Sorry - here is a synopsis
CHANGING THE OLD GUARD AT THE PALACE
Subtle shifts within the royal family are preparing Charles for his role as king — but his past attempts to wield influence hint at trouble ahead
For monarchy, symbolism is everything. So what better place to put the new royal order on display than the state opening of parliament, the glitziest and highest-profile event in the Queen’s annual calendar?
As she read — with the occasional uncharacteristic stumble — the government’s legislative programme last week, the Queen was accompanied not just by the Duke of Edinburgh but also, for the first time, by Charles and Camilla.
The message of this unprecedented new line-up in the House of Lords was clear: change is afoot at the top of “the Firm”.
What a difference a year makes. The diamond jubilee celebrations last June — culminating in the royal barge’s progress down a rain-swept Thames — were very much the Queen’s affair.
In retrospect, however, the four-day event will be seen to have been a turning point in the history of the monarchy and a milestone on the way to the post-Elizabethan era.
Consider what has happened since: first, there has been the inevitable deterioration in Prince Philip’s health, followed by the abandonment by the Queen of a trip to Italy in March after she, too, was hospitalised suffering from what the palace described as “the symptoms of gastroenteritis”.
Then there has been the growing public profile of Princes William and Harry.
Most significant of all, there was the announcement on the eve of the Queen’s speech that Charles would take her place at the Commonwealth heads of government meeting in Sri Lanka in November.
It will be the first such summit the Queen has missed in the past 40 years and an indication, perhaps, that Charles is attempting to stake a claim to becoming the future head of the Commonwealth, a role that will not automatically be his when he finally succeeds his mother.
A generational change is under way in the House of Windsor; the birth this summer of the third in line to the throne will add to this impression. Quite how fast this change will happen and what form it will take only the next few months will tell.
First what will not happen: the Queen, 87, has no intention of going Dutch.....
Nor, as the Queen’s aides insisted last week, can there be any question of tinkering with the rules to allow Charles to take over any time soon as regent — which at present can happen only in the case of the monarch being formally declared incapable of discharging her duties.
The palace is at pains to insist the Queen is in robust health. “The Queen was out riding last weekend so there is absolutely no suggestion that there are any underlying health problems and she has not ruled out the possibility of taking a long-haul trip in the future,”
Still, it was notable that there was not the usual announcement of forthcoming foreign tours at the end of her speech. Could none be planned?
A probable future scenario, according to palace aides, is instead a more subtle, creeping change in the structure of the Firm. According to one palace insider, we are looking at the prospect of the royal family changing by a process of “evolution” rather than “revolution”. As another puts it: it will be “more of a merger than a takeover”.
What of the Firm’s chief-executive-in-waiting? For years it was thought that the main shadow over the reign of the future King Charles III would be cast by his consort.
At the time when he married the then Camilla Parker Bowles in 2005, she was still widely reviled for her role in the break-up of his marriage to Diana. A delicate PR job has succeeded in rehabilitating the image of the Duchess of Cornwall in the eyes of the public. Following sound advice from aides, Camilla has backed charities close to her heart, refusing to become merely a “letter-head patron” of causes she knows nothing about.
Among many others she chose literacy, because she loves reading and wants more people to enjoy it, and domestic abuse and osteoporosis because she wants to help other women and her mother was afflicted with the latter.
The duchess is clearly more popular than she was; that being said, only 16% of people questioned in a YouGov poll for The Sunday Times this weekend think she should be given the title of “queen”, against 46% who would prefer her simply to be “princess consort”.
Charles’s popularity is on the rise. The same poll shows that 50% think he will be a good king when the time comes — compared with 37% when the same question was asked in May last year.
Nevertheless, questions still remain about his behaviour. As the longest-serving heir to the throne, Charles, who will turn 65 in November, has had to create a role for himself as Prince of Wales.
The Queen came to the throne so young — she was just 25 — that she had no need to give much thought to her role as heir. As the decades have passed, Charles has considered it his duty to speak his mind and stand up for the causes he believes in.
In the past few years he has toned down his pronouncements. Once he denounced modern architecture and also alarmed the medical establishment with praise for homeopathic medicine.
In recent months, by contrast, he has stood in as a weather forecaster during a trip to the BBC Scotland studios and guest edited an episode of the BBC’s Countryfile programme. Not exactly controversial.
There are, nevertheless, still occasional flashes of his old, more combative self: last week he used a speech given at St James’s Palace to criticise “corporate lobbyists” and climate change sceptics whom he accused of turning the Earth into a “dying patient”.
More potentially damaging are his attempts to wield influence behind the scenes. Today the prince has a member of his staff seconded to the Cabinet Office and one of its civil servants is working for him. This handy exchange means that the government will learn his views and he can better understand what it is working on.
The shadow hanging over him is the spectre of the so-called “black spider memos”, the hand-written letters dashed off by the prince to ministers over the years containing what are believed to be trenchant expressions of his views.
The Queen has scrupulously kept her own views to herself during her 61 years on the throne. Charles will probably do the same from now on; the real problem is that pile of “particularly frank” memos already out there that could yet come back to haunt him.
The Prince of Wales may have looked the part last week, dressed like his father in an admiral’s uniform, clanking with medals. But no transition at a family firm, however well planned, is ever completely seamless. This one is unlikely to prove to be an exception.
END
I've highlighted the pieces in bold in the text. IT is the first time overseas visits have been omitted from the Queen speech; and the staff exchange with the Cabinet office is controversial.
! I suppose the Act has not been used on this side of the Sache- Coburg-Gothas!? 
