Debunked: The Queen of England has £17 Trillion of Wealth

Status
Not open for further replies.

Mick West

Administrator
Staff member
The Queen of England actually only has an estimated personal net worth of around $500 million, nothing like the "£17 Trillion" being suggested by conspiracy theorists.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/luisakroll/2011/04/22/just-how-rich-is-queen-elizabeth-and-her-family/

These monied monarchs can well afford it. Queen Elizabeth, 85, has an estimated personal net worth of $500 million that comes from property holdings including Balmoral Castle in the Scottish Highlands, stud farms, a fruit farm and marine land throughout the U.K.; extensive art and fine jewelry; and one of the world’s largest stamp collections built by her grandfather.
Not included are those assets belonging to the Crown Estate, which she gets to enjoy as Queen, such as $10 billion worth of real estate, Buckingham Palace (estimated to be worth another $5 billion), the Royal Art collection, and unmarked swans on stretches of the Thames.
Content from External Source
The $10 billion of the Crown Estate does not belong to the queen in the sense of private property. By law she cannot sell it, and any profit from the use of the land goes to the UK Treasury. So essentially it's owned by the UK state.

Some conspiracy sites on the internet make the rather outrageous claim that the Queen has £17 Trillion worth of land. They then go on to explain how this is terrible, because the Queen could sell this land, and pay off the National Debt, and end all the hunger and suffering in the world.

£17 Trillion is $26 Trillion, which is $26,000 billion. Or about 52,000 times the Queens personal net worth (which she could theoretically sell, but in practice not really). It's also 2,600 times the value of the state owned Crown Estate, which she can't sell.

Some examples:

http://www.whoownstheworld.com/about-the-book/largest-landowner/
[bunk]Queen Elizabeth II, head of state of the United Kingdom and of 31 other states and territories, is the legal owner of about 6,600 million acres of land, one sixth of the earth’s non ocean surface.She is the only person on earth who owns whole countries, and who owns countries that are not her own domestic territory. This land ownership is separate from her role as head of state and is different from other monarchies where no such claim is made – Norway, Belgium, Denmark etc.The value of her land holding. £17,600,000,000,000 (approx).[/bunk]
Which leads to things like:
[bunk][/bunk]
So this £17 trillion figure is total nonsense. It suggests the Queen could raise cash by selling Canada, Australia and the entirety of the UK! The Queen does not own those countries, she's simply the titular (powerless) head of state. And while she is quite rich, she's nowhere near as rich as most of the elite, she's not even an billionaire. There's over a thousand people in the world with more money than the Queen.
 
Last edited:
Just for the record here's the latest UK 'rich list' (2014)
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-27459621
and 'ole Lizzie' is dropping down the rankings
The Queen, who has been on every Sunday Times Rich List since she topped the first one in 1989, is now worth £330m but that is only enough to see her ranked 285th.
Content from External Source
 
The Queen does not own those countries, she's simply the titular (powerless) head of state.
I believe the argument is that there is some legal loophole in British legal system that in reality the Monarchs do actually own all the land but and the people who actually think they own the land are just "renting" it. This is because really old laws which are not overturned. For practicality this does not really matter. My personal absolut favourite conspiracy theorists Deek Jackson has some stuff about this and he even formed a party Landless Peasant Party in UK centering this land issue.



 
While strictly speaking laws to that effect may never have been repealed, any attempt to act within them would fail. If the monarchy didn't implicitly or explicitly trade that power to Parliament during their gradual depowering, then centuries of intervening case precedent and written law probably negates it anyway.

But, for fun, let's assume the law is in full effect. There are literally no buyers in the world in the market to buy an entire nation, so it would have to be done piecemeal. So much real estate (including developed and undeveloped residential, commercial, agricultural, and industrial properties at every price level) going on the market at once would completely crash the real estate market. Realistically, because of the expense of evicting an entire nation (especially relative to the sudden devaluing of the land they're squatting on), the only viable resolution would be to sell it to its existing ostensible owners at massive discounts. Even if those owners were given exclusive opportunity to do so and nobody stole land out from each other, the sudden uncertainty introduced into land ownership would still destroy the real estate market for years, possibly decades.

