Prince is back. Photograph: Kirsty Wigglesworth/AP
Normally I love Channel 4's Dispatches strand: it's not afraid to set attack dogs on big cheeses to ask tricky questions. Liam Halligan, looking like a tired but belligerent schoolboy, for example, did sterling work two weeks ago bludgeoning ministers on precisely where the dosh that has been lavished on the NHS has gone. He didn't get any meaningful answers, of course, but half the point is asking pertinent questions and watching people squirm.
Last night's programme on Prince Charles was bigged up as one that would ask really tough questions about his alleged political meddling, financial management and idle rich lifestyle. Newspapers weighed in with pieces previewing the programme and "insiders" were promised who would shed light on the Prince's alleged unfitness to "rule" (oh, it's "reign", by the way, Channel 4. Monarchs haven't ruled in Britain since Cromwell).
But in the event it was a bit, well, lame. Prince Charles doesn't pay corporation tax. A tax expert was wheeled on to say "Prince Charles doesn't pay corporation tax". Still reeling from that revelation, we then shot off to the Scilly Isles where the Duchy of Cornwall owns a lot of houses. There was some grumbling about the fact that the Duchy likes to charge a commercial rent for them. You don't say. The grumblers seem to have missed the point that even rich people need their businesses to earn money: rich people, even princes, aren't charities. Prince Charles likes to travel by the royal train instead of slumming it. Well, let's face it, wouldn't you rather go in cosseted comfort rather than face the horrors of the public train services? He has butlers and valets. Hell, even I pay someone to do my ironing.
Someone squeezes his toothpaste for him. He doesn't like modern architecture. He writes to ministers. He uses his position to make sure people know about alternative therapies. Sometimes some of the material about the complementary therapies he backs is a little less than totally rigorous in its writing. He travels with a retinue of staff. The list went on, all of it sounding more like sour grapes and less like valid criticism.
I'm not an apologist for Prince Charles or for any of the royals. But this film was a missed opportunity, which, instead of asking really hard questions about the relevance in general of the royal family and its role, just whined quite a lot.
Prince Charles is a stupidly rich middle-aged man with a lot of influence that he's not afraid of wielding. We may not like that much, but really, the objections are more that we wish we were that rich and that influential. Come on, who wouldn't love to be so incredibly well-off that we can afford to pay someone to put just the right amount of Colgate on our toothbrush?
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