Don’t have plans for the coronation bank holiday? Fear not. The king invites you to join the Big Help Out, a national day of volunteering designed to mark the new reign. Or as the Telegraph breathlessly describes it, a “tribute to Charles’s many decades of public service”.
The Big Help Out will, according to the official website, “give everyone an opportunity to join in”. What acts of charity would Buckingham Palace like us to join in with, exactly? Squeezing out toothpaste for an elderly neighbour, perhaps. Or staffing a local art centre (do remember not to take the art home with you).
With the cost of living crisis leading to growing hardship across the country, especially in the poorest communities, there is said to be a national shortage of volunteers to meet the demand for them. Organisers were hoping the Big Help Out would inspire a new wave of volunteering, but some in the charity fear the event will be “damp squib”, due to lack of participants.
Is one really shocked? A man whose car collection alone is estimated to be worth more than £6m asking the rest of us to celebrate his kingship by helping out at the local food bank feels, shall we say, a little “let them eat quiche”.
Volunteering can be hugely rewarding, and many organisations are in desperate need of more help, but there may be better ways to promote the cause than an event that is literally about deference to hereditary privilege. People who are already working every hour just to put food on the table hardly need a billionaire to ask them to use their day off to do more.
As commentary on this country’s relationship with class goes, it could only be more crass if one of the volunteering jobs on offer was for families to scrub King Charles’s golden carriage with their electricity bills.
Charity, monarchy fans insist, is a longstanding personal interest of the royal family. In the runup to the coronation, the Princess of Wales made a “previously unannounced” visit to Windsor’s baby bank for deprived newborns (photographers were there entirely coincidentally, you understand). More than 850 community and charity representatives have been invited to the coronation to show the king’s deep respect for their work and 400 young volunteers will also watch from St Margaret’s church, Westminster Abbey.
No news as yet as to whether any representatives from HMRC have been invited. Royals always seem to prefer ad hoc charity work to taxation, much like the boss of Amazon or the Victorians. The £1bn Duchy of Cornwall estate – previously inherited by Charles and recently passed on to Prince William – is not liable for either corporation tax or capital gains tax.
But don’t worry, according to the duchy’s website, under Charles’s leadership, the estate’s annual multimillion-pound revenue was used to fund his “public, private and charitable activities”. Charles notably didn’t pay a single penny of inheritance tax on the fortune the late Queen left him last year (the jewellery alone was estimated to be worth at least £533m), though he has “volunteered” to pay income tax, as he also did on the duchy estate. “Volunteering” to pay tax feels a little like a wanted criminal “volunteering” to hand himself over to the authorities. It doesn’t seem to be something you typically get a choice in.
For the little people, tax isn’t a hobby – it funds the key services we all rely on. Indeed, the “crisis in volunteering” that the Big Help Out hopes to fill has largely been created by years of government cuts, all while the richest have hoarded and increased their wealth. Over the last decade, local councils have faced £15bn in real-terms cuts with neighbourhood services such as parks, libraries and children’s centres “hollowed out” since 2010.
There is apparently no money for Sure Start centres but you’ll be relieved to hear ministers have found £8m to offer every public body a free portrait of King Charles. Oliver Dowden, the new deputy prime minister and patriot in chief, says the portraits would bring the nation together. So would working hospitals.
The coronation itself is estimated to be costing the public purse anywhere from £50m to £100m. Charles’s personal fortune is thought to be almost £2bn, but as anyone who has ever gotten a £60 ticket to St Pancras on expenses knows, a 1.3-mile coronation procession can very much be put down as a “work trip”.
In the coming days, there will be endless commentators ready to declare that the coronation makes them “proud to be British”, while anyone who criticises any aspect of it will be accused of “hating their country”. I have never quite understood the mindset that feels more pride in producing Prince Andrew than the welfare state. At the very least, we should surely be allowed to ask some questions. Can a modern nation call itself democratic if it retains an unelected head of state? Is a growing reliance on charity a point of celebration or shame? Does sanitising the existence of royalty normalise wider inequality? As a diamond-encrusted crown is placed on the king’s head, your packed local homeless shelter is desperate for help. Don’t you feel proud to be British?
Frances Ryan is a Guardian columnist
