Should we give the Queen a yacht? John Humphrys discusses the controversial idea from Michael Gove's letter to fellow Tory MP Jeremy Hunt
Some people might think there are more important things to be worrying about; others, clearly, do not. Whether the nation should give the Queen a yacht to mark her diamond jubilee this year is the story that has been running big in all the papers this week. Monarchists are rallying to the cause. Republicans are fuming at the barricades. An age-old row has started up again. So what’s the answer: should we give the Queen a yacht or not?
It was a leaked letter from an ardent monarchist that set the cat among the republican pigeons. The Guardian newspaper, which you might have thought would be among the first to regard the issue as not quite rising to the seriousness of the times, actually led with the story on Monday morning. Making mischief among monarchists and Tories was obviously too big a temptation to resist.
The private letter was from the Education Secretary, Michael Gove, to his Tory colleague, Jeremy Hunt, the Culture Secretary (and copied, as such things must be these days, to the deputy prime minister and LibDem leader, Nick Clegg). The diamond jubilee, he said, was in danger of being overshadowed by the Olympics. Plans for street parties, royal cruises down the Thames and all the rest of it, were fine enough, but what was needed was something permanent to mark the great event. And also to express the nation’s gratitude for the Queen’s 'long and untiring service to this country'.
What Mr Gove was proposing was a new royal yacht. The idea had been floating around within Government since last autumn. It was originally the brainchild of a retired rear-admiral, David Bawtree, who imagined a multi-purpose ship, and taken up with great enthusiasm by the Daily Mail. As well as being a yacht for the Queen’s use, both privately and for state functions, the vessel could serve as a 'university of the seas', offering the chance for two hundred young people at a time to spend three months adventuring at sea. It could also be hired out to business for meetings and trade functions. Charges for such use ought to cover the running costs. The price tag for building the yacht was estimated at around £60m.
Mr Gove’s letter seemed to leave open the possibility that at least some of the cost of this could be met by the taxpayer. After all, if the nation wishes to thank its head of state for her services, shouldn’t the Government be footing the bill? Many people would think so: you don’t buy someone a present and then ask someone else to pay for it.
But the Prime Minister was quick to make clear that that was not what the Government had in mind at all. And not surprisingly. At a time when planned cuts in public spending stretch as far as the eye can see it does not take a political genius to realise that it might not go down too well in some quarters if an exception is being made in order to give a rich woman a yacht. So while the idea, Mr Cameron said, was 'inspirational', the taxpayer wasn’t going to contribute a penny to it. The money would have to come from private donations.
Already, it seems, around £10m has been offered by Canadian financiers and £5m from an unnamed private donor. If the plan goes ahead, the rest is likely to come from businesses wanting to gain good PR from such a prestige project and from public subscription.
The Queen, of course, used to have a royal yacht, Britannia – and very fond of it she was too. But it was decommissioned by the incoming Labour Government in 1997. The Queen is reported to have wept. It was a decision which Tony Blair has subsequently said was 'such a mistake' (a view he also takes of his decision to ban hunting though not, so far as history yet relates, of any other policy).
His critics agree with him. Some say it was just a piece of politics to appease the leftwing of his party but made no sense. Britannia, they argued, was a huge asset. It was a maritime symbol of the stability of the British state, part of the priceless brand that, they say, the centuries-old British monarchy has become in the wider world and of far greater value than the feeble and transient notion of ‘Cool Britannia’ with which New Labour tried to replace it. And it made money. Fees charged to hire the prestigious vessel out to businesses more than paid for its upkeep. Now it is reduced to being a tourist attraction.
Hard-headed monarchists backing the idea of a new yacht take the view that if you’ve got a monarchy, you should flaunt it. That’s the whole point of brands. Monarchy comes with ostentation and ostentation means yachts. But ostentation is just what republicans loath about monarchy. It serves to rub our noses in our inequality. As Mr Clegg rather lamely tried to joke, the issue of the 'haves versus the have-nots' turns into the 'haves and the have-yachts'.
No doubt the Queen herself is trying to stifle a yawn at this eruption of the old row between monarchists and republicans. She has seen it so many times before. She is reported, however, to be rather in favour of the idea of a new yacht. Wouldn’t you be if you were her?
True republicans say the issue is not just about whether the Queen should have a new yacht. They look askance at the very notion that the country needs to 'show gratitude' to its head of state. Why? Here is an immensely privileged woman who has always been given exactly what she wants and at our expense. Why do we need to give her any more?
On the other hand, if you have done for sixty years a job you were pushed into in the first place without any choice, with no possibility of retirement and you carry out the task with almost universal (if sometimes grudging) acknowledgement that you’ve hardly ever put a foot wrong, then perhaps a show of gratitude from your employer is not inappropriate.
But a yacht? Everything comes down to money. Whoever coughs up the £60m, they could always have spent the money on something else. Could £60m be better spent? Is it a bit steep for a thank-you present? Or should it be the case that if, as the old saying goes, 'nothing’s too good for the workers', nothing’s too good for the Queen?
