Queen orders royal Christmas cutbacks
The Queen is reportedly putting in place a series of credit crunch-busting measures this Christmas.A £50 cap on the royal family's gifts, an order to re-use leftovers from festive meals and even a bar on extravagant crackers have been imposed by the penny-pinching monarch, the News of the World reports.Prince William and prince Harry have also been told by their grandmother to take a "low-key" holiday this winter.A need to not appear insensitive as the rest of the country suffers in the economic downturn is at the root of the cost-cutting, a royal insider told the newspaper."The directive has come from the top that the family must be in tune with the rest of the country," they said. "She is aware that extravagance would not be welcomed at this time."Latest unemployment forecasts from business leaders suggest that another 900,000 Britons could lose their jobs by 2010.
Share this..
Related stories
Royal Bank of Scotland in talks about £1 billion bonus scheme
The Royal Bank of Scotland is rumoured to be in discussions with the government agency set up to manage taxpayer shareholdings in the UK banking sector. The Sunday Telegraph has revealed the bank is looking to pay out over £1 billion in bonuses, something which is sure to anger taxpayers across the UK. The move comes at a time when Alistair Darling has announced the creation of a new agency to mo...
Read MoreIrish credit rating downgraded
It has been revealed that Moody's, the credit rating agency, has today downgraded the Irish government's debt rating. The rating has been reduced by one notch to Aa2 as a consequence of the weakened financial strength of the economy and the budget deficit. So what does this mean for the Irish economy? The most obvious repercussions of the credit rating downgrade is an increase in the cost of fi...
Read MoreUnited Utilities amends terms of pension scheme
In what many believe could be the start of a whole wave of adjustments to defined benefit pension scheme arrangements, United Utilities has this week announced changes for the future. The company had been running a deficit of £359 million at the end of September 2009 but this has now fallen to £271 million at the end of March 2010. So what changes are afoot? In simple terms the United Utiliti...
Read MoreIs the Tory Party conference a non-starter?
While the Conservative Party conference kicked off in good style yesterday with a few headline grabbing comments and new policies many are actually calling for the conference to be called off in light of the events in the wider investment markets. The demise of Bradford and Bingley (strangely timed just as the conference began), the collapse of a raft of European powerhouses and the rejection of...
Read MoreSavers giving up income in favour of safety
It has been revealed that while the recent change in the upper limit for the protection of savings in the UK will cover 98% of savers, the remaining 1.1 million bank account holders account for some £500 billion of savings which are not protected under the new scheme. This has caused concern in many quarters and seen more and more savers move, or distribute, their savings across the field of opt...
Read More