Prince Charles Rings the Death-Knell for the British Monarchy

So the British people are going to get a president after all. He will "speak for the nation and to the nation." He will rule over us with his "knowledge and contacts and unique ability." How do we know? Because Charles Windsor has just announced -- via his biographer, Jonathan Dimbleby -- that he is seizing the role for himself, without an election. Explicitly citing the presidencies of Ireland and Germany, Dimbleby says Charles intends to be a "political" King. It will be "a seismic shift in the role of the sovereign," he says, with "the potential to be politically and constitutionally explosive."

Sing it, sister. This is the best news we Republicans have had for years -- and finally throws up a vision of how the rusty British monarchy will fall.

Charles says the "responsibility and authority of his position" -- and the "wisdom" it entails -- requires him to "speak out" and "pressure" our elected representatives. A bevy of fawning pundits have responded by crying -- yes! Speak for us, oh sovereign! We commoners cannot produce one as wise as you! So I have to start with a point so obvious that it seems odd even to state it in 2008.

Charles's position stems from one thing and one thing only: he emerged from Elizabeth Windsor's womb 60 years ago. That's it. He has no "responsibility." He has no legitimate "authority." He has no more right to "speak for the nation and to the nation" -- and pocket £7m a year for the bother -- than you, me, or the next person you see at the bus stop.

If not for that fortuitous journey through a royal womb, Charles Windsor's "wise" arguments would be gathering dust in the reject bin at certain newspapers' letters pages. If his advocates didn't keep praising him as "a public intellectual" I wouldn't be rude enough to point it out, but Charles Windsor is a strikingly stupid man. Every time he has been put into a competitive situation where he is judged according to objective criteria, he has been a disaster.

Despite the most expensive education money can buy, he managed only to scrape a B and a C in his A-Levels. Despite this, he was admitted to Cambridge University, where he failed again, barely scraping a 2:2. When he was ushered into the Navy, he was so inept at navigation he kept crashing. Anybody else would have been court-martialed, but instead the Navy gave him one-on-one tuition for years. And still he failed.

And what of his arguments? They are garbled, uninformed, cliché-ridden repetitions of what the last person who spoke to him said. His very sympathetic biographer Dimbleby admits that his staff "were uncomfortable with his tendency to reach instant conclusions on the basis of insufficient thought". Edward Adeane, Charles' private secretary for many years, was disturbed by the fact that "Charles was extraordinarily easy to lead by the nose".

What do these "interventions" really consist of? Charles Windsor scorns modern science, attacking it for its "lack of soul" and for "playing God". So he uses his position to attack qualified life-saving professionals who earned their position, like the General Medical Council -- and says he knows better.

He demands that the British national Health Service pay for "spiritual, alternative medicine", and has been a key player in ensuring the NHS now spends £200m a year on it. But as Professor Richard Dawkins explains, there is no such thing as "alternative" medicine. If a treatment works in clinical trials, it ceases to be "alternative": it is classified as medicine and prescribed by doctors. So "alternative medicine" is -- by definition -- medicine that doesn't work in clinical trials. It is not medicine at all.

Charles's other arguments have just as much merit. Even on the (rare) occasions when he is right, Charles wrecks it with rancid hypocrisy. His claims to be opposed to global warming would be more persuasive if he were not one of the worst personal polluters in Britain, using a private jet for the most trivial of trips. His claims to be concerned for the poor would be more persuasive if he did not claim more than £300m of public land that should be used to pay for schools and hospitals to fund his own shocking decadence.

But even if Charles Windsor was a genius who represented a political agenda I totally agreed with, I would still oppose his "right" to be an unelected Head of State. In a democracy, power should stem from voting lines, not bloodlines. Yet Charles has shown a willingness to use his unearned position to bully elected representatives for decades now. One former minister, Peter Morrison, has recounted how Charles called him into Kensington Palace and screamed and shouted and banged his fist on the table when Morrison wouldn't accept his arguments about the national curriculum.

It's easy to assume that as monarch Charles would have no powers -- but it's untrue. The monarch gets an hour of face-time with the Prime Minister every week, has access to all government papers, and -- in a tie-break election -- gets to pick the Prime Minister. This isn't a fantasy-scenario: it happened as recently as 1974, and it will happen again.

