© unknownKate Middleton and Prince William
Analysts are questioning the 'fairness' of imposing the astronomical costs of the Royal Wedding on British taxpayers amid growing public weariness of the wide coverage given to the 'unpleasant' event.While there are claims that the royal wedding will at the end of the day benefit the British public both economically by triggering retailers' sales as well as attracting interested tourists and socially by spreading happiness London-based writer and journalist Peter Carty believes the opposite is true.
Carty said in an interview with Press TV that as the widely hyped event is not going to "bring in more income in the country as a whole" one comes to believe "it's quite clearly unfair" on the populous.
"I don't think it is going to bring in more income in the country as a whole. Our overall income will probably go down by six billion pounds and the amount of extra revenue we're going to get back from tourism, sales of memorabilia etc, would be about one billion pounds best estimate - something like 1.5 billion US dollars, so overall the country is going to lose out very heavily," he said. "The question of whether that's fair on the populous as a whole - It's quite clearly unfair."Carty also said, to add insult to injury the media are giving a pointlessly wide coverage to the event despite the solely symbolic and ceremonial position of the royal family in the British politics and the low opinion of the people about the monarchy.
"It's [the royal wedding] extremely unpopular with a substantial proportion of the population. A poll has been conducted by a republican group that indicates that approximately 80 percent of British people really aren't very interested in the wedding at all. So to ask everyone to finance it is very unfair when you look into the issue closely," he said.
Carty then stressed focus on the royal wedding is not only politically inconsequential for the moment it is deemed also to hurt people into hatred of the royal family eventually leading to a public push for the removal of royals.
"The way the [state-funded] BBC is pumping out massive coverage of the run up to the wedding is highly likely to alienate people from the monarchy that normally wouldn't be too concerned about this institution that's mostly in the background and you don't have to pay attention to it if you don't want to," he said. "To really rub people's noses in it the way the media is doing at the moment I think will backfire and might produce more impetus toward the eventual disbandment of this institution."
Carty stressed "huge numbers of British people "are really getting 'annoyed' at the "saturation" of media coverage of the nuptials that will "ironically" lead to change.
I'm not saying that's going to happen overnight or even very soon, but inevitably over time as we become a more educated and developed society, support for the monarchy is likely to fade away. Ironically I think the royal wedding might actually be speeding that process up.
Official figures show the price tag for the wedding ceremony of Prince William and Kate Middleton including the security costs will hit tens of millions of pounds which will be imposed on the British taxpayers despite the multi-billion pound wealth of the royal family.
Many among the public and campaign groups have already expressed their displeasure with the royal wedding proceedings as the activists from the anti-monarchy group Republic has organized rallies on Friday April 29 to hit the wedding.
I had no idea the tax payers will bear the cost of this. Unfair isn't a word I would use. Robbery is more like it.