Dear King Charles, if you’re serious about reforming the monarchy, this is how to start | Stephen Bates

Dear King Karl,

The captains and kings have departed, the last presidents and princes are heading for the airport. After the funeral, the hard work of being a monarch begins.

The red boxes are piling up, and Liz Truss will stop by for a weekly audience and smugly patronize you. So what should your priorities be? If you’re really serious about reforming the monarchy, here are five helpful topics suggested that might (but probably won’t) make your head spin.

inheritance group VAT

If you really want to show solidarity with your subjects, especially in times of economic hardship, you could add some extra tax payments. All right, yes you have voluntarily paid income tax since the age of 21, but large amounts of the royal funds are exempt. The royal family has generally been extremely reluctant to pay taxes – they avoided income tax entirely from 1910 to 1994, usually with reference to poverty – and they still do not have to pay inheritance or corporation taxes.

It’s very difficult to separate government assets — the stuff the royals can’t sell, like the crown jewels, the Rembrandts, the Rubenses, and the 7,000 other paintings in the royal collection, not to mention George V’s stamp collection, which £100m is overestimated – but you have private resources that are professionally managed for you, for example. And you have the Sovereign Grant, currently £86.3m, and 25% of the current Crown Estates receipts of £312m, which will be repaid to you by the Government for carrying out your royal duties.

But you also have private fortunes – and we can only appreciate that, like Balmoral and Sandringham with their large estates. The Sunday Times Rich List this year estimated the Queen was worth £370m (far less than Richard Branson and Paul McCartney, but not to be scoffed at). That would result in a tidy inheritance tax bill for assets worth more than £500,000, but the royals are exempt and the Queen’s will is sealed – so we’ll never know exactly what she passed on unless you let it in little light in the dark the magic. You could call it leveling up.

A slimmed down monarchy

You’ve vowed to get rid of some of the footmen, hangers-on and petty royals, although that didn’t start too well when your staff at Clarence House were sacked mid-last week, just like you’ve been working flat out on the transitional arrangements for you. But losing weight usually refers to the part-time royals expanding their attendance at events and getting paid in the process. The problem is that there is a bit of a labor shortage at the moment as Prince Andrew has sunk below the waterline and the Duke and Duchess of Sussex are in voluntary exile in the US. It represents a lot of work for the remaining royals as you and Camilla the Queen Consort the Prince and Princess of Wales, Prince Edward and Sophie and Princess Anne. Maybe you just need to limit royal visits.

Abandon Buckingham Palace

Why not? It’s drafty and cold, crumbling and chunks of masonry falling down. Great, but, well, just not very comfortable. There are 775 rooms, hundreds of bedrooms and bedroom suites, 92 offices, 19 state rooms and a swimming pool, and the central London location might not make it a haven for the homeless, but an ideal luxury hotel. Trump Green Park maybe? It cannot actually be sold, but perhaps rented out and rented back for special balcony occasions and state dinners. Or, if that’s too drastic, why not make it open to the public all year round instead of just in the summer? There is evidence that you could make Balmoral even more of a museum than it already is.

reform of the honor system

Do we really still need the Order of the British Empire or other imperial relics? Couldn’t they be rebranded to something more inclusive? And while we’re on the subject, could awards only be given for merit, but not for party donors, chief executives and the Prime Minister’s cronies? Such people don’t really need it to boost their status and reputation (neither do movie stars, sports heroes, or other conspicuous recipients, as nice as it is to see their smiling faces in the media in the dog days after Christmas). Veteran nurses and cleaners may be less glamorous, but more of them would certainly be more worthy candidates, especially for a government ostensibly looking to improve their status without necessarily paying for it.

Ban leaking pins

That’s something you could definitely do, and an ink-fingered nation would rejoice. If it’s true that you always take your pillow and toilet seat with you when you’re not at home, why not take your own pen with you? You used a fountain pen for those spiky black spider memos you used to write privately to ministers, but maybe you could have a decent ballpoint pen for those sudden signing sessions without the risk of the pen malfunctioning. Nobody would notice. Promise.