22 February 2006

Prince Charles and the green ink

Much guff in the media today about HRH's little problem as a serial botherer of politicians. The Guardian reports:
"Prince Charles regards himself as a "dissident working against the prevailing political consensus", who scatters furious letters to ministers on contentious issues and denounces elected leaders of other countries, it was revealed yesterday.
The views and practices of the heir to the throne were detailed in a remarkable witness statement by his former deputy private secretary and spin doctor, Mark Bolland, who claimed the prince routinely meddled in political issues and wrote sometimes in extreme terms to ministers, MPs and others in positions of political power and influence."

Prince Charles should take up blogging. This would allow him to vent his spleen more safely and nobody would feel obliged to read (or - worse - reply to) his eccentric opinions.

Incidentally, Mr Bolland was in the papers last week for a different reason. The Independent recorded:
"The other day an announcement appeared on the court and social page of The Daily Telegraph that warmed the cockles of my heart. A civil partnership was announced between Mr Guy Black and Mr Mark Bolland, which had been registered at Islington Town Hall on Saturday 11 February. Mr Murdoch MacLennan and Ms Rebekah Wade were witnesses. No further details were offered, and it may be that down in deepest Gloucestershire the eye of the Telegraph reader flickered over what may have seemed a rather innocuous item.
Not to me. The following day I scoured the newspapers. Here, after all, was a union of two media titans attended by a couple of media gods. Mr Black, a former chief executive of the Press Complaints Commission and until recently Michael Howard's spin doctor, is now director of corporate affairs at the Telegraph Group. His partner Mr Bolland was once Prince Charles's media guru, and rebranded Camilla Parker Bowles, as she then was. Mr MacLennan will be familiar to readers of this column as the chief executive of the Telegraph Group. Though little known on the national stage, because like Achilles she lurks in her tent, Ms Wade is, of course, editor of the mighty Sun."

Perhaps HRH should have avoided getting involved with media types such as Mr Bolland in the first place?

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