To be fair, we Brits should blame ourselves as much as Charles. Monarchy inevitably warps the personality of the people at its heart, because from childhood they hear nothing but sycophancy. One of Charles' ex-girlfriends said: "He lives in an isolation ward of flattery. He goes to Hollywood and is told he's handsome. He swaps jokes with a comic genius like Peter Sellers, and they fall down laughing. He boffs a woman once, and she tells him he's the greatest lover she's ever had." It is this system that made this dim-witted mediocrity believe he has a womb-given right to be our President. We made it. We created the monster.

So what happens when this man accedes to the throne and pretends to be our president? In Spain, Sophia Frederica, the "Queen", has begun to speak out -- and support for the monarchy has withered.

So let Charles speak. Let him grab the reins of power. Let him spew his ignorant babble from his many golden palaces. Charles Windsor will - in an unprecedented moment of efficiency -- lead us at last into the Republic of Great Britain.

Johann Hari is a writer for the Independent newspaper in Britain. You can read more of his articles here or here.

Comments

[consideration]

Doesn't the monarchy generate a lot of tourist revenue for the UK? And sell a lot of tabloid papers?

[KHAAANNN]

Only the British could elevate someone to power who will make George W. Bush look intelligent.
GW earned his ineptitude by putting in long years of substance abuse and indoctrination by the NeoCons, Prince Charles was born to it.
All I can see in my minds eye when I think of Prince Charles is the classic Monty Python skit: "The National Upper-Class Twit Races."

[closet librarian]

Charlie sounds eerily similar to Georgie. . . president by an accident of birth, bad marks in school, accepted into university because of who his family is, bad marks in university, babbles incoherently, has no apparent original thought, sheltered from reality. . . Now maybe the UK will be galvanized to make a change in the government much as the US has. Good luck to you!

[breezyholler]

THE SAME WITH MCCAIN...A LIFE OF PRIVILEGE ...LEADS TO THE PRESUMPTION OF POWER...

[alicetilden]

Ditto on McCain.

[Luigi53102]

Someone beat me to it, but since Charles actually served time in the military, while GW Bush merely used the National Guard as a draft-avoidance vehicle, John McCain is the more apt comparison.

[rucognizant]

I think they are related back a few centuries.............

[jpopphan]

Although I have always had a great deal of respect for Queen Elizabeth II - a truly regal and classic lady - I have never really understood why modern British people haven't already done away with the monarchy. Yeah, there's tradition and all that, and social change takes time, but does the monarch really actually DO anything that matters to the lives of the average Briton?

I hope that Charles is never given the opportunity to become "president" or king. If the monarchy is going to survive past Elizabeth II, then the crown should go to Charles' son.

Seven million pounds a year just for being lucky enough to be born the son of a royal is absurd. There are real people living in real poverty who deserve the help that money could bring much more than a spoiled, rich, do-nothing like Charles.

I think that establishing the post of president in the UK is a good idea - but it must be an elected position and not an appointed or hereditary one. Charles has no authority to speak for the British people. Creating an office of the president in the UK would make it easier to phase out the role of the monarch and make the whole government there a popularly-elected one.

[Shieldmaiden]

I cannot wait for William to be crowned king. His father is an annoying relic.

[sisterdebmac]

Are we talking about Charles Windsor or John McCain here? I can't tell.

[VicksieDo]

I think his mum will outlive him yet!

[jobecky20]

Quite a good chance of that, actually. Her own mother lived to reach her 100s.

[h4tch]

How will this be any different to the manner in which he behaves at the moment? His influence will still be superficial, in fact the more he speaks the less impact he will make. Whether we remain a constitutional monarchy or we convert to a republic is largely irrelevant, our politics will still be dominated by Old Etonians and Oxbridge graduates, so stop being melodramatic.

[PegasusPJ]

Most republics have a separate head of state (the president) and of government (the Prime Minister).
We just don't need the former to be self appointed!

Charles got his 'wits' from his father, his mother is smart enough to shut up about what nobody asks her nor wants to know.

[NoMoFearNoMoHate]

Now you guys know how us Muricans felt the last eight years!

[peterg76]

The US elects one person to be both head of state and head of government, and tragically tends to get the worst of both. It might actually be good for monarchy if Charles were to inject a little more personality into the role. Of course, if he's smart, he'll look up how Charles I managed before doing anything rash.