Britain’s Welfare Queen [View all]

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http://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/15/opinion/sunday/malik-britains-welfare-queen.html

Britain’s Welfare Queen
Kenan Malik

LONDON — The British queen is down to her last pennies. Well, actually, her last millions of pennies.

Last month, the Public Accounts Committee — Parliament’s watchdog on public spending — published a damning survey of the state of the royal finances. The queen had spent down her “reserve fund,” a savings account built up by years of surplus public subsidy, to “a historically low level” of only £1 million ($1.6 million), from £35.3 million in 2001.

Trying to make sense of the royal finances is like trying to eat spaghetti with a spoon. Here’s the puzzle: Queen Elizabeth II is often described, by some measures, as one of the richest people in the world. Among her private property is Balmoral Castle, her residence in the Scottish Highlands, which was purchased, together with a 50,000-acre estate, by Prince Albert for Queen Victoria in 1848. Queen Elizabeth also owns stud farms, personal art and fine jewelry. According to Forbes magazine, her personal worth is $500 million.

If the queen is so wealthy, how can she be strapped for cash? In 2010, it emerged that the queen had even privately applied to a government fund normally reserved for low-income families to help with Buckingham Palace’s heating bills. Turning the request down, a government official commented, “I also feel a bit uneasy about the probable adverse press coverage if the palace were given a grant at the expense of, say, a hospital.” Why is the queen reduced to acting as if she lived in public housing?