That royal myth about tourism

There's a myth that is ever present in the English media and spouted at every opprtunity by unionist MPs. In the news recently is Scouse MP and former 'Junglist' Nadine Dorries. The Bedfordshire Tory has recently had this to say about the royal parasites.

Pic from ITVs Jungle nonsense. Text from Hilter's pals at the Daily Mail
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‘What I am totally against is this out-and-out yearly attack of the Royal Family because of who they are.

'They are great for Britain, the British people love them. I actually felt quite embarrassed listening to Margaret Hodge reel off the list of repairs that need doing to the royal buildings that we have not funded as a country, because what the Royal Family does for us is beyond explanation.

‘They put this little island of England on the world map.’

Wait, did she just say 'this little island of England'? Yes, she did. But nevermind about that for now, the bigger fish is the myth that these parasites are actually a good thing for the UK, or if Nadine is reading, for England.

The UK does actually welcome millions of tourists every year. But then so do a lot of countries. So let's look at the figures and see what they say. Believe it or not there is such a thing as the 'World Tourism Rankings' that are published by the UN's World Tourism Organization. And even a cursory look at the table provides some interesting facts. Unfortunately I couldn't find the island of England on there so I've had to make do with the UK. Here's a screenshot.

France must have an awesome royal family (from here). Share via twitter | facebook

Well what do you know, the top tourism destination in the world is France. Which is possibly the best country we could have hoped to compare with because of that whole thing about killing their royal family. In 2012 (the year we bought London an Olympics) the Republic of France welcomed 53.7 million more tourists than the UK.

But why stop there, if we look at London's official tourism site the top 10 London attractions by visitor numbers for 2012 were as follows.

British Museum, Tate Modern, National Gallery, Natural History Museum, London Eye, Victoria and Albert Museum, Science Museum, Tower of London, Madame Tussauds and the Royal Museum of Greenwhich.

The astute will note that Betty's palace isn't on there. Some will say it's because people just stand outside it, well they could do that if it was empty couldn't they? But what about the guards in the funny hats I hear you ask. Well they could still have them there if they wanted as security when they fully open up the palace to visitors. Perhaps even turn it into a hotel, casino or how about the world's biggest cat house. Think of the tourism that could bring in? Businessmen would flock to spend time with some of Miss Betty's girls.

So what about France? Their version of Betty's palace is the Palace of Versailles which welcomes 5.3 million paid visitors every year. It is the fifth most visited paid attraction in France. Just to put that into perspective, their symbol of France's former absolute monarchy welcomes just under a fifth (18%) of the visitors that the UK welcomes.

But it's not all doom and gloom, a bookie in Windsor has suspended all bets on Betty retiring this year after a man placed a £200 wager on it. Whenever I speak with royalists who bang on about the tourism and the tradition I always ask them how they will feel when Carlo takes over. Try it yourself the next time you are in that situation, it's a real game changer. So hopefully this year it'll be time for Carlo to take over, don't get me wrong I'd rather he became king via the more usual method but whilst Wales is locked into this sham of a union then the sooner they get rid of a system that is nothing but a stain on human evolution the better. If Wales was to be a free nation then I wouldn't care what England did with their royals, just as long as our republic was shot of them for good.

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