The People's Prince

Here.

He is not always right. But he is right far more than he is wrong. And he could not be more right about this. The suggestion that he should never say anything is not only illiterate historically and constitutionally, but it is also yet a further denial of a voice to great tracts of the population, in this case to ninety per cent of it. If he doesn't do it, then who will? The whole idea, of course, is that no one will. Well, tough.

The usual suspects are bleating about how the Council of Guardians has to approve candidates in Iranian elections. At least that is honest. In order to stand any chance in Britain, you have to be approved by those usual suspects: Blairites and Cameroons, the Euston Manifesto Group and the Henry Jackson Society, the old hired help of the Soviet Union or the Fourth International and the old hired help of apartheid South Africa or Pinochet's Chile.

They control appointment (for so it is - the term "election" does not properly apply) to the safe seats that make up the bulk of the House of Commons. They control the distribution of lavish funding by the State and by a handful of highly politicised moneybags. They control access to the airwaves and to almost all of the print media.

If this were not the case, then there might be - there might not be, but there might be - an argument for politically a more quietist monarchy. But as things stand, the monarchy's activist role, historically normative and constitutionally proper, could not be more important.

Perhaps, every four years, we could elect five politically independent - not neutral, but independent - people, any three of whom would have to approve anything requiring Royal Assent before it could be submitted for such? Each of us could vote for one candidate, with the five highest-scoring declared elected at the end, and with any vacancy filled by bringing in number six. I'd have to see who the other candidates were. But I could quite easily envisage myself voting for Prince Charles.