forced out of them by the working class are slowly reversed back to the status quo.
Like clockwork. If they serve no purpose, get rid of them.
The UK and England in particular has this weird obsession with doing things “the proper way” which means following traditions even when it doesn’t make any sense. So seriously proposing to finally abolishing this monarchical circus is simultaneously an objectively correct thing to do, a not unpopular thing to do, and weirdly, an absolute political suicide. I don’t know how many generations needs to die so this monarchical bug disappears, but I suspect when we will all be underwater from the icecaps melting, and the last 7 Englishmen somewhere in the north will be building their final raft out of soggy newspaper, two of them will be monarchists, and the rest will be too polite to do anything about it, so their raft will have a royal insignia made of biscuit tins, and will be called His Royal Majesty’s Boaty Mc’Boatface The Second.
It’s not about politeness, it’s that the crown have now firmly established themselves as part of the capitalist class, and expropriating them would be the same as expropriating any old capitalist. They have class solidarity and won’t allow that to happen baring outbreaks of war with foreign adversaries.
Britain does rank higher than the USA (but lags Ireland and others) on this democracy ranking.
Im not sure there is a true democracy on the planet. If there is its some tribe we dont know about
I’m not British, but it really is bizarre seeing this old geezer actually dressed up in this stuff. It’d almost be comical if it wasn’t for the fact that he’s dead fucking serious.
I genuinely thought the king get up was only for sitting for portraits and shit, I didn’t think he wore it to address the nation.
How heavy is the Imperial State Crown? The Imperial State Crown measures weighs a hefty 1.06kg (2.3lbs) but it is much lighter than the St Edward’s Crown - the headpiece King Charles wore for the moment of his crowning at the Coronation.
This Crown weighs 2.23kg (4.9lbs) and is decorated with 444 precious and semi-precious stones.
Same publication said he may have been sore from wearing the coronation crown. Poor thing. Surely peat mining can’t be nearly as demanding!
But the headline says five billion pounds. So which is it, 5 pounds or 5 billion?
/sOh boy! Two chuckles and a giggle in three days! Thanks!
They do say heavy is the head… or something like that
It’s sad because I don’t see anything dramatically improving in the UK any time soon. It feels as though the people at the top are consistently able to manipulate public opinion against their own best interests.
That’s more of a global than UK problem.
Just like checks notes the rest of the West, and their collective vassels, globally.
Oh, in my personal experience living in several countries in Europe including the UK, the British elites are pretty much the best in Europe at manipulating the local plebes.
Probably helps that culturally the English (and less so for other nations) have this strain of “know your place” and “look up to your betters” that’s not there or at least nowhere as strong in countries which had actual bottom-up revolutions were they overthrew their installed elites.
Just look at the reaction to the Snowden Revelations in the US and UK - in the former there was an outrage and at least some of it was walked back, in the latter the government just made a law that retroactivelly made the whole thing legal and the press quickly shut up about it and never mentioned it again.
And don’t get me started at the insane levels of Royal Arse Kissing of even supposedly liberal newspapers like The Guardian.
Britain is definitelly “world class” at both sheep herding and being sheep.
I’m sure Reform will fix it all, once they’re in power.
I mean, that guy Farage does have a great track record of solid decision-making!
He tells it like it is!
At least take the hat and sell it
But selling the crown would drive the price of crowns down so low (supply and demand, you know) and you’d never actually get 8 billion. Best you’d get is… maybe one roundabout and a nice tree.
I’m actually wondering how much of that figure is tied to the actual materials and workmanship, and how much is because they are The Crown Jewels.
Second audible chuckle of the week! Thank you!
He actually said the phrase “ensure a fair deal for working people”. Who thought it was a good idea to put that in the speech knowing he was going to be fully dressed in the spoils of exploitation? You’d think they’d at least temper it with the comparative term “fairer” if the more sensitive wardrobe option was truly off the table.
The Prime Minister.
The King’s Speech is effectively when the Prime Minister sticks his hand up the King’s ass and uses the King as a puppet to speak to his or her political goals for that session of Parliament.
Glad some one said it.
I get why people are outraged but really this is someone else talking in a situation he is expected to be in with pomp and circumstance.
I am no fan of kings, but seeing footage of him walking around the town square in just a suit and tie shaking hands with people on the street sure is a sharp contrast to America’s current King.
So Chuck used his outfit to comment on the moment. Mumzie used to do that too.
The outfit is effectively picked out for him. Him choosing what to wear could mean he was giving an opinion on the speech.
Maybe his standard of Fairness for the plebes isn’t the same as for their betters, and thus he was being totally honest in his desired for a “fair” deal for the working people.
