This week's yacht-gate has all the makings of a media set-up. No, I am not referring to the tragic sinking of the Costa Concordia off the coast of Italy, but rather the media storm over the suggestion that Her Majesty should be furnished with a new Royal Yacht.
Act One of this drama has Michael Gove deciding to publicly announce that the Queen should be treated to a new royal floating palace in this her Jubilee year. Cue media gasps at this fiscal extravagance. 'Who is going to pay?' asked a plethora of commentators. Here we have yet another example from the upside priorities of this government, they said.
But wait! In walks David Cameron onto centre stage from the wings and in a booming and positively Churchillian voice declares 'No!' This exuberance we are told will not do, here we are are in the midst of a bagel (like the West Wing the word 'recession' is verbum non grata in these parts), well, not actually a bagel but almost a bagel (if you know what I mean!) and such public extravagance would be irresponsible in a time of economic woes such as this (shhh. No one mention the Olympics!). You see, says Cameron, Her Majesty must also share the pain for we are most assuredly all in this together. So ends Act Two – Mr Cameron carried off the stage on the wings of a grateful nation's affection for compassionate conservatism's fiscal prudence.
But this, dear readers, is not the end for with the rising sun there rises in No 10 Downing Street a a new idea – nay, not an idea – a new society, a big society! And so began Act Three of this drama. The Queen shall have her boat declared the Prime Minister in a patriotic flurry of rhetoric but worry not dear taxpayers for the bill will not be paid by you but by another.
Article comments
1 - Dr Dreadful
Ah, this seems to have been started by one of those outgushings from one of those Conservative MPs who feel that no opportunity for licking the boots of the nobility (and upwards) should go unslobbered.
Has the Queen actually expressed a wish to have a new yacht? I somehow doubt it. I have, further, a sneaking suspicion that if said toadying MPs really must spend all that money or they'll die of shame, Her Maj would agree completely that a more fitting way to mark the Jubilee would be for it to go to some project to help the needy.
Brits nowadays are very uncomfortable with ostentatious displays of extreme wealth anyway, and I have a notion that a new royal yacht would look not like the grand old Britannia, but like a particularly crass excess of one of the more unethical Russian billionaires.
2 - Casper
She has explicitly said she will not express opposition to the plan and Prince Charles has been actively canvassing for it.
Are you suggesting that there are actually any ethical Russian billionaires? :-)
3 - RadicalRoyalist
Sorry, but you fell into the trap of Chris Huhne and his leaked letter to The Guardian. You moral upset goes nowhere, because it has no basis.
4 - Casper
@ RadicalRoyalist (no ambiguity where your sympathies lie with that username!)
Are you suggesting the DC didn't actually endorse the call for c. £60-80m of private sector funding a royal yacht (about £15m of which has already been pledged?) That's the point of the article.