AIRMILES ANDY THINKS HE'S WORTH THE MONEY

Andrew Pierce has written a full length article in the Mail on his interview at Buckingham Palace with his namesake Andrew York.

He was entertained over sandwiches and cake in the prince’s apartments where he says neither of the Equerries was about, so Andrew served the cake himself.... Imagine.....he’s 50 and he served the cake all by himself and that was newsworthy!

Andrew (York, that is) is now the UK Ambassador for Trade and Industry. Of course, without his connections it is doubtful that a man with 20 years military experience and nothing else would have been appointed to such a role, it being more ideally suited to a person with business experience and acumen, but I suppose he has to have something to do. In that role, however, to be fair, he carried out over 600 engagements last year.

Most of the criticism of Andrew is that he prefers to use private planes, funded by us, instead of travelling by rail or train. There are also legitimate concerns about the vast amount of money that his daughters cost the state, without ever giving anything back. Recently it has been highlighted that security for them costs more that £500,000 a year, and that an apartment in St James’s Palace had to be converted, at a cost of £2.5 million for one of them.

[I’m always amused when I hear of this kind of money being spent for renovations. It was the same when the Queen Mother died and Charles got Clarence House. The state paid out £5 million for the palace to be upgraded. This painted a picture of the old QM living in some dreadful slum with damp running down the walls, like some of the pensioners in my town. Not something that I can readily imagine from a woman who insisted on fresh flowers every day in every room of her house, whether she was likely to be in it or not.]

He apparently uses the royal “we” as he describes what he does, travelling across more than 20 countries in the last year, costing the taxpayer over £140,000. But it is the personal use of the Queens helicopter which draws most criticism. He insists on using it for short hops to both official and private engagements at vast cost to the taxpayer. There is also the fact that his royal status giveshim exemption from the reaches of the FOI act for some reason unknown to me, so we don't know how much this all costs.

Yet Andy feels he is good value for money. Now, strange for a Republican blog to say, but in many ways he may be right. Whether Andy knows squat about business or not, he does have huge drawing power. People all over the world are desperate to meet a British royal, and so they turn up and show interest. If this is good for trade, then it’s good for the UK, and possibly even, on very rare occasions, for Scotland. And as the BBC and politicians show, the royals have no particular monopoly on self-important, grubby greed.

However, just as with all these other organisations, it is high time that Andy Airmiles realised that belt tightening is not just for poor people. Someone has to tell him that there are trains and cars and that private planes and helicopters are the province of his mother.... and no one else.

And as for these daughters of his, he must learn to pay for them himself. Even the most ardent royalist must realise that when ill people are being refused Disability Living Allowance and being left to moulder in their houses as cuts are implemented to pay for Labour's recession, £2.5 million to do up what is after all fabulous state housing for one 21 year old girl is just NOT ON. The article is worth a read and to be fair Andrew has some sensible things to say about other people's excesses, particularly what he feels about bankers bonuses beyond the headlines. But he must learn that cuts mean cuts everywhere, and that includes him and his family.