The Royal Wedding 2018

Busaholic · 20 May 2018

Howardh said:
In the Netherlands, it appears that on King's Day and any major royal ceremony they come out en masse, party, paint the town orange and don't seem to have these arguments as to whether it's worth it, uniting the Kingdom, cost etc etc.

I could be wrong there could be a huge anti-royalist sentiment there that I'm unaware of. However, if I'm right, is it because their royalty is smaller, more attached to the people, more pragmatic? I've seen the King of the Netherlands at a football game (and only just missed him at the hockey last year). The only time I see our monarch is when I'm paying for something.

Discuss??

I'm coming late to the party on this, as I have no interest in the monarchy, either as an institution or the individuals. It's an utterly illogical system, but I wouldn't waste my breath in trying to change it in the teeth of so much opposition.

I couldn't let your point about the Netherlands and its monarchy go, though, without mentioning that during the period I lived in Amsterdam in the late 1960s, as a young adult, there were many demonstrations by (mostly) university students about the husband of Queen Juliana (Prince Bernhard) being appointed titular Vice-Chancellor, or similar, of one of Amsterdam's universities. Riot police were brought in from across the Netherlands and water cannon deployed, not only against demonstrators but anyone else in the vicinity, like tourists and journalists. I received a dousing myself, and even got arrested for the second (and, so far, last) time in my life, even though I wasn't demonstrating. Others less lucky received wounds from truncheons wielded by policemen crouched in motorcycle sidecars which were driven along pavements (!) lashing out at all and sundry. I believe this stopped after a journalist from the UK's Daily Telegraph was attacked, and the story got into the following day's paper.

I also seem to remember being told of other quite widespread anti-monarchy demonstrations in the mid 1960s, which would have preceded the evenements in Paris, so maybe things were not as placid as you think: of recent events, though, I have no knowledge.

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jon0844 · 20 May 2018

AlterEgo said:
It’s absolute nonsense to suggest the Royals themselves boost tourism. Almost no tourist who comes to London will ever see or meet a member of the royal family.

The tourists come to see the built environment and customs which come with a history of monarchy, like the palaces, or the Household Division marching. Neither of these would be demolished or disbanded if the UK became a constitutional republic.

Really? There's no meet the Queen for a cup of tea tours?!

It's about promoting Britain. I didn't get a chance to watch the wedding, but those that did (going by my friends on social media) seemed to enjoy it. It made them feel good. Those people probably felt better than those who just spent the day moaning.

I am not saying people can't moan about the royal family and why we have them, but on the day itself it seemed a little inappropriate. So many people went out to enjoy the atmosphere, and I am sure pubs, coffee shops and restaurants all saw an uplift in trade.

You make a good point that many places people visit would remain, but I am not sure it would be quite the same.

Dave1987 · 20 May 2018

jon0844 said:
Really? There's no meet the Queen for a cup of tea tours?!

It's about promoting Britain. I didn't get a chance to watch the wedding, but those that did (going by my friends on social media) seemed to enjoy it. It made them feel good. Those people probably felt better than those who just spent the day moaning.

I am not saying people can't moan about the royal family and why we have them, but on the day itself it seemed a little inappropriate. So many people went out to enjoy the atmosphere, and I am sure pubs, coffee shops and restaurants all saw an uplift in trade.

You make a good point that many places people visit would remain, but I am not sure it would be quite the same.

From what I saw people were just enjoying the good weather going about their lives. I didn’t see anyone particularly making a point about “celebrating” the wedding. There were some cafes and restaurants that had bunting and large pictures of the couple up but I wouldn’t say those places had huge custom. If you as a business decide to use an event like that to try and increase your custom you are immediately going to drive away anyone who doesn’t want anything to do with the Royal wedding so you are taking a huge risk in doing so. I stayed away from anywhere that had anything to do with the wedding up. I wouldn’t be surprised if some businesses regret putting Royal Wedding themed merchandise up.

I saw plenty saying the roads would be quiet and shops quiet as everyone would be watching the wedding. On Saturday the roads were far from quiet! Clearly everyone wasn’t watching the wedding as the media predicted......

jon0844 · 20 May 2018

I saw plenty of people dressed up. Some Chinese ladies wearing white, as if they were going to get married themselves! As I said, people didn't have to be celebrating the wedding or even watching it, but it must surely have made most people feel good.

If watched by almost two billion people around the world, that has to be good publicity...even if people watching see a nice sunny day, lots of happy faces, some nice buildings and think 'Maybe we should go to the UK'. I don't even think it makes everyone just pick London either.

If you were to look into travel to the UK, you may well book a package that takes in other cities. Indeed, some will take a package whereby they fly in to the UK and travel on to Europe (most likely Paris) by Eurostar. There are a lot of European package tours like this, and I assume not all include the UK so it's good if people ask for the UK to be part of it.

