Last year, King Charles’s coronation was supposed to be the biggest and grandest occasion of the decade, if not century. Most people weren’t alive for Queen Elizabeth II’s 1953 coronation, so Charles’s coronation was a historical moment for everyone under the age of 70. There were so many problems though – QEII’s coronation was of an attractive young queen just years after the second world war. Charles’s coronation was for a septuagenarian who married his horsey mistress and ran his one charismatic son out of the country. People tuned in, but only to see Prince Harry (who left right after the ceremony). We knew last year that the coronation did not stimulate the British economy, not even locally, within London. We also know that Charles rejected the idea of a “budget coronation,” even if he and Camilla banned everyone else from wearing tiaras, crowns and coronets. So how much did this exercise in narcissism cost the British taxpayer? £72 million.
Last year’s Coronation of King Charles III cost taxpayers £72m, government figures have revealed. Just over £50m was spent by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS), which coordinated the event, while policing costs came to almost £22m, which were paid for by the Home Office.
The DCMS described the Coronation as a “once-in-a-generation” moment and the figures came broadly within unofficial estimates, which suggested it would be between £50 and £100m.
The Coronation in May 2023 had been described as a “slimmed down affair”, with the Westminster Abbey guest list only a quarter of the size of Queen Elizabeth II’s Coronation at the same venue in 1953.
Being a state event, the Coronation was paid for by the UK Government and Buckingham Palace through the Sovereign Grant – which comes from a percentage of the profits of the Crown Estate revenue – and the Privy Purse, money from a private estate known as the Duchy of Lancaster. By the end of March 2024, the Duchy of Lancaster had £647m of net assets under its control.
There had been criticism aimed at the public funding of the Coronation, which came during a cost-of-living crisis in the UK. A poll carried out by YouGov the month before the Coronation revealed that 52% of Londoners did not believe the Coronation should be paid for by taxpayers. There had been much speculation about the cost to the public purse, which the DCMS said could not be revealed until after the event.
The DCMS annual accounts report released on Thursday said the Coronation reached an estimated global audience of two billion people in 125 countries, saying it “offered a unique opportunity to celebrate and strengthen our national identity and showcase the UK to the world”.
I won’t place the blame entirely on Charles’s shoulders – I remember reading that Rishi Sunak wanted the coronation to be a big event too, because they were all riding the high they got from the global attention at QEII’s funeral in 2022. But yeah… people didn’t give a sh-t. They especially didn’t want to be billed £72 million for one man’s fancy hat party, historical moment or not. There were so many layers to Charles and Sunak misreading the national mood – it could have been a more businesslike event, done simply with little drama. Or they could have leaned into the inherent drama and asked everyone to wear all of their family jewels and really put on a show. They chose neither and billed the taxpayer for the most boring show in the world. Anyway… given the cost of the coronation AND the 53% raise of the Sovereign Grant, it’s past time for British taxpayers to reel in their mad king. Speaking of, Republic’s Graham Smith had a lot to say:
Republic, which campaigns to replace the monarchy with an elected head of state and more democratic political system, described the coronation as an “obscene” waste of taxpayers’ money.
“I would be very surprised if £72m was the whole cost,” the Republic CEO, Graham Smith, told the Guardian. As well as the Home Office policing and DCMS costs included in the figures, he said the Ministry of Defence, Transport for London, fire brigades and local councils also incurred costs related to the coronation, with other estimates putting the totalspend at between £100m and £250m.
“But even that kind of money – £72m – is incredible,” Smith added. “It’s a huge amount of money to spend on one person’s parade when there was no obligation whatsoever in the constitution or in law to have a coronation, and when we were facing cuts to essential services. It was a parade that Charles insisted on at huge expense to the taxpayer, and this is on top of the huge inheritance tax bill he didn’t [have to] pay, on top of the £500m-a-year cost of the monarchy.”
Under a clause agreed in 1993 by the then prime minister, John Major, any inheritance passed “sovereign to sovereign” avoids the 40% levy applied to assets valued at more than £325,000.
Smith added: “It was an extravagance we simply didn’t have to have. It was completely unnecessary and a waste of money in the middle of a cost of living crisis in a country that is facing huge amounts of child poverty. When kids are unable to afford lunches at school, to spend over £70m on this parade is obscene.”
Yep, I agree. About all of it.
Photos courtesy of Avalon Red, Cover Images.