Net effect is basically just a one time property tax on the entire commonwealth, collected right after the mass devaluation of that property, likely no more than a few tens of billions of dollars in revenue generated. The chaos, destruction of wealth, tens of millions of properties suddenly orders of magnitude underwater on their mortgages (and the likelihood of debtors defaulting as a result), would add more poverty to the world than the revenues could fix.
 
Lets not forget all the property underground where she can shapeshift in privacy back to her reptilian self. If she sold that too she could solve a few storage problems of the world.

Then of course there is her drug business which must be worth a few bob, according to Lyndon LaRouche.

;)
 
there have ben various stages of crown involvement in land ownership in England - see the Wiki article

Basically it comes to this - the crown owning all land was a feudal concept that arrived with the Normans in 1066.

Strict feudalism was chipped away by various measures over the years, until the Tenures Abolition Act of 1660 abolished the final vestiges of feudal land tenure and knight service.
 
The Queen of England actually only has an estimated personal net worth of around $500 million, nothing like the "£17 Trillion" being suggested by conspiracy theorists.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/luisakroll/2011/04/22/just-how-rich-is-queen-elizabeth-and-her-family/

I'm sure the true figure is somewhere in between. Everyone lies about there wealth, and The Queen, being as she is, Head of State to 13 tax havens, is surely no exception. In fact, royal secrecy laws where brought in back in 2011 to protect the royal family from financial scrutiny, after a Freedom of Information request revealed that the Queen had attempted to use a poverty fund to heat her palaces. http://www.independent.co.uk/news/u...ily-granted-new-right-of-secrecy-2179148.html

As to the value of her land, whilst the Queen doesn't really own the land, she does hold the mineral rights to vast swathes of the UK. In the UK, Mineral Rights default to the Crown Estate if no one else claims ownership. The Crown Estate remits its profits to The UK Treasury, in exchange for an annual payment called The Civil List. However, members of the Royal family, including the Queen, do directly own mineral rights to large parts of the UK through ancient manorial claims. The Royals have been re-asserting these claims recently, in light of the pending shale boom.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/property/10527455/Queen-asserts-rights-to-mine-under-homes.html

As to our Queen being a powerless, head of state, I'm afraid that notion has since been disproven. The Queen has a weekly meeting with the PM, and both her and now Charles (as part of his preparations for King) have veto power over parliament bills. If they don't like something, it gets re-done. http://www.theguardian.com/uk/2013/jan/14/secret-papers-royals-veto-bills
 
I'm sure the true figure is somewhere in between.
Somewhere in between 0.5 billion and 17,000 billion? That's rather a large range. While it quite possibly be higher than 0.5, depending on how you assess it, there's nothing at all to suggest it's higher than 1. So 17,000 is way out of the ballpark. Even 10 seems infeasibly high.
 
Did you read your own link??


The guidance states that the Queen's consent is likely to be needed for laws affecting hereditary revenues, personal property or personal interests of the Crown, the Duchy of Lancaster or the Duchy of Cornwall.

Consent is also needed if it affects the Duchy of Cornwall. These guidelines effectively mean the Queen and Charles both have power over laws affecting their sources of private income.

The Queen uses revenues from the Duchy of Lancaster's 19,000 hectares of land and 10 castles to pay for the upkeep of her private homes at Sandringham and Balmoral, while the prince earns £18m-a-year from the Duchy of Cornwall.

A Buckingham Palace spokeswoman said: "It is a long established convention that the Queen is asked by parliament to provide consent to those bills which parliament has decided would affect crown interests. The sovereign has not refused to consent to any bill affecting crown interests unless advised to do so by ministers."

