'A big morale boost’: Former minister says country should spend £100 million on new royal yacht

Not everyone agrees: 'Who needs public services when we can have a boat most of us will never see?' asks one critic of proposal

The Royal Yacht Britannia in Hong Kong (Getty)

With the UK facing pandemic, recession and mass protests over racial inequalities, a former trade minister has suggested one innovative way to boost the nation’s morale: spend £100m building a new royal yacht.

Lord Jones of Birmingham, who served in Gordon Brown’s government, reckons splashing out on an all new HMY Britannia would be just the tonic people need.

“You'd have it doing tours of Britain,” he said. “And open days – you’d be amazed how many people will come to that.”

Calling the proposal "one of the biggest morale boosts you could have,” he added: “Why now? Because the nation is going to come through this in better shape…We have a damn good chance in this country and a royal yacht at this moment would just be one of those good quality delivery messages."

The last HMY Britannia was decommissioned in 1997, and is now a visitor attraction in Edinburgh.

But Lord Jones, who, as Digby Jones ran the Confederation of British Industry for six years, said a new boat could be funded by a three-way split between businesses, taxpayers and the National Lottery.

The finished vessel could be used to help UK companies and universities promote themselves to overseas markets, he opined.

And, speaking on a Daily Telegraph podcast, he demanded: “Let's get it bought in for the whole country. It is not an elitist thing and it is not an old age thing – this is something that 13-year old, 14-year old teenagers could relate to as well."

But, apart from revealing a possible blind spot on the interests of an average teenager, it also seems that, amid ongoing devastation caused by the Covid-19 crisis, the 64-year-old may have misread the room slightly.

“Who needs public services when we can have a Royal Yacht most of us will never see?” asked one Twitter user in a post that appeared to sum up the general response to the idea.

“Even if there wasn’t a pandemic, why would anyone see a Royal Yacht Britannia as a morale boost?” another asked. “Weird.”