God better save the queen because Parliament apparently won’t

In 1215, English nobles forced King John to sign the Magna Carta, limiting his power. It’s been downhill ever since for the British monarchy — and it’s apparently about to get worse.

Seems that Queen Elizabeth II and the royal family have a problem many families here in the colonies, uh, the United States can relate to: They spend more than they make. A report from a House of Commons committee released this week says the royals got about $50 million from British taxpayers in 2012-13, but spent so much that the royal reserves are down to about $1.3 million.

Which, if you’ve ever visited London, you know buys you about six months in a nice hotel (no meals).

Uh oh. Maybe someone should cut up the royal credit cards?

Some folks in Parliament, though, have other thoughts. Sure, they want the queen to economize. And they want her to budget. But they also want for her to think of ways to — shudder — make more money. Like renting out space in some of her palaces.

Which, I have to say, sounds like a bloody splendid idea to me.

Why not rent out Buckingham Palace? I’ve vacationed in London. Plenty of flats for let there on HomeAway and other websites. I mean, who wouldn’t pony up a few more quid to bunk next to Prince Charles? (Not the queen, though: wouldn’t want to be awakened at dawn by barking Corgis.)

Besides, there’s a precedent from across the pond: The Clintons in effect rented out the Lincoln Bedroom, and the White House is still standing.

Now, I’m sure Elizabeth is not amused. Not amused at all. But something must be done. Reportedly, there’s a maintenance backlog of about $80 million on the palaces: Buckingham Palace’s boiler is bad, and things like that. (Might not want to mention that in the HomeAway ad, just sayin’.)

I was going to ask a colleague her thoughts on this — she’s an honest-to-goodness Brit, born and bred, even though she’s an American now too — but she had already left for the pub. (It’s really just a bar, but they put up some timber and flags and call it the Ye Olde something or other, so the expats go there and watch soccer and pretend they miss England — all while basking in the SoCal sun.)

So, without her input, I was forced to go to my next best source on all things British: “Downton Abbey.” And I found this wonderful exchange between Lady Grantham and Mrs. Crawley that seems to fit (if you imagine the queen as Lady Grantham and the chairwoman of the parliamentary committee as Mrs. Crawley):

Lady Grantham: “You are quite wonderful the way you see room for improvement wherever you look. I never knew such reforming zeal.”

Mrs. Crawley: “I take that as a compliment.”

Lady Grantham: “I must’ve said it wrong.”

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