For the rest of the year, people can moan though!

bb21 · 21 May 2018

I hate to be a party pooper but man, this thread is depressing, and depressingly predictable, at times.

Please drop any irrelevant wibble about left vs right, blah, blah, and keep on topic, so leave out any discussion on stances on DOO, etc. This is boring and non-constructive.

greyman42 · 21 May 2018

Dave1987 said:
I believe every child should grow up with the chance to aspire to be whatever they want to be be that an architect/lawyer/head of state whatever they want. We live in a country where all children are supposed to be equal, clearly the children of the Royals are more important than anyone else’s children.

To whom are they more important to?

pemma · 21 May 2018

I think a lot of the interest is due to it being a high profile wedding which was actually televised. How often is it possible to watch the wedding of a famous actress who is known internationally? Almost never, the public usually has to settle for a few photos of them after the ceremony. Yes I'm aware many people hadn't heard of Meghan Markle until she started dating Prince Harry but the fact that Harry married a famous actress and she is American added to the international attention.

DarloRich · 21 May 2018

As I said: Royal Weddings should be held on a working day which can then be granted to us plebs as a bank holiday. I bet that would reduce the number of moans.

pemma · 21 May 2018

47802 said:
Well we clearly not going to agree on this but I maintain it can have a significant effect, it keeps the UK in the public eye around the world, the figures for 2011 when William and Kate got married show that there were 800K more visitors to the UK compared with 2010 and OK not all of that will be due to the Royal Wedding but I bet a large chunk of it was, of course the following year 2012 would be difficult to quantify as we had the Olympics.

I accept putting Britain in the spotlight will help to attract visitors. However, something you're overlooking is in 2008 the value of the pound was high, which was great for those of us who went abroad that year but not good for getting tourists in to the UK. However, between late 2009 and late 2011 the reverse was true and it made it an excellent time for people to visit the UK at reduced cost, especially for those who held off visiting when the cost of visiting was high - I did precisely that when I visited Rome, looked at the costs a couple of times and decided to go somewhere else as the cost was high, then when the cost dropped I visited Rome. What's interesting is the value of the pound actually dropped just after the William-Kate wedding, so it seems the extra Bank Holiday had more of an effect on the value of the pound than any extra tourists the Royal Wedding brought in!

Since last July the value of the pound has been very low again, so again I would hope Britain's tourist numbers are currently high.

Plus of course there's other ways of putting Britain on the tourist map. Croatia didn't need a Royal Wedding to increase visitor numbers by 70% over the last 10 years but certain films and TV series being shot there have certainly helped.

nlogax · 21 May 2018

Sad state of affairs when (seemingly) all that's left is the royal family to 'keep the UK in the public eye around the world' - in a positive sense, anyway.

Bromley boy · 21 May 2018

jcollins said:
I accept putting Britain in the spotlight will help to attract visitors. However, something you're overlooking is in 2008 the value of the pound was high, which was great for those of us who went abroad that year but not good for getting tourists in to the UK. However, between late 2009 and late 2011 the reverse was true and it made it an excellent time for people to visit the UK at reduced cost, especially for those who held off visiting when the cost of visiting was high - I did precisely that when I visited Rome, looked at the costs a couple of times and decided to go somewhere else as the cost was high, then when the cost dropped I visited Rome. What's interesting is the value of the pound actually dropped just after the William-Kate wedding, so it seems the extra Bank Holiday had more of an effect on the value of the pound than any extra tourists the Royal Wedding brought in!

Since last July the value of the pound has been very low again, so again I would hope Britain's tourist numbers are currently high.

Plus of course there's other ways of putting Britain on the tourist map. Croatia didn't need a Royal Wedding to increase visitor numbers by 70% over the last 10 years but certain films and TV series being shot there have certainly helped.

It’s true that we don’t know the extent to which fluctuations in tourism can be attributed to the royal wedding rather than other factors. On the other hand a show watched by 2 billion people is hardly going to drive tourists away. The precise benefit is therefore unquantifiable, but is surely certain to be a net positive.

I would have thought someone as concerned about the potential impact of Brexit as you claim to be would welcome anything that *might* boost tourism!

Bromley boy · 21 May 2018

DarloRich said:
As I said: Royal Weddings should be held on a working day which can then be granted to us plebs as a bank holiday. I bet that would reduce the number of moans.

There is an enormous economic cost to bank holidays, though, and of course some of us plebs have to work on them anyway

.

pemma · 21 May 2018

Bromley boy said:
It’s true that we don’t know the extent to which fluctuations in tourism can be attributed to the royal wedding rather than other factors. On the other hand a show watched by 2 billion people is hardly going to drive tourists away. The precise benefit is therefore unquantifiable, but is surely certain to be a net positive.

