How much will King Charles III’s Coronation cost British taxpayers?
The coronation of King Charles III will be a three-day extravaganza taking place over the weekend. British taxpayers will be footing the extra-large bill.
King Charles III’s Coronation service will start at 11 a.m. on Saturday, May 6, at Westminster Abbey. This will kick off a three-day celebration, codenamed Operation Golden Orb, with May 8 declared as a bank holiday to enable citizens to participate.
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Pared-down pomp and pageantry
Although the guest list with 2,000 names appears long, it is only a fraction of the more than 8,000 guests in attendance during the Coronation of the late Queen Elizabeth that took place 70 years ago.
The reduced guest list is in keeping with the new king’s promise that his crowning would be a scaled-back event. Aside from fewer invitees, there will also be a shorter ceremony. However, the Coronation will still entail a lot of pomp and pageantry, and the government- ergo, the people- will have to shoulder the cost.
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How much will King Charles III’s Coronation cost British taxpayers?
Analysts predict that the event will adversely affect the country’s economic figures. Research consultancy Pantheon Macroeconomics projects that the country’s gross domestic product would slide approximately 0.2% month-on-month in May, with the fall attributed to the extra bank holiday declared by the government for the festivities.
Then there’s the matter of the Coronation’s cost. There is no official word on how much will be spent this weekend, but estimates place the expenses to fall within the range of $100-$180 million.
It’s a hefty price tag, but Buckingham Palace argues that the benefits will far outweigh the costs, confident that the celebrations will give the British economy a boost. A Palace spokesperson said that reports indicate the Coronation would infuse about $1.2 billion into the British economy. This validity of this prediction will only become evident after the king is crowned, but for the moment, there will be taxpayers who will be thinking about the stark contrast between this weekend’s royal lavishness, and their personal struggles with Britain’s cost-of-living crisis.