As a foreign outsider, I view British politics from a neutral viewpoint. The problem of Prince Charles’s letters to ministers (Last act in nine-year battle to see content of Charles’s letters, 22 November) points out the very knot of your political system – a system that is only superficially different from the one that has ailed western countries for centuries. Having got rid of kings and princes, such countries claim that democracy is now the prevalent regime. This is a big lie. The will to replace monarchies manifested – and still manifests – the merchant and financier class’s eagerness to suppress all possibility of intervention on the part of a monarch acting as an arbiter in favour of the other classes, more particularly the lower middle class and the lower classes.
That Prince Charles should feel it his duty to wish to intervene in British politics shows that he is fully aware of what is wrong with the present political system. In the UK as well as in France, Italy, Spain, the US, Switzerland and so on, the prevailing system is by no means democracy (elections are a farce) but plutocracy, ie a gathering of bankers, financiers, multinational and deep-state leaders supported by such global institutions as the IMF, the World Bank, the European Central Bank, Nato, the European Union etc, all of them subservient to Washington. Prince Charles’s attitude bears witness to his deep sense of the good he could do to the British people. The hullabaloo his attitude causes demonstrates that the plutocracy intends to defend what it calls globalisation (“a sophisticated system of plunder”, John Pilger justly calls it) and its prerogatives to the bitter end.
Michel Bugnon-Mordant
Fribourg, Switzerland
• Your article (The reign of Charles III, 20 November) said Prince Charles is known for his “meddling”. However, I’m grateful that the Prince of Wales takes the time to meet MPs and write letters to them. He is a voice of reason when he tries to put a brake on governments promoting genetically modified food. His views on GM crops, architecture and more natural farming methods are more in tune with most ordinary people’s opinions. No one now denies that Prince Charles was right about the ugly 1960s and 1970s tower block “architecture”. Unlike government ministers, he doesn’t have to curry favour with the prime minister to safeguard his career, or bow to the demands of industry and other powerful vested interests. We are fortunate to have a prince who doesn’t just sit back and relax, but is concerned about health and the environment.
A Wills
London
• Prince Charles’s friend Patrick Holden asks how many of us go back to our desks after dinner and remarks that this poor overworked man even writes at 35,000ft (on the royal jet, of course – nothing so dull as a scheduled flight). Well, my husband does, as do millions of other workers who come home to the domestic necessities of life before eating a meal and then returning to essential work for the following day. Maybe Mr Holden and His Royal Highness should abandon some spirituality and worry less about things he obviously knows little about.
Janet Mansfield
Aspatria, Cumbria
• I’m interested to know what form Prince Charles’s “heartfelt interventions” in public life will take. Given his London base, perhaps he would be interested in helping out the London residents of the New Era housing estate by using his not inconsiderable private fortune to buy out the new American owners and thereby giving the present residents back their homes and security (How New Era went from tight-knit community to a global investment, 22 November). It would be a huge statement of the concern he claims to have for the people of this country.
Julia Hall
Morebattle, Scottish Borders
• Admirers of Prince Charles are keen to highlight his interest in organic farming and education, but his views on fur are less well known. In his diaries (entry for 7 March 2006 in Decline and Fall), Chris Mullin records a conversation with John Gilbert, who told him of a time at the MoD when there was a debate on the future of the Guards regiments wearing bearskins. The prospect of artificial bearskins being used resulted “in a letter of protest from the heir to the throne”. Much to Gilbert’s credit, the letter went unanswered.
Tim Wood
East Cowton, North Yorkshire
• Let us not forget that Charles (Speak up, Your Highness. But be ready for the backlash, 21 November) will also be the future King of Australia. I for one hope he shares his dislike of anything post-1967 with us antipodeans, for I can think of no better individual to reinvigorate the cause for an Australian republic.
Richard McKenzie
Melbourne, Australia
• If Prince Charles wishes to make “heartfelt interventions”, he should relinquish the succession and write letters to the Guardian like the rest of us.
David Parker
Meltham, West Yorkshire
