DEAR Angry,

Why is it that something always seems to happen within the royal family whenever the British government is on the ropes? I don’t mean to sound like a conspiracy theorist, but the recent announcement of the engagement of a popular American actress to one of the Queen’s grandsons seems to have taken precedence over a number of more important news stories within the British press for no bloody reason.

Just this week, the Tories snuck a freeze on working-age benefits until 2020, which will leave thousands upon thousands of families worse off, into print. While some might suggest that the timing of the royal wedding announcement was simply coincidental, it would be foolish for anyone to rule out the idea that the Tories didn’t want to mitigate the potential severity of this news story. After all, Theresa May is about as popular as Piers Morgan in a phone shop right now. Any sort of distraction tactics will have been welcomed by the Maybot.

When you think about it, stories about marriage are generally nonsense anyway. War, poverty and death are issues that directly affect citizens on a day-to-day basis; marriage is something that people engage in for the sake of love or convenience. It is not a topic that is deserving of extensive reporting, let alone front-page banner headlines and two-page spreads.
Andy
Liverpool

IT’S anyone’s guess if the royal family timed the news bulletin about this impending regal union to distract from the ongoing depravity of the British government. Who knows? Perhaps the whole thing really is just a desperate attempt to divert attention from the political depantsing that is the UK’s EU negotiations? Nonetheless, hosting a royal wedding before Brexit is akin to having a living room disco before burning your house to the ground. Now, we can look forward to Unionists who say that Scottish nationalists are part of a “mindless cult” going bananas over the marriage of two people they’ve never met. Sadly, press coverage is likely to reflect this baffling mentality rather than the logic and reason displayed by the majority of Yes supporters.

Indeed, it’s a terrible shame that the British media are more interested in the arranged matrimony of two privileged, wealthy adults than in reporting on welfare freezes and deaths caused by Tory austerity. In fact, it’s downright embarrassing. In my mind, marriage stories belong in gossip magazines. To conflate a story about a well-known couple’s engagement with actual headline news is pretty ridiculous. To prioritise such a report over issues that affect the general public in a tangible way is actively misleading and dangerous.

The BBC in particular should think on its sins here. I can’t be the only one who is affronted by the fact that we are forced to fund a broadcaster we don’t trust to invade the privacy of a monarchy we don’t want.

Of course, the media obsession with this impending wedding is not limited to the United Kingdom. Our friends across the Atlantic seem to be going nuts for it too. Without a doubt, America’s love of the British monarchy is one of the most inexplicable and contradictory things about the modern world. I find it very bizarre that the United States is now seemingly for monarchs and against Scottish independence.

Perhaps this engagement won’t just distract Brits from real issues, but Americans as well? As Trump continues to be a disaster in the White House, I’m sure Fox News will dedicate hours to covering the royal wedding. You might think that the marriage of two monarchs would be the last thing a Republican news network would wish to report on, but in the upside-down world we now live in, the opposite is the case.

I believe the fact that this wedding is being forced upon us all via the press is what we find so maddening. I mean, if I wanted to watch non-stop claptrap about people who don’t matter to me, I’d tune in to the Kardashians or Geordie Shore.

At least the stars of those dreadful shows don’t forcibly take money off me like tax-funded monarchs do. Certainly, the most frustrating thing about Harry and Meghan’s big day is the media’s conspicuous silence on the cost of the whole gluttony pantomime.

The expected price of the wedding itself is presently hovering around £500,000, with additionally security costs skyrocketing its budget to an even more offensive amount. With policing taken into consideration, the total cost is likely to be above £4 million. This is frankly stomach-churning when you consider that deprived taxpayers are the ones looking after these monarchs. Spending millions on one royal family whilst thousands of families are starving is beyond stupid. As I’ve said many times before: Scotland shouldn’t fund the monarchy. That money should go towards housing, health and education.