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Enjoyed seeing the Pope but did it really cost us £7m ?

I went down and saw the Pope when he visited the UK last year.

I had a great day and thoroughly enjoyed myself.

One of my mates today has told me that it cost the UK tax payer over £7m for the Pope's visit. I don't and can't believe this but I can't find anything on the internet to substantiate this.

Does anyone know ? or can advise ?.
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Comments

  • Optimist
    Optimist Posts: 4,556 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture
    I went down and saw the Pope when he visited the UK last year.

    I had a great day and thoroughly enjoyed myself.

    One of my mates today has told me that it cost the UK tax payer over £7m for the Pope's visit. I don't and can't believe this but I can't find anything on the internet to substantiate this.

    Does anyone know ? or can advise ?.

    £6.9 million not including policing

    http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-12485019
    "The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, but wiser people so full of doubts."

    Bertrand Russell. British author, mathematician, & philosopher (1872 - 1970)
  • Alter_ego
    Alter_ego Posts: 3,842 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture 1,000 Posts Name Dropper
    Although he is Pope, it was a visit by a head of state as far as the government was concerned.
    I am not a cat (But my friend is)
  • artbaron
    artbaron Posts: 7,285 Forumite
    The UK government giving a tax free loan to the Catholic Church, an organisation of unimaginably vast wealth. Incredible. Good to see our tax money is being used properly. And don't get me started on the Pope, if it were between him and Satan I'd toss a coin.
  • Thanks for the above postings.

    I have spoken to my mate and he has given me some more internet stuff on the Pope's visit which tends to support his statement. The bbc website posting was amongst them.

    He has also found a poll on MSE at https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/3079316 that I have just completed.

    I am disappointed that the visit cost over £7m and have completed the poll to reflect that but I still enjoyed my day although it has been tainted by this.
  • I also enjoyed the Pope's visit. I suspect a notable part of the £7 million expenditure was for security to protect the Pope from militant atheist nutters. If you want to talk about crimes against the taxpayer though, you may be interested in a chap called Abu Hamza, a Muslim hate preacher who last year enjoyed having his £700,000, five-bedroom, paid-for-by-the-taxpayer council property given a makeover at the taxpayer's expense - to the tune of a cool £40k.

    In my honest opinion I think it's stuff like that that we should be focusing on. The Pope is known throughout the world as the figurehead of the Catholic religion so you can imagine his visit would incur some heavy costs, but we taxpayers subsidising this Hamza scumbag while he sets up terrorist training camps and preaches about how he'd like all of our heads on a platter is the real crime here.
  • artbaron
    artbaron Posts: 7,285 Forumite
    I suspect a notable part of the £7 million expenditure was for security to protect the Pope from militant atheist nutters.

    My last post in this thread or it will descend into something other than money-saving, but this made me laugh. Atheist nutters :) The irony, love it.

    Abu Hamza is in jail, BTW, and has been for 7 years. When he's released he'll be extradited to the US where he'll likely spend the rest of his life in slightly less desirable confinement. HTH.
  • Even so, do you think any country other than Britain would have put up with him for so long and treat him with kid gloves? He lived in that £700,000 property for quite some time, all the while preaching hate. He wouldn't have been on the news so often or his situation the target of so much satire on Mock the Week if he had been dealt with swiftly the moment he began preaching hate. Instead he was allowed to sponge from the taxpayer and live more comfortably than our own pensioners who fought in wars. Don't see them in five-bedroom council properties. Again, we're probably the only country who was happy to subsidise this idiot for all these years, and that's the real crime against the taxpayer here. :)
  • sirmarcus
    sirmarcus Posts: 1,381 Forumite
    edited 27 February 2011 at 7:12PM
    Even so, do you think any country other than Britain would have put up with him for so long and treat him with kid gloves? He lived in that £700,000 property for quite some time, all the while preaching hate. He wouldn't have been on the news so often or his situation the target of so much satire on Mock the Week if he had been dealt with swiftly the moment he began preaching hate. Instead he was allowed to sponge from the taxpayer and live more comfortably than our own pensioners who fought in wars. Don't see them in five-bedroom council properties. Again, we're probably the only country who was happy to subsidise this idiot for all these years, and that's the real crime against the taxpayer here. :)

    Agreed but could say the same as well for other 'hate' preachers together with illegal immigrants, suspected terrorists, benefit scroungers, expenses MPs, etc. that seem to live wrongly in luxury in our country. :mad:
  • SHIPSHAPE
    SHIPSHAPE Posts: 2,469 Forumite
    artbaron wrote: »

    Abu Hamza is in jail, BTW, and has been for 7 years. When he's released he'll be extradited to the US where he'll likely spend the rest of his life in slightly less desirable confinement. HTH.

    Abu has a lacky in prison who has the unenviable task of wiping his rump!

    He's known as 'Dirty Harry!'

    This is absolutely true btw.
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