One could think of the Royal Family as a public entertainment expenditure. I’d rather watch them pose than filthy welfare drones rioting, anyway. That’s not fun TV.
Plus, the Crown Estate (which is ours, not theirs) generates a sizeable chunk of which goes into the Treasury to offset the £42 million the monarchy actually costs to operate. For example, we get £37 million a year from offshore wind farms purely because the Crown owns the sea beds!
A financier friend of mine did a cost-benefit analysis of us having an elected head of state... and concluded that you’d have to be the most monumental berk on earth to change the system.
He said it’d be like choosing to pay £100 for a plain 3 ply white toilet paper roll that chuffs your backside, on the basis that a £5-per-roll 4 ply cushioned toilet roll with an embossed William Morris print is just too “elitist” and “undemocratic” to be tolerated in the modern age.