
My own view is that the Prince has a perfect right to speak about subjects that interest him
The Prince can say these things precisely because he is not in charge, and his peculiar position means they will be heard, even if we choose to ignore him. That is why we need him to keep it up.
Go on Charles: babble, rage and ignore the treacherous toads
Do you ever feel, dear readers, that the media are engaged in a gigantic conspiracy against the truth? Have you ever rubbed your eyes, and wondered why they are not making the obvious point? If you have, then the answer is almost always that you have stumbled across a story where the media’s own interests are at stake, and when the interests of the press are at stake, the reality of the position is quite irrelevant.
Consider the business of the Prince of Wales and the Mail on Sunday. To judge by the headlines, old Charlieboy has broken off from chatting up his begonias and dropped the most phenomenal clanger. He has said or done something quite preposterous – insulted the Luxembourgers, perhaps, or claimed that marmalade can cure acne. He is being accused of “meddling”, of shooting his mouth off, and failing to bite his tongue.
One after another, the self-interested editors of our media organisations line up to accuse him of being a headline seeker. What has prompted this orgy of abuse? Has he said that government ministers should not be driving 6-litre Jaguars? Has he complained about the destruction of the Green Belt? No: it is only when you read the papers quite carefully that you discover that the Prince has not said anything new at all.
On the contrary, it turns out that the Mail has illicitly obtained his private diaries, his private diaries, and has splashed them over several pages, including some quite fruity stuff about the handover of Hong Kong.
Like any other person, the Prince is trying to assert his sovereign and inalienable copyright over his private diaries, and to prevent the paper from publishing any more. In order to defend its conduct the Mail has found some disappointed ex-courtier who has been prepared to describe how, from time to time, the Prince does indeed say things which he knows will make headlines.
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