cepe
Majesty
- Joined
- Mar 5, 2012
- Messages
- 6,333
- City
- London
- Country
- United Kingdom
I like to think that Charles was smart enough to realise there could be a claim on his letters after this date, and was careful about what he wrote on the assumption it was possible that they could one day be revealed, though hoping they wouldn't be.
As Muriel observed, it is being party-political that is prohibited. He has expressed lots of opinions that are political in the broad sense, and continues to do so and I don't fault him for doing so. He has had to fill in his years doing something and has done it very wisely, I think.
What really rankles me about the situation is that here we have a person - be it Charles or William or George - who is in a position to influence governments, yet they are supposed to remain above politics, yet they are able to tell governments what they think in secret, thanks to the new Freedom of Information legislation protecting Royals, and without fear of their views ever being exposed. So these privileged and unelected and unaccountable people are allowed to try to influence governments to make laws which affect people without the people knowing what's been said, and that stinks to high heaven in my opinion. I believe that a person who is in line to be future monarch should either keep their trap shut about party-political issues or make them public.
Why is it worse for his views to be made public than it is to know that he his making them known to politicians in secret? I do not accept that it is. I see no reason why he should have to step down if his secretly disclosed views are in fact made public, merely because they have. It would depend on what he said and how he said it. If he has made an absolute git of himself then yes, he should step down because someone who is an absolute git should not be Head of State. As I said above, I like to think Charles is smarter than that, but let's find out. It's only letters written during a small window of time that are caught.
If he has been foolish then his indiscretion will weigh against the whole system as well as himself personally because it will again put before the public the inequity of the situation where a person is in a position of enormous privilege and influence merely by dint of having been born to the "right" person at the right time.
Firstly - the heir to the throne and the monarch have always (until FOI Act 2000) been able to write to ministers confidentially.
2ndly, Charles is not stupid and I would have expected him to take advice whrn the FOI Act was introduced. On the balance of probability and given the previous decision made, I would say he was told that his letters would remain confidential.
3rdly - why not wait and see instead of pre-judging the situation. That would be a fair and impartial approach, rather than assume the worst.
4thly - it is the new Act which is apparently preventing the heir to the throne from writing in confidence to ministers. Apparently the Monarch can still do so.