Peerless

Wednesday, 17th June 2009

The Spectator on the spat between the Prince of Wales and Lord Rogers of Riverside

There was something magnificently comic about Lord Rogers of Riverside accusing the Prince of Wales of ‘unconstitutional’ behaviour. The modernist architect is predictably outraged that his hideous design for a development on the site of the old Chelsea Barracks has now been ditched — after Prince Charles wrote to a member of the Qatari royal family, which was financing the project. The Rogers project would have been a horrible eyesore so close to Sir Christopher Wren’s Royal Hospital, and the Prince was right to urge the Qataris to consider an alternative design commissioned from Quinlan Terry. No doubt Lord Rogers feels aggrieved to have been outmanoeuvred by the royal Rolodex. But as one of the most conspicuous and well-connected members of London’s elite it is hilarious that he, of all people, should complain about another man using his contacts to get his way.

There is nothing ‘unconstitutional’ about this splendid outcome. Lord Rogers is angry for one reason alone: he got beat.

David Lindsay

June 19th, 2009 6:41pm Report this comment

It is a complete fantasy that the monarchy is supposed to be neutral in all matters. What would be the point of that? If, for example, it could not intervene to prevent the despoilment of our built environment, then there really would be no purpose at all to it. But such is not the case.

Leaving aside the mistakes and misfortunes of his own life (which have absolutely nothing to do with the institution as such), Prince Charles is either on the wrong track or just plain wrong when it comes to syncretism, and Greenery, and the Dalai Lama.

But he is right about an awful lot more.

And that makes him the voice of huge numbers of people who have none in the supposedly more legitimate parliamentary process, of which the monarch, complete with a power of veto in the defence of certain interests not exactly dear to the hearts of New Labour or the New Tories (and therefore now impossible to defend by means of voting), is properly, but not currently, an integral part.

As the culmination (at least so far) of the coup that began immediately upon the death of John Smith, this country is now being run – really, literally run – by the wholly unelected and unaccountable Peter Mandelson of the Young Communist League. Give me Charles over him any day.