A spokesman for Prince Charles said: "In modern times, the prince of Wales has never refused to consent to any bill affecting Duchy of Cornwall interests, unless advised to do so by ministers. Every instance of the prince's consent having been sought and given to legislation is a matter of public record."
Content from External Source
AFAIK the requirement to consent to bills affecting the monarch is not actually new - I certainly knew about it years ago way out here in het colonies!
 
In addition looking at the other links that Gladstone provided we see that

1/ the rights to minerals are not new - they already existed but they had to be formally registered due to a change in the law regarding minerals that required the holders of "ancient rights" to formalize them with local authorities.

2/ the exemption to FOI requests in regard of the royals is an extension of that already in the original legislation. And while it is true that the Royal family is the only public organisation that has such an exemption, it is also the only family that is a public organisation, and the monarch is the head of state with an unusual set of relatively informal duties, obligations and privileges - so gets a similarly unique set of legislative coverage.

I see nothing particularly strange in any of these.
 
Did you read your own link??


The guidance states that the Queen's consent is likely to be needed for laws affecting hereditary revenues, personal property or personal interests of the Crown, the Duchy of Lancaster or the Duchy of Cornwall.

Consent is also needed if it affects the Duchy of Cornwall. These guidelines effectively mean the Queen and Charles both have power over laws affecting their sources of private income.

The Queen uses revenues from the Duchy of Lancaster's 19,000 hectares of land and 10 castles to pay for the upkeep of her private homes at Sandringham and Balmoral, while the prince earns £18m-a-year from the Duchy of Cornwall.

A Buckingham Palace spokeswoman said: "It is a long established convention that the Queen is asked by parliament to provide consent to those bills which parliament has decided would affect crown interests. The sovereign has not refused to consent to any bill affecting crown interests unless advised to do so by ministers."

A spokesman for Prince Charles said: "In modern times, the prince of Wales has never refused to consent to any bill affecting Duchy of Cornwall interests, unless advised to do so by ministers. Every instance of the prince's consent having been sought and given to legislation is a matter of public record."
Content from External Source
AFAIK the requirement to consent to bills affecting the monarch is not actually new - I certainly knew about it years ago way out here in het colonies!

Yes I did. Did you?

"The suggestion in these documents that the Queen withheld consent for a private member's bill on such an important issue as going to war beggars belief," he said. "We need to know whether laws have been changed as the result of a private threat to withhold that consent."

You chose to selectively quote from the Buckingham palace spokesperson. That's the same Buckingham palace who attempted to claim from the poverty fund, and then try and hide the fact. Hardly a reliable witness.

Whilst the prince may not have vetoed any bills, he certainly exerted great influence on there content through his ministerial letters which they are fighting so hard to withhold. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...Prince-Charles-private-letters-ministers.html
 
I quoted the entire section of the article that you linked to that explained the reasoning - something you neglected to include. so my choice of article was made by you, and my quoting was extensive - whereas yours was non existent.

I did not include it for reliability - I included it because it was a substantial part of the article and this site has a "no click" policy - you should put at least a major summary of all the points in your links into the text so that people can get an accurate view of what it is you are linking to.

the opinion of the person who's belief is beggared is just that - his opinion, and in this case the purpose of expressing it is clearly political points scoring - it is from the head of the campaign to do away with the monarchy. ... ......so what was that about "hardly a reliable witness" you were saying??

it is also selective quoting

It is not my opinion and I disagree - I do not think it beggars belief at all.
 
This thread is about the net worth of the Queen, not here influence on politics. Please stay on topic, or start a new thread, if there's something to discuss under the posting guidelines.
 
I vividly remember being a child and learning that when my name was written on something, like my pencil case or school bag, it denoted that it was mine. It belonged to me. Stuff with other peoples names on it belonged to them. Then I learnt about the concept of money. My grandpa gave me one of each of every (Australian) coin, 1cent, 2cent, 5cent, 10cent, 20cent, 50cent. I was so excited! Then I noticed that on the back of every coin, was Elizabeth II in both name and picture. I was so dismayed, this money did not belong to me! It belonged to this Queen lady. I presumed she was incredibly wealthy and powerful because she must obviously own all the money. I endeavored to one day have my own money with my face and name on it.

