Miscellaneous
THE GOVERNMENT has confirmed that a new royal yacht costing £200 million will be built and commissioned. In this podcast, Marcus Stead and Greg Lance-Watkins discuss the merits of the project. They are both strongly in favour of it, arguing that the Blair government’s decision to scrap its predecessor, Royal Yacht Britannia in 1997 was a serious mistake that even Mr Blair himself went on to regret. Events held on board Royal Yacht Britannia helped raise £3 billion for the Treasury between 1991 and 1995 alone. A new royal yacht would act as a status symbol and could be a tremendous asset in forming trade deals and bringing jobs to the United Kingdom. Marcus and Greg argue that arguments against it are based on class snobbery, a foolish myth that it is only used for members of the Royal Family to take holidays on, and fails to take into account that the £200 million cost will be rapidly recouped in terms of the trade deals and jobs the yacht’s activities will generate. The podcast is available on the Talk Podcasts website, iTunes, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, SoundCloud, Spotify and the TuneIn app.