Although worth remembering tourists with little interest in the Royal Wedding who don't have much flexibility in their holiday might have been put off from travelling because the only time they could have visited Britain clashed with the Royal Wedding.

DarloRich · 21 May 2018

Bromley boy said:
There is an enormous economic cost to bank holidays, though, and of course some of us plebs have to work on them anyway .

It isnt clear though is it? There is some suggestion that the GDP of a country may be reduced by a bank holiday but the figures are vague and range widely. There were figures set out in 2012 by some ( no doubt Tory) economic think tank as to the cost but they have said they are out of date and bear no resplendence to the current UK ways of working which have changed vastly even since 2012 ( Think flexible hours, home working etc)

Frankly I don't really care about that though. I just want an extra day off work. It doesn't cost me anything.

As for working bank holiday i would hope you get a bonus and/or TOIL.

jcollins said:
Although worth remembering tourists with little interest in the Royal Wedding who don't have much flexibility in their holiday might have been put off from travelling because the only time they could have visited Britain clashed with the Royal Wedding.

I doubt that.

Bromley boy · 21 May 2018

jcollins said:
Although worth remembering tourists with little interest in the Royal Wedding who don't have much flexibility in their holiday might have been put off from travelling because the only time they could have visited Britain clashed with the Royal Wedding.

Why would people have been off coming at the time of the wedding? It’s had minimal impact apart from in Windsor as far as I can tell.

It seems the tourist board is expecting a large benefit to the U.K. economy, surprise surprise, particularly from Americans.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2018/05/20/royal-wedding-effect-will-see-tourism-boom-windsor/

The tourist board expects a 15 per cent rise in visitors from the US, year on year, bringing more than £3.4bn to the British economy.

Bromley boy · 21 May 2018

DarloRich said:
It isnt clear though is it? There is some suggestion that the GDP of a country may be reduced by a bank holiday but the figures are vague and range widely. There were figures set out in 2012 by some ( no doubt Tory) economic think tank as to the cost but they have said they are out of date and bear no resplendence to the current UK ways of working which have changed vastly even since 2012 ( Think flexible hours, home working etc)

Frankly I don't really care about that though. I just want an extra day off work. It doesn't cost me anything.

As for working bank holiday i would hope you get a bonus and/or TOIL.

True that the figures are unknown and difficult to quantify.

On our T’s and C’s? Ha! No chance - we are guaranteed two off (rostered annual leave), + Xmas/boxing day (when no trains run) but if we are rostered to work on them we are required to use ad hoc AL.

Cheers lads!

pemma · 21 May 2018

DarloRich said:
I doubt that.

Bromley boy said:
Why would people have been off coming at the time of the wedding? It’s had minimal impact apart from in Windsor as far as I can tell.

So are you both saying it would have had zero effect on hotel rooms in London or availability of seats on flights or Eurostar services? If not I think there's very obvious reasons why people would consider visiting somewhere else instead of England. I certainly never choose one fixed destination and go there whatever the cost and availability of seats on planes and reasonably priced hotel rooms.

DarloRich · 21 May 2018

Bromley boy said:
True that the figures are unknown and difficult to quantify.

On our T’s and C’s? Ha! No chance - we are guaranteed two off (rostered annual leave), + Xmas/boxing day but if we are rostered to work on them we are required to use AL.

Cheers lads!

The absolute stewards of the bar. That stinks. You get double for shop work!

jcollins said:
So are you both saying it would have had zero effect on hotel rooms in London or availability of seats on flights or Eurostar services? If not I think there's very obvious reasons why people would consider visiting somewhere else instead of England. I certainly never choose one fixed destination and go there whatever the cost and availability of seats on planes and reasonably priced hotel rooms.

No - I am saying that if you have booked an international holiday (such as US>UK) it is likely you have had that holiday booked for some time and will have already secured accommodation as part of that booking.

I accept that if you were looking at a short term booking then, yes, the royal wedding might mean hotels within a certain circumference of that wedding will be booked up. I am fairly sure a hotel room could be found somewhere in the country though! We have quite a bit to look at away from London.

pemma · 21 May 2018

DarloRich said:
No - I am saying that if you have booked an international holiday (such as US>UK) it is likely you have had that holiday booked for some time and will have already secured accommodation as part of that booking.

The date was announced towards the end of last year. I don't know what other people do but the one time I booked a trans Atlantic trip I booked it around 6 months in advance.

Warwick · 21 May 2018

Dave1987 said:
I believe every child should grow up with the chance to aspire to be whatever they want to be be that an architect/lawyer/head of state whatever they want. We live in a country where all children are supposed to be equal, clearly the children of the Royals are more important than anyone else’s children.

