Do you
-A) buy everyone a house -B) behead a landlord or two -C) summon the prime minister -D) absolutely nothing, but promise to tell you children about it-
-A) buy everyone a house -B) behead a landlord or two -C) summon the prime minister -D) absolutely nothing, but promise to tell you children about it-
It is really hard to get a feel for big numbers, but important to try.
In terms of “buy everyone a house”. What could William do?
Well according to a random website, he has a personal wealth of about £100 million, and controls the Duchy of Cornwall worth about £1 billion. If we combine that with all the other assets controlled by the Crown or the Royal Family, then that is more or less £30 billion.
Now suppose he decided to give absolutely all of that to “everyone”. So he liquidates the lot, sells off all the palaces, all the land, all the businesses and shares out the proceeds evenly.
(This rather begs the question as to who could afford to buy it all, but let’s ignore that for now.)
How much would this windfall be?
£30 billion, divided by £70 million people is a smidge under £430 each.
So no. Even in the most extreme case, where nothing is left of the Crown’s fortune, William could not get remotely close to buying everyone a house. Maybe, just about, if he held on to one of the larger, cheaper estates, there would be enough left to give everyone a small plot of land and a cheap garden shed.
William is rich, very rich. But not even close to “resolve the country’s problems” rich.
only the homeless need houses, einstein.
Okay, so how many do you need? Let’s concentrate the entire resources of the monarchy on buying houses. The average price of a terraced house or flat is about £250k. So you could maybe buy 120,000 houses. According to shelter there are 271,000 people homeless in the UK, so this might just about work.
But it hasn’t done anything to address any other social issue, whether education or health inequality, the millions living in poverty, … So undoubtedly in a decade or two, a whole new set of people are now homeless, and there is nothing left to help them.
Meanwhile swathes of the UK’s land and historic houses are now the private possesion of foreign oligarchs. And all the rental income of the houses and businesses that form the Crown Estates that were sold to raise the money are now going to the global elite instead of mostly going to the UK government, so public spending will have to be cut on an ongoing basis.
Many a muckle makes a mickle. He may not have the ability to sort everyone, but he has more land than anyone else. It would be a start just to free up a large portion of that land.