Thursday 12 March 2009

At Odds With His Position

His good points outweigh the bad many times over, and I will forgive him any number of weird stories about incorrectly-squeezed toothpaste, the boiling of three eggs to ensure that one of them is perfect, and the shipping of his Bentley to foreign parts ahead of his official visits. I am delighted that he has made an honest woman out of Mrs Parker Bowles after years of cuckolding her husband, a gallant and patient brother officer of HM's forces. The Prince's Trust is a superb organisation, about which he is very modest. His sons clearly love him and respect him and he seems to have done a good job with them, despite the obvious complications. I support the monarchy without reservation.

Constitutional monarchs-to-be of democratic countries don't do economics; this is a sound principle, for economics means politics, and politics is a no-no. Instead, the PoW has championed Green causes. For many years, this was the stuff of rainforests, sustainable development, drinking water and sensible farming. No sane person could object to his heartfelt objection to the grubbing up of hedgerows, unnecessary plastic packaging, and his encouragement of wildflower meadows. If he wanted Highgrove to be organic, so be it.

But that was then. Over the past decade, the new religion of man made global warming has taken root like ragwort and the Prince, with Al Bore and Bongo, the singing Irish eejit, has been among the most famous adherents to this new orthodoxy. Politicians, on the look out for zeitgeist currents, have paddled out to join him. It takes a political leader of rare independence of mind to row in another direction. Sadly, only Vaclav Klaus appears to have been in the queue when they were handing out cojones. What this has turned into is perhaps the major economic issue of our times, and therefore a political issue. One of limitless taxation potential.

So the Prince, mindful of his position, would be wise to retreat to a less exposed position. Instead, he is upping the ante, telling us that we have 100 months to save the world, and kicking sand in the face of the puny little banking crisis, telling us that we risk spending too much time and effort (and money?) on the economic meltdown and not enough time doing whatever it is that will, indeed, save us. Something to do with nano-technology, perhaps. I might have got that bit wrong; perhaps those nanos were going to take over the world and we should be terrified. Anyway, one of the two. He does not appear to acknowledge dissenting scientific voices and evidence.

The Prince is riding for a fall with this, and it could end in tears. His advisors need to put some bromide in the royal lapsang souchong, and quick.

13 comments:

Bill Quango MP said...

The difference between God and Bono?
God doesn't walk around Dublin pretending he's Bono.

100 months. Doesn't sound that long. 9 years. If we still need to invent Fusion power, nanobots, polyorganic chemical formulae, 1,000 hour electrical storage batteries, H2O airline fuel etc then its probably too late to worry about it now.

Sen. C.R.O'Blene said...

He is playing politics Iders.

The generality of '100 months' fits nicely with Gordon Bruin's '400,000 jobs' - hot air in every sense.

Also, I'm afraid the POW doesn't possess enough gravity now, and you're right, he'll get tucked up.

Barnsley Bill said...

I concur, he is on thin ice.

Anonymous said...

Cruel picture, that one, Idle.

It makes him look inbred.

I wonder if he can play the banjo?

apricotfox said...

The fact is, we DO have to face up to over-population/peak oil/rising sea levels etc....and these issues ARE bigger than the banking fiasco. let the man speak, if he feels passionately about something.

Electro-Kevin said...

Let the man make the ultimate sacrifice then, Apricotfox.

Give up all tendency to ostentation - travel only for the promotion of environmental causes. Cut back on all unnecessary staff and palaces.

Ditto those hypocrites Bono and Gore.

apricotfox said...

Fair enough, E-K. The man has got to walk the talk, as you say...

idle said...

e-k speaks wisely. The wearing of a hair shirt is uncomfortable and ill-becoming to a dandy such as the Duke of Rothesay, but he cannot have it both ways.

lilith said...

The Royals can do no wrong as far as I am concerned...Charlie's biggest cock up was marrying that blond bint with the psycho philanderer brother..

Tuscan Tony said...

It is worth reminding ourselves what the alternative to the PoW as Head of State might be - choose from one of the following:

Tony Blair
Peter Mandelson
Richard Branson
Michael Nazir
Roger Moore

Go Rog!

Calfy said...

Whether or not saving the environment is more important than saving the economy, I can only respect Prince Charles' passionate conviction, and silencing heartfelt convictions in deference to C21st politics is a great shame.

idle said...

Not in deference to C21st politics, calfy; the convention goes back very much further than that. You could argue that the more modern a country we become, and less deferential, the more important it is for the monarchy to avoid exposing themselves like this.

Electro-Kevin said...

Further:

Heading up charities is part of the Royalty gig. I doubt very much he does anything sacrificial or get his hands dirty like I do for the Scouts. In fact he's paid to do it albeit indirectly. Without the environment Charlie loses his whole rasion detre' - especially since the Royals have allowed themselves to become so irrelevant constitutional matters.

I've just had a look through my cheque book and I'm quite shocked at how much I've stumped up for the Scouts and not asked for it back. This with up front donations - and don't ask about the time spent fund raising. What's left of my Easter Monday will be spend organising a Bunny Run with me in uniform because I'll be going straight to work afterwards. What has Charlie done to match this ? Truly ???

And isn't it funny that there's always juuuust enough time to save the planet ?

The one thing we will never hear from Charlie or Bono at his next planet burning mega concert is "Look here, folks. We've got bad news. We've looked at the figures and there's nothing we can do about global warming. So forget about it. Go and enjoy yourselves ! Let's blow every light bulb and party like it's the end of the world !!!"

But you'll never get this from them. Because we are the kids and they are the dads in their self-regarding little minds.

In their minds it is their place to tell us what to do. It's as simple as that.

This is manifest in their breath taking hypocrisy when it comes to their utterly huge and disproportionate consumption of resources.