With the royal wedding approaching, I've heard several people mention that the cost of policing it will be £12m, and that, since this is a royal wedding, this cost should be paid by the royal family.

I don't like the monarchy -- it's an outdated and irrelevant institution in desperate need of being abolished -- but I can't agree with this. The right to police protection is universal, not means tested, and applies no matter how well-off someone is.

If the police cannot afford to do their job, then that is a problem that needs to be fixed, either through efficiency improvements (if possible), or otherwise through progressive increases in taxation to increase funding.

It's tempting to think that having the rich pay for policing that's necessary because they "caused" it -- for example by holding a public wedding -- is a progressive solution to the problem, but in reality this is just a way for the state to shirk its responsibility to the public, and opens the door to a situation where paying for basic services becomes an indirect tax on everyone.