This article appears as part of the Unspun: Scottish Politics newsletter.

It’s common to hear those of a republican persuasion refer to the Royal family as ‘parasites’ on the body of Britain.

The comparison is apt but not perfect. A parasite is a creature which feasts upon its host, but – importantly – is consciously hated by that host. A better analogy for the Royal family and its relationship with much of Britain and the British people is the vampire.

The vampire, in the classic Bram Stoker sense, hypnotises its prey, turning victims into willing servants, before applying fang to neck and draining the target dry.

Picture poor old Renfield in the novel Dracula. A once robust, intelligent man, he’s reduced to a pitiful grovelling husk by the power the fiendish aristo wields over him. “I am here to do your bidding, Master,” Renfield mutters in his asylum cell. “I am your slave.”

Around half the population of these strange islands is rather Renfield in outlook: wide-eyed in wonder at the glamour of the Royals, and ready to bare their jugulars for a rampant sucking.

Those teeth go deep and plunge often. We’ve just learned that the price-tag for the coronation of Charles Windsor was £72 million minimum. Those are official figures from the Department of Culture, Media and Sport.

Opponents of monarchy, such as the lobby group Republic, put the costs at anywhere between £100-250m. 

Evidently, this money – which could have been spent on alleviating child poverty – came from the pockets of the British people, not the Windsors. Incidentally, the wealth of the Royal family is estimated at £21 billion.

Graham Smith, Republic’s CEO, says of the £72m bill: “It’s a huge amount of money to spend on one person’s parade where 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 pay, [and] on top of the £500m-a-year cost of the monarchy.”

Charles didn’t pay inheritance tax as under rules agreed by the Tories any inheritance passed “sovereign-to-sovereign” avoids the 40% levy on assets valued more than £325,000.

Read more Unspun from Neil Mackay:

Earlier this month, investigations uncovered that the property empires of both Charles and Prince William are taking millions of pounds from charities and public services, including the NHS, schools and prisons.

The Duchies of Lancaster and Cornwall are set to make at least £50m from leasing land to public services. The Duchies are exempt from business tax and fund the royals’ lifestyles.

The Duchies hold more than 5400 leases. One deal will result in Guy’s and St Thomas’ Hospital in London paying £11.4m to store its ambulances in a warehouse owned by the King’s Duchy of Lancaster.

At least £28m will be made from wind-farms by Charles as the Duchy of Lancaster has the feudal right to charge for cables crossing the foreshore. As a reminder, the year is 2024.

Prince William’s Duchy of Cornwall has a £37m deal for leasing Dartmoor Prison. A tower block in London earned £22m in rents. 

The Royal Navy has been charged more than £1m to build and use jetties to moor our country’s warships.

The construction of a fire station earned £600,000; the same figure will be coined from rental agreements with six state schools. 

Some homes leased by the Duchies have energy performance ratings of F or G. It’s against the law for landlords to rent properties rated below E. You may recall that Charles has made much of his green credentials.

Likewise, William was recently boasting in a documentary that “we can end homelessness”. I’m sure we could. All his royal highness needs to do is hand us a palace and a chestful of treasure and let us get on with it.

Yet the hypnotised among us – those in thrall to the glamour of blue blood – don’t register such facts. To raise these issues is unpatriotic. Anyone concerned at the extractive greed of the royals is somehow blind to the splendour they bestow upon this great nation of ours. 


Oh and don’t forget the tourists. Americans love the royals and pay to come and see their palaces, apparently. So that’s all right, no need to worry, nothing to see here. It’ll all come out of the wash. Keep calm and carry on, and God save the King.

If you ever want the secret to why this country is so disgracefully unequal – the Royals are it. We imbibe inequality from the cradle in Britain. We’re raised to be subservient. Serfdom never truly ended on this septic isle.

Read Neil Mackay every Friday in the Unspun newsletter.


The ‘top’ 1% own almost a quarter of all wealth. The ‘top’ 0.1% have annual incomes in excess of £500,000, accounting for 6% of all earnings, which is 60 times greater than their population share.

We’re not just getting sucked dry. We’re utter suckers.

Is there any hope here, the sane among us ask. Well, yes. Today, just over half of Britons feel the monarchy is ‘very’ or ‘quite important’. That figure stood at 76% in 2012 and 86% in 1983. So time and demography are catching up with the royals.

When it comes to transparency around those in power, the old adage has it that ‘sunlight is the best disinfectant’. If you read your Stoker, you’ll also know that sunlight is the best way to get rid of vampires.

Neil Mackay is The Herald’s Writer-at-Large. He’s a multi-award winning investigative journalist, author of both fiction and non-fiction, and a filmmaker and broadcaster. He specialises in intelligence, security, crime, social affairs, cultural commentary, and foreign and domestic politics.