Are the British Royal family needed or even wanted in this day and age?

Cost Benefit analysis.

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The royal household costs roughly £41.5 m a year, out of which £12.7 m is the "civil list" and £6.5 m is travel. Most of the rest is for upkeep up the palaces.

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If the UK were to become a republic, presumably the civil list and travel would not be paid, but the palace upkeep would still have to be met. The palaces are not big tourism revenue generators.

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Charles would still keep the revenue from the duchies of Lancaster and Cornwall. The properties of Sandringham House and it's 8000 acres and Balmoral Castle (65000 acres) in Scotland are private property, as his home to the West of London.

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The government wll have broken it's 1760 agreement with the monarch and Charles will sue to maintain control of those properties in the "crown estate" which he thinks belongs to him. The entire "crown estate" is worth £6.5 billion and includes hundreds of thousands of acres of rural land, thousands of buildings, and incredible properties in London including Regent Street. In addition it includes Windsor Castle, Kensington Palace, Buckingham Palace, Holyrood Castle in Edinburgh and Clarence House (where he now lives). In addition the giant homes occupied by his brothers belong to the "crown estate" but are on long term lease.

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It is not clear how much he would get back from the law courts. Courts are not normally used to dealing with arrangements made 250 years ago. He may also want some of the art work and jewels.

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Should Charles be awarded "Clarence House" and a significant portion of the property in London, he still will not be as wealthy as the Duke of Westminster who owns hundreds of acres of prime London real estate.

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Parliament will save the money on the civil list, and possibly they could eventually turn Kensington Palace into a money maker by renting out the apartments to Ambassadors and allowing them to turn some rooms into embassies. Much of the immediate area is already used for that purpose today.

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If Charles gets enough of the "crown estate" turned back over as personal property, the £226.5m generated last year and given directly to parliament will be reduced considerably. I think it is naive to think that the courts will turn the entire estate over to him, but I also think it is naive to think he won't get any of it.

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Parliament may find itself in a defecit even before it adresses the problem of standing up a president. People may hem and haw about the £6.5m travel budget but most presidents spend that much in travel. The POTUS is known to spend several times that amount on a single trip. The savings of £12.7m from the "civil list" will go almost nowhere in setting up the office of a President with full staff.

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Expanding the office of the prime minister so that he has presidential powers would probably not work. The PM office functions very different than the POTUS. Most importantly he could serve for years without being elected. In the USA there has only been one president who served 2.5 years without winning a national election, and that was Gerald Ford (both president and vice president resigned).

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Although I personally don't like the tourism argument, London is still the greatest single city for International Tourism, at roughly £15 billion. Although it is ludicrous to think that tourism will stop if the UK becomes a republic, it is not ludicrous to think that the a living monarchy is responsible for a few percentage points of this market. Although only the most naive tourist thinks they will see the monarch in real life, it does keep people reading about London as opposed to other European cities.

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Finally there is the good will generated by Queen Elizabeth. Most people outside of Europe could not tell you who the president is of any European countries. Certainly the chancellor in Germany is far better known than the president.

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Around 1998 President Clinton decided that it was about time that the POTUS started to visit Africa. Prior to that President Jimmy Carter had gone once in the 1970's and Franklin Roosevelt had landed for refueling on his first clandestine trip to Europe in WW2 (he was trying not to get shot down). Clinton left on a week long trip that involved over a 1300 people, at least four passenger airplanes and about 60 missions involving heavy lift aircraft and refueling aircraft to bring limousines, a fleet of helicopter, mobile emergency hospitals, etc. The cost of these state visits is staggering.

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Queen Elizabeth has been travelling to Africa regularly since she was age 21. She charters a jet for (example £137K for her last visit to Uganda in Nov-2007 ) and gets a greater outpouring of good will than a British president would ever get in his lifetime, for what amounts to a pittance in government finance.

The Queen is the head of state and since we need a head of state we need the Queen. We could elect a politician to perform her duties though, however since you've asked the question based on cost benefit analysis, I think abolishing the monarchy and electing a politician as head of state would cost more in the long term.

Having the prime minister hold the title and role of head of state in addition to head of government and therefore not electing another politician would be the cheapest thing to do, but that option makes people nervous because it gives too much power to one individual.

If we didn't have the monarchy, we would have to have an elected president, which would be no cheaper and could very well be a lot more expensive (the President of Italy costs almost twice as much as the royal family do). Also it would mean yet more boring elections. I think the royal family is very good value for money.

Yes there are. Though many people do not realize, Her Majesty does, in fact, rule the United Kingdom. She does have power and a great deal of it indeed. Queen Elizabeth is the most powerful leader in the world. The President of the United States is second.

Not really but the alternative is removing them and instating a president who is number one in charge of the country instead of the king/queen. Since the royal family never exercises their authority there's no point in doing this and It's much less expensive to leave things the way they are (though this is what would happen if the royal family ever DID try to overrule the prime minister)

Yes. That's what makes England and Great Britain as a whole great! Also, I don't know about you, but I want Prince William. Oh, and after Prince Harry went to war in Afghanistan, he has become a real prince, like the one is a fairy tale.

In terms of cost, yes they are wanted. They claim a measly 69p (which isn't even as much as a packet of crisps costs) from each tax payer per year, and they bring in much more than they take through both tourism and the taxes they pay. Also, many charities are only kept runing through Royal Donations.

In terms of Benefit, then yes they are wanted. although they do not affect politics much today (although the queen has A LOT more power than she uses), the queen and the Prince of wales are still very important Diplomats, who regularly meet with foreign leaders.

We're a lazy nation who've learnt to depend not on a proper, decent industry but the tourism industry, really. Money doesn't come into the countrey through services because services are useless and we're all too damn expensive for anyone overseas to think about hiering us.

the UK loves the royal family because they bring in tourism because we're such a lazy boring nation - really.

A lot of people dislike the royal family because of the tax costs and the fact that they don't really have any use at all.

I want them they are awesome they are way cooler then boring politician's (sorry John key).Most of the Monarchs are my family Queen Elizabeth is my 10th cousin 13 times removed her 10th great grandma is my 22nd greatgrandma( Eleanor Princess of Castile&King Edward).

Queen margrethe is my 23rd cousin we both have the same 23rd great grandparents.

Cost benefit analysis? The Royal family bring in millions via tourism (people want to see round a WORKING palace), the Queen pays her staff out of her own fortune most of the time. It would be far, far more expensive to have an elected president who would not pay his staff out of his/her own pocket.

There is also the matter of the Crown estates - technically they belong to tye Queen but the Millions they bring in go directly to the Government. if we removed the Monarchy the Queen would have a good case for taking them back.

Also removing the Monarchy would cost the Government of the day billions in terms of renaming anything that has HM/ Royal in front of it, changing the stationery of all Government departments and related agencies, it would all add up.

There's only one way to find out for sure: put it to a vote. Next time there is a national election, ask the voters what they think.

As to knocks on the door after midnight, Lord Lucan should know all about that.