Chris

But this is why government is run by politicians, not activists or pressure groups. The question of whether to build a royal yacht isn't answered by placing it in binary opposition to the NHS, or anything else.

NHS wages aren't the only thing government has to spend money on. NHS wages (whisper it) may not even be the most important line in the budget. Don't confuse the popular mood with the balanced view of national priorities that is a government's duty.

That's not to say that a new royal yacht is the most important thing of all, or even that it's simply more important than NHS wages. But there are a whole lot of *less* important things that government spends money on, because it's a government, not a pressure group, and it has to fund lots of different things for lots of different reasons.

There are arguments that can be made for a royal yacht, in terms of foreign policy, whether that be diplomacy or promotion of British trade and industry. The royal patronage is what gives the yacht its allure. Obviously the days of arguing that the royal family needs a yacht to holiday on are long gone.

There's also an argument from British industrial skills development and maintenance, if BoJo is serious about ensuring it's built in a British yard. British shipyards rarely build any non-military vessels of any size any more, which is a tragedy given our heritage and the fact that it is obviously commercially possible to do so - there are plenty of successful commercial yards in Europe. The industry hasn't entirely gone to the far east.