Charlotte MacDonald
speaker
1,889 appearances
62 recordings
1 series
first heard Sep 2010
last heard Apr 2025
Charlotte MacDonald’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.
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Appearances
Well, I did go and fact check my mother to be sure.
And it turns out there don't seem to be officially published lists of most popular names dating back as far as my advanced age.
But Charlotte was the most popular name the year I was born among the births announced in the Times newspaper.
Oh, it's got to be the idea that the birth of Princess Charlotte will contribute £80 million, that's US$120 million, to the UK's economy.
It was reported in a handful of the newspapers and it comes from the Centre for Retail Research, which pumps out shopping data.
Well, they're carrying out surveys of shoppers and retailers about whether they think people will buy things to celebrate the royal birth.
Now, they reckon, for example, that 28 million pounds, that's 42 million US dollars, will be spent on drink.
And another £25 million, or US$38 million, will be spent on food.
Well, exactly.
I think a lot of this expenditure would happen anyway.
For example, the centre also calculates that in the future, the new princess could contribute £150 million, that's US$230 million, each year to businesses as people flock to buy clothes just like hers.
Which is why I'm pretty sceptical of the figures.
Although the centre says they didn't claim that this was extra expenditure.
It's actually the newspapers that have been talking about boost to the economy.
And what was more ludicrous is that some of them were multiplying up.
So saying things like, by the time the princess is six, she'll have contributed one billion pounds to the economy.
That's about one and a half billion US dollars.
I spoke to finance professor Costas Millas from the University of Liverpool, who actually took the time to do a proper analysis of the economy in the years after royal babies were born.
So for Prince Charles, Prince William, for example.
And it may not surprise you to know that he found no discernible impact on the economy.
Showing 221–240 of 1,889 · page 12 of 95
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