So, the royal soap opera's latest episode is now flooding TV screens, with Harry's engagement to a well-known actress. And just in case, given the current hard times, we’re already being told that their "wedding bill" will be fully paid for by the royal family, out of its own income! Never mind that this "own" income is wholly parasitical on us - and every billion they own and every penny they "earn" comes out of the population’s pockets in the first place!
Yet this is the 21th century. So isn’t it high time all "royals" were cut, once and for all, and left to earn their own keep and get on with their own lives, instead of cuts being made to the benefits of the poorest and to the NHS, starving it of vital funding?
Meanwhile, the Westminster eurosceptic bigots are throwing tantrums over the "divorce bill" for their cherished Brexit. Once more, they accuse the rest of Europe of ganging up against "besieged" Britain, while sacked ex-minister Priti Patel says the EU should be told to "sod off". As if these liars hadn't known all along that, while the NHS would never get the £350m/day they promised, leaving the EU would definitely have a price tag!
No borders has a cost but also benefits
As if 45 years of married life doesn’t involve a long-term commitment to many joint projects!
True, many of these projects didn't benefit European workers. The Eurofighter, which was born out of EU joint state subsidies, is a death machine. The joint EU funding which allowed Airbus to become Boeing's main rival, mainly filled shareholders' pockets, directly, or by granting Rolls Royce and other British companies, a new lease of life. As to the City, it would not be the financial centre it is today, without the EU and the business of the eurozone!
In fact, the EU's main beneficiaries were Europe's capitalists - including the British fat cats - which was what the EU was meant for in the first place.
But it wasn’t only they who benefited. Many large-scale scientific and educational projects would never have seen the light of day without the EU. Quite simply because they were too expensive for one single country, even the richest, to afford. But also because they required a vast array of skills which needed the pooling of talent from many countries.
So, for instance, without the backing of the EU and its joint funding, the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN), would not be the world's largest organisation for research into particle physics - and among the most likely to find a viable way of generating the energy that mankind will need in the future. Nor would space research have made such progress, without EU-sponsored Arianespace,the world's largest satellite launching organisation.
Likewise, if it wasn't for the EU-funded Erasmus programme, hundreds of thousands of European students would not have benefited from grants allowing them to do far richer studies, by spending part of their time in other European universities.
These are the benefits of getting rid of borders across the EU and pooling resources together on the basis of long-term plans.
The bosses have a cost but no benefit!
So, this is what the Westminster Brexiters want to dump - although they were always careful not to spell it out! And now, they're pretending that the British government has no debts, despite having broken so many long-term commitments!
Of course, their pretensions are just childish overbidding and nationalist posturing! Especially as, although the figures involved (anywhere between £35 and £55bn) sound huge to us, they are petty cash compared to the size of state finances.
But even the highest figure would only increase the British public debt by less than 3%. What's more, the amount would be repaid over a number of years, anyway.
So what's the big deal then? Significantly, the same politicians who make such a fuss over the EU "divorce bill", are remarkably quiet about other bills that we are made to pay by this government.
What about, for instance, the £26bn that the government stands to lose if it sells its 71% stake in RBS, as Hammond has just announced? And what about the £50bn that Hammond has just committed to plough into house building over the coming years? Who will benefit? Not the rest of us in any case, because it's all about building homes we can't afford to buy. However, the share prices of the big construction companies and real estate developers jumped on Budget day. Which certainly shows where these billions will go!
So subsidising British bosses, with no benefit for working people, is ok for these politicians. Whereas paying the "divorce bill", let alone paying for and participating in useful EU projects, is not! As it turns out, the populist noises of the Westminster Brexiters are just a fig leaf for Britain's ever-greedy fat cats!