Given the number people from ordinary backgrounds in this country that do aspire and do grow up to be something or someone special you post is irrelevant. Are you seriously suggesting that someone from an "ordinary" background can't get on? Opportunities abound.
Theresa May - daughter of a Vicar
Nicola Sturgeon - daughter of an electrician
Sadiq Khan - son of a bus driver
Margaret Thatcher - daughter of a grocer
Lesley Garrett - daughter of a railwayman
Alan Johnson - orphaned at 13 by the death of his mother and abandonment by his father.

Bromley boy · 21 May 2018

Warwick said:
Given the number people from ordinary backgrounds in this country that do aspire and do grow up to be something or someone special you post is irrelevant. Are you seriously suggesting that someone from an "ordinary" background can't get on? Opportunities abound.
Theresa May - daughter of a Vicar
Nicola Sturgeon - daughter of an electrician
Sadiq Khan - son of a bus driver
Margaret Thatcher - daughter of a grocer
Lesley Garrett - daughter of a railwayman
Alan Johnson - orphaned at 13 by the death of his mother and abandonment by his father.

All very true. People can and do get on, irrespective of background.

I agree with @Dave1987 that social mobility in the U.K. is more of an issue than it used to be. In part due to poor educational standards and the high cost of higher education.

I don’t agree that this is anything to do with the continued existence of the royal family.

Arglwydd Golau · 21 May 2018

Absolutely no interest in Royal weddings or indeed royalty as I have been a republican for years so not going to make any comments about the goings on in London or wherever it was...however I did spend Saturday at another wedding, the son of my best friend (who sadly died suddenly last year) got married on the Talyllyn Railway...bride and groom are not railway fans at all, but what a fantastic day, the Railway really put on a great show for over 100 guests and everyone was full of praise for them....much better than being stuck in front of the fawning BBC...(in my opinion!)
Slightly off topic....has anyone else been to a railway wedding?

NorthernSpirit · 22 May 2018

47802 said:
A idealistic viewpoint which in practise never happens, even in communist Russia I suspect senior party members children were more important than others. Yes we should strive to try give every child the best opportunity we can, but the idea that everybody will be equal in every way is just Socialist bull****.

Makes you wonder how the people coped when Cromwell was Lord Protectorate, 11 years of misery is the impression that I get at reading history books. If a republic wasn't working then, there's no chance of it working now.

---

From my point of view the Royal Wedding along with all the other Royal events is what makes this country special. Prince Henry will, most likely, have been attracted to Meghan's brown eyes and brown hair which brings be on the next point - history was made on Saturday as Meghan, Duchess of Sussex is the only member of the Royal family who has brown eyes, all the rest have blue.

AlterEgo · 23 May 2018

NorthernSpirit said:
Makes you wonder how the people coped when Cromwell was Lord Protectorate, 11 years of misery is the impression that I get at reading history books. If a republic wasn't working then, there's no chance of it working now.

Cromwell was Lord Protector in the mid-1650s. I’m interested to know how this single short period of republicanism can be considered the standard to judge the success of a potential modern republic by.

Busaholic · 23 May 2018

Arglwydd Golau said:
Slightly off topic....has anyone else been to a railway wedding?

Even more off topic... no, to your question, but a fairly well-known author (female) last year got buried in a coffin shaped as a London bus, according to the obituary.

holborncentral · 23 May 2018

I didn't watch it. I was tired after a long week so I slept through most of it, although my mother got up at 9am and watched the whole thing. I went down for breakfast and saw Meghan arriving, but then I went back upstairs to get ready for the day.

greyman42 · 24 May 2018

Darandio said:
Indeed, all generated for the 'country' of London.

The businesses and tourist attractions that benefit from the Royal wedding all pay taxes so the whole of the UK benefits.

DarloRich · 25 May 2018

NorthernSpirit said:
Makes you wonder how the people coped when Cromwell was Lord Protectorate, 11 years of misery is the impression that I get at reading history books. If a republic wasn't working then, there's no chance of it working now.

---

From my point of view the Royal Wedding along with all the other Royal events is what makes this country special. Prince Henry will, most likely, have been attracted to Meghan's brown eyes and brown hair which brings be on the next point - history was made on Saturday as Meghan, Duchess of Sussex is the only member of the Royal family who has brown eyes, all the rest have blue.

this is, perhaps, one of the most bizarre posts I have ever seen on this board!

AlterEgo said:
Cromwell was Lord Protector in the mid-1650s. I’m interested to know how this single short period of republicanism can be considered the standard to judge the success of a potential modern republic by.

indeed! God knows how those 21st century cavaliers would survive!

Groningen · 25 May 2018

There are still people visiting the Netherlands and think that the free for all party is on April 30. Well with our new King it is April 27. On the television the wedding was watched by 2,5 million people what makes about 1 in 7 of our population in the Netherlands.

The Royal Wedding 2018

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