Of course I eventually grew up a little more and learned that the Queen is a figurehead and has about as much power as a spatula at a boxing match, and while she is wealthy, the belongings are the crowns, not the person wearing the crown.

I find it interesting that the Queen is always at the head of conspiracy theories. Why not other world leaders, why isn't the state belongings of the USA or its tax revenues related to Obama's net worth? Is it because he is an elected leader? Or is there too many antichrist conspiracy theories about him that this one would seem too far fetched. What about un-elected monarchs from around the world?

While I am an anti-monarchist (in the Australian sense) I appreciate everything that Queen Elizabeth has done for the commonwealth, particularly during the war years, but I don't think anyone seriously can believe she has personal control over such a huge portion of the worlds wealth.
 
I vividly remember being a child and learning that when my name was written on something, like my pencil case or school bag, it denoted that it was mine. It belonged to me. Stuff with other peoples names on it belonged to them. Then I learnt about the concept of money. My grandpa gave me one of each of every (Australian) coin, 1cent, 2cent, 5cent, 10cent, 20cent, 50cent. I was so excited! Then I noticed that on the back of every coin, was Elizabeth II in both name and picture. I was so dismayed, this money did not belong to me! It belonged to this Queen lady. I presumed she was incredibly wealthy and powerful because she must obviously own all the money. I endeavored to one day have my own money with my face and name on it.

Of course I eventually grew up a little more and learned that the Queen is a figurehead and has about as much power as a spatula at a boxing match, and while she is wealthy, the belongings are the crowns, not the person wearing the crown.

I find it interesting that the Queen is always at the head of conspiracy theories. Why not other world leaders, why isn't the state belongings of the USA or its tax revenues related to Obama's net worth? Is it because he is an elected leader? Or is there too many antichrist conspiracy theories about him that this one would seem too far fetched. What about un-elected monarchs from around the world?

While I am an anti-monarchist (in the Australian sense) I appreciate everything that Queen Elizabeth has done for the commonwealth, particularly during the war years, but I don't think anyone seriously can believe she has personal control over such a huge portion of the worlds wealth.
There are plenty of conspiraces concerning Obama. The topic of this thread is the Queen being worth considerably less than the theories claim.
 
There are plenty of conspiraces concerning Obama. The topic of this thread is the Queen being worth considerably less than the theories claim.

I wasn't implying that there wasn't, I know there are heaps, but I haven't come across any similar to this one about the Queen. As I presume you are aware they vary wildly from claiming he is behind 9/11, to running the Muslim Brotherhood, to not actually being American, to working for the Illuminati/NWO. The usual tosh. My point was trying to define why the Queen, and not other world leaders, is linked often to this CT.

I point to this part of my previous post in particular:

...Is it because he is an elected leader? Or is there too many antichrist conspiracy theories about him that this one would seem too far fetched...

I was trying to be humorous.
 
I wasn't implying that there wasn't, I know there are heaps, but I haven't come across any similar to this one about the Queen. As I presume you are aware they vary wildly from claiming he is behind 9/11, to running the Muslim Brotherhood, to not actually being American, to working for the Illuminati/NWO. The usual tosh. My point was trying to define why the Queen, and not other world leaders, is linked often to this CT.

I point to this part of my previous post in particular:



I was trying to be humorous.
My point is that your post is off topic. Please don't be.
 
I wasn't implying that there wasn't, I know there are heaps, but I haven't come across any similar to this one about the Queen. As I presume you are aware they vary wildly from claiming he is behind 9/11, to running the Muslim Brotherhood, to not actually being American, to working for the Illuminati/NWO. The usual tosh. My point was trying to define why the Queen, and not other world leaders, is linked often to this CT.

I point to this part of my previous post in particular:



I was trying to be humorous.
I copied your post to its own thread because I thought it was an interesting question.
https://www.metabunk.org/threads/why-is-the-monarchy-the-subject-of-conspiracy-theories.5549/
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top