Dammit, guys – downsize, would you?

Having watched that beano -feast laid on at Windsor Castle for Trump, I found the degree of excess and expense vomit-inducing. Then I began to wonder was Windsor a cosy home for King Charles?

Well, it appears Windsor Castle itself is as over-the-top as the Trump banquet. Windsor Castle has – brace yourself – over 1,000 rooms. And if he gets fed up living in Windsor, Charles can flit to the dozen or more other residences available to him. Such as the Castle of Mey in Scotland, Sandringham House, Balmoral Castle, Holyrood Castle, and of course Buckingham Palace. 

Naturally, all these places need tending to (as does Charles himself) so he has over 100 servants, including  4 chefs, 5 house managers, 3 valets and dressers, and an unknown number of butlers.

Why does he have so much gross opulence? Because he’s the king. And he’s the king because of who his mamma was. In other words, like all royal persons, he gets all this huge indulgence because of an accident of birth.

What is baffling is that very few British people have any problem with all this. There were a few people carrying ‘No kings’ notices at demonstrations over Trump’s visit, but their voices were drowned out.  For whatever reason, the British people like having an unelected figure as their Head of State.

Back in the US where the head of state gets elected, Trump has the White House to live in. It has 132 rooms,including  35 bathrooms, 16 family/guest bedrooms, 3 kitchens, 8 staircases and  3 elevators. In his Mar-a-Lago residence in Florida, Trump has 58 bedrooms and 33 bathrooms – and a ballroom.  Why does he have all this wild excess? Because he was elected President: the American people like it like that.

Back home, we have Áras an Uachtaráin  which has some 95 rooms. That’s where two elderly people Michael D and Sabrina, were living for the past 14 years. With over thirty servants.

Are we all mad? Of course we don’t want our head of state to look like a pauper or live like one, but isn’t all this – in England, in the US, in the South of Ireland – ridiculously bloated?  If Trump or Charles or whoever our next President is – if one of them was to announce:”From today, I’m going to downsize. I’ll settle for a house with four bedrooms and two bathrooms, and if the people want to throw in a free car for me to drive, great.”  I think such a move and such a statement would catch the attention of the world- and not just attention  but admiration. Pope Francis didn’t decrease in popularity when he moved out of the customary palatial bedroom and downsized to something reasonable.

With 16 million people in Britain living in poverty, with almost 11 thousand adults and almost 5,000 children homeless in Ireland, isn’t it time we did a brain-check to see if we’re all totally bonkers?

Here’s a bet. I’ll wager £1,000 that if a presidential candidate were to announce they were down-sizing dramatically from the absurdly-large Áras an Uachtaráin, their popularity would surge and the Irish people might well set an example to the world.