When a man of cranky interests picks up his fountain pen, the result is, very often, nothing of any consequence. Occasionally, he will be eccentrically right, and may even get others to see this by obstinate repetition; more often he will – whether fairly or not – run into irritation and brush-off replies. When the man in question is heir to the throne, however, the reaction might well be different, and questions of crowning importance arise.
For a decade, the Guardian has pursued Prince Charles’s “black spider memos” to seven Whitehall departments because it’s as well to know how the man who will be king interacts with what will, however preposterously, one day be called “his” government. Officials, a commissioner, divisional court judges and – ultimately – the attorney general wove a web of secrecy around the correspondence. On Thursday, however, the supreme court stood by the tribunal that had originally ruled that the letters should be released.
It’s as well to know how the man who will be king interacts with what will one day be called 'his' government
The ruling was, as it usually is when things reach the highest court, on a point of law. The decision was that the former attorney general Dominic Grieve was not empowered to issue a certificate blocking the tribunal’s ruling, which may sound like a narrow point. But as Lord Neuberger wrote in the judgment, it could hardly be more important. In his scramble to spare the prince’s blushes, not a scramble that would have been made for anyone else, Mr Grieve was, as a government minister, seeking to overrule the tribunal’s meticulous verdict reached after hearing extensive argument. And in doing that, he trampled on two aspects of the rule of law: first, that the ruling of the courts is binding; second, that it is for the courts to review executive actions, not the other way round.
Mr Grieve is a meticulous and intelligent lawyer, so it is particularly striking that – by dint of his seat in the government – he felt obliged to engage in this ridiculous dance to keep private the prince’s meddling in public affairs. We don’t know the contents of any of the letters just yet, nor even exactly what we will eventually see, after Downing Street’s promised “preparatory work” with the black marker pen. But on the strength of the effort expended on the right royal cover-up thus far, it seems a fair guess that officials and ministers will have given the prince’s letters rather more favourable attention than routine correspondence with a member of the public.
Secrecy always stirs thoughts of intrigue, but let’s not get too carried away about what’s likely to be in the letters. The prince has, after all, hardly kept his hobby horses bolted up in the stables over the years. Old-fashioned architecture, old-fashioned food, ecology and a somewhat spiritual approach to life and health are the familiar Carolingian themes, and mostly benign enough in isolation, even if in combination they betray regret about the fact of the industrial revolution. The issue, however, really isn’t the merit or otherwise of this or that princely opinion, only the propriety – or not – of his efforts to secure a special hearing.
Modernising monarchists, if such oxymoronic creatures exist, might argue that it’s unreasonable to ask the prince to pretend, as his mother doggedly has, that there is no room for personal opinion between the ears of the head of state. In more open times the next monarch should, they might say, be entitled to his views, just so long as he understands that it’s the government’s duty to govern, and his to keep calm and carry on. This argument, however, really can’t stand without applying the openness principle to the dealings of the next monarch himself. A provocative speech for a good cause might be allowed; a missive on the quiet never could.
The true logic of what we like to think is a democratic era, however, surely points in another direction. If it is accepted that the head of state is going to have opinions, and perhaps give them an airing for time to time, then – for a newspaper of principled republicanism, at least – the answer is clear. Not any longer to allow the job to be filled by accident of birth, but instead to select for the post by democratic means. Perhaps that is a discussion for another day. But after Thursday’s ruling, the immediate point is simply that mail that comes on his majesty’s service must no longer be kept from his majesty’s subjects.