The Prince is a temporary boost to the Royals' standing, but history is against them
DUCHY Originals, the firm set up by Prince Charles to sell produce from his Cornwall estates, does a rather nice organic sparkling white wine. This weekend, the Royal Family has good reason to pop open a bottle or two of the fizzy stuff. As with any
family with a soldier son in a war zone, they will be celebrating the safe return of Prince Harry from Afghanistan. But they will also have cause to raise a crystal glass to an extraordinary public relations coup on behalf of the British monarchy.
For years, the Royal Family's advisers have been urging them to embrace a new informality in the way they deport themselves. I'm not sure Harry's penchant for stumbling drunk out of Boujis nightclub on a regular basis was what they had in mind. Nor, I suspect, was the candour he displayed yesterday when he said he couldn't wait for his next military posting because "I generally don't like England that much". Whatever you think of this particular 23-year-old, you've got to admire his determination to speak his mind regardless of the consequences.
Harry deserves the favourable coverage he has enjoyed in the media these past few days. Yes, of course he was probably protected by special forces troops while in Afghanistan. But otherwise he seems to have been determined to live the life of any other young Household Cavalry second lieutenant fighting the Taliban. Royals have not always been so willing to get dirt under their fingernails. Prince Edward, Harry's uncle, swiftly ducked out of Royal Marines training so he could become a theatre impresario. Harry, in contrast, seems to have relished the hardships, the camaraderie and the danger of life on the front line.
When he said "this is about as normal as I'm likely to get" about life in Forward Operating Base Delhi, it might have seemed a curious comment. After all, this was a man living in an Afghan madrassa whose toilet was a plywood 'thunderbox' with a hole cut in the centre. But I think we all knew what he meant. Many people will be constitutionally incapable of feeling sympathy for a Royal who was born into privilege, who will never want for anything and who will always be entitled to an easy life at the public expense if he wants one. But even the most determined anti-royalist would be churlish not to feel a twinge of grudging respect for the choices Harry has made over his career.
His moment in the sun – with sufficient sun-block, one hopes – isn't the only boost for the Royals in recent weeks. An unlikely fillip to their standing has come from the coroner's inquest into the death of Harry's mother, Diana, Princess of Wales. The Royal Family had cause to regard this hearing with some foreboding, as it was always going to provide a platform for the variety of bonkers conspiracy theories about that fatal Paris car crash in 1997.
Some of the evidence has indeed been lurid. But by allowing people like Mohamed al-Fayed to air their views under the unforgiving scrutiny of some gifted QCs, the inquest has gone a long way towards dispelling some of the more outlandish myths that surround the Princess's death. All cause for a glass of celebratory fizz or two at Sunday lunch at Windsor today. And yet the Royal Family and its advisers should guard against believing this heralds a new golden age in the way the monarchy is regarded by the British public. Harry may be a temporary boost to their standing, but history is against them.
The truth is that the rights and privileges enjoyed by the Royal Family in Britain today are simply unsustainable; especially the powers exercised by the monarch by Royal Prerogative through her position as head of state, which include the power to declare war, the power to declare a national emergency, the appointment and dismissal of ministers, and various powers over the Church of England, to name but a few.
Of course, successive monarchs have allowed HM Government to rule unfettered on their behalf. But it doesn't take too much imagination to envisage the chaos that could be caused by a less benign monarch – or one who was, how shall we say, a few bearskins short of a Changing of the Guard. Let's be brutal – we are just one wonky gene away from a constitutional crisis that would make Britain a laughing stock in the developed world. Even discounting such a possibility, our self-respect as a democracy should be reason enough for reform. It's also unacceptable that the Royal Family continues to be run according to precepts that would be unacceptable – and indeed illegal – in any other walk of life. The Act of Settlement, for example, bans Catholics from becoming monarch or marrying a monarch.
To his credit, Gordon Brown has tentatively begun to address some of this – albeit at the margins. His intention to give Parliament the power to veto Britain going to war is an important step towards codifying in law the rights of MPs. But don't hold your breath for the Prime Minister getting rid of the monarch's final say on the matter, nor her power to grant – and withhold – Royal Assent on all legislation passed at Westminster or Holyrood. The pomp and ceremony we see when the Queen opens Parliament, in both Edinburgh and London, should be a harmless nod to history. But she should be there as an honoured guest, rather than mistress of all she surveys.
The full article contains 948 words and appears in Scotland On Sunday newspaper.
