The political trail left by half a century as Prince of Wales
La Stampa today published this piece by me on King Charles's past political views, and how they may encourage him to speak out more than the Queen did (which was never)
First, here is my piece for La Stampa on the Queen, as in my English original I had left in an error about the year of her birth, mistyping 1936 instead of 1926. I am sorry about that, so here is the corrected version.
Now for the article on Charles.
King Charles III is fully aware that the roles of monarch and of crown prince are completely different. His mother’s whole life showed him how the monarch must stay far away from political controversy and keep their views unknown. His problem, however, is that his half a century as heir has left a long trail of evidence about what his beliefs are. Paradoxically, this may tempt him to speak out in ways Queen Elizabeth II would never have dreamed of doing.
This may not make him unpopular with the British public, for many of his known views, for example on the environment or urban design, strike quite a popular chord. But the danger is that they could make him unpopular with politicians. As Prince of Wales he chose not to care much about that. As King, he will have to.
The surprising thing about King Charles is that although he comes from the most conservative institution in the nation and has spent his life in social circles that are also both old-fashioned and conservative, the causes he decided as a young prince to be active on are quite progressive ones. Unable as heir to the throne to have a normal professional career, he decided to try to make a difference through charitable work.
This began in 1976 at the age of 28 when he founded The Prince’s Trust, a charity dedicated to helping troubled or disadvantaged young people to get education or training, or even to start their own businesses. Many were sceptical, but what Prince Charles realised was that while he might not be able to understand ordinary young people’s lives himself, he was in a terrific position to raise money so as to employ staff who did understand those young people, and to provide grants.
The result was that The Prince’s Trust became a powerful charity, raising hundreds of millions from wealthy donors of all kinds. In 2020, it announced that during its then 44 years of existence it had provided support to more than one million young people. Along the way, the success of The Prince’s Trust encouraged Prince Charles to set up several more charities, dedicated to other issues such as environmental and social sustainability.
Recently, this landed the then Prince Charles in a series of embarrassments about money his charities have raised from royalty and other billionaires in Saudi Arabia, Qatar and other Arab countries. Last year one of his closest aides had to resign after allegations that he had promised British citizenship and a knighthood to a wealthy Saudi donor in return for massive donations.
Prince Charles was not blamed directly for these scandals, but they did suggest that his leadership had been lax. Although such scandals were perhaps the result of the success of his charities in achieving scale and prestige, what was surprising was that with Queen Elizabeth clearly approaching the end of her reign her son and his organisations appeared to be becoming more careless, or perhaps even reckless, rather than less.
The main trails of evidence about King Charles III’s beliefs come, however, from earlier periods. Freedom of Information requests have uncovered dozens of handwritten letters he wrote to government ministers during the 1990s and 2000s commenting on policy issues of many kinds. And it was as long ago as 1984 when Prince Charles made an aggressive intervention over architecture and urban planning when in a public speech he described a proposed new extension to the National Gallery on Trafalgar Square in the centre of London as being “like a monstrous carbuncle on the face of a much-loved and elegant friend”.
This caused a furore, but he carried on with this form of architectural interventionism by influencing and encouraging the development of what he considered a model town in south-west England called Poundbury, which began in the early 1990s. Here, Charles was showing his conservative side, and like-minded conservative commentators have seen Poundbury as inspirational, while progressives have likened it to Disneyland.
[It only takes a glance at the modern skyline of the City of London to show that his views on modern architecture have not in fact been influential.]
The topic on which Charles has developed views of wider interest has been the environment. Many have made fun of his liking for talking to his trees and plants, and of his activism for bio/organic foods. More recently however he, along with the new heir to the throne, Prince William, has become outspoken on the need for greater public action to slow down climate change.
On foreign affairs it has mainly been through private comments and overheard remarks that his views have become known. After the 1997 handover of Hong Kong he described the Chinese leadership as “appalling old waxworks”. In 2014 he likened Russia’s President Vladimir Putin to Hitler, which was rather prescient. Earlier this year he was reported as having criticised the British government’s policy of deporting illegal migrants to Rwanda.
As a result of this half century-long trail, King Charles III knows that while he must avoid direct political controversy, there is no way in which he can pretend, like his mother did, to have no views at all. Private remarks will continue to be leaked and reported, in ways that did not happen with the Queen. Which raises the possibility that King Charles III might decide that if he cannot escape his past he might as well make a virtue of it by making selective, careful public comments on issues on which he thinks to do so might be helpful. It could be risky. But it could also be interesting.