17 October 2012

Muddled thinking?

The Attorney General has vetoed the publication of Prince Charles' "black spider memos".  The Independent reports:

The letters, thirty of them, written between September 1st 2004 and April 1st 2005 represent, according to Mr Grieve, the Prince’s “most deeply held personal views and beliefs” and “are in many cases particularly frank.” Consequently, their publication could “damage … the Prince of Wales’ political neutrality” and “seriously undermine the Prince’s ability to fulfil his duties when he becomes King.”
“The Sovereign cannot be seen to favour one political party above another, or to engage in political controversy,” Mr Grieve said, in a ten page document explaining his decision. “Any such perception would be seriously damaging to his role as future Monarch, because if he forfeits his position of political neutrality as heir to the throne, he cannot easily recover it when he is King.

Would the damage to the position of Prince Charles arise from the publication of the memos?  Or does it arise from the fact that he wrote them in the first place?  Even if we do not know the actual contents, the fact that the senior law officer of the government thinks they might "damage" the Prince's neutrality and "undermine" his ability to reign as king suggests to me that the ball is on the slates.

Can no-one save us from this meddlesome prince?  Or at least tell him to keep his political views to himself?

1 comment:

Francis Urqhart said...

We need an strong leader like Francis Urqhart. he had no problems in seeing off a meddlesome King Charles.