Down With the Royals (5 page)

Even
The Guardian
cannot quite shake off the habit of claiming that the monarch does not intervene in politics, despite the fact that evidence to the contrary is staring it in the face. What the paper’s scoop actually shows is this country’s head of state engaging in an exercise to influence the way people vote, while maintaining a façade of ‘neutrality’. Republic’s CEO, Graham Smith, took the unusual step of calling on MPs to censure the Queen, saying she had overstepped the boundaries of her position:

Republic is right: this kind of behaviour is an affront to the democratic process, which rightly requires people who seek political outcomes to be open and transparent
about their involvement. Anyone who genuinely supports democracy should be outraged by it.

And so they would be, were it not for the fact that the rise of a supposedly rambunctious press in the UK has made very little difference to the way the institution is scrutinised; the assumption that ‘everybody’ wants to know about the Queen and her relatives has spread through most of the media like mould in blue cheese, putting the royal soap opera on almost every front page. At the same time, the general public has very little knowledge of the royal family’s extensive lobbying activities, carried out for the most part behind closed doors. While the public might be aware that Prince Charles dislikes modern architecture and is keen on ‘alternative’ medicine, most ordinary people continue to know little about how he uses his status to get privileged access to elected politicians; even fewer know that he and his mother have extraordinary powers of veto over proposed legislation. How many people are aware, for instance, that in 1999 the Queen vetoed a Private Member’s Bill which would have transferred the power to authorise military strikes against Iraq from the monarch – herself, in other words
– to Parliament?
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This species of interference is handled discreetly by royal aides and ministers’ private secretaries, placing members of the family at one remove and shielding them from awkward questions about their political views. Hence the existence of the popular myth, which has great resonance at a time when elected politicians are held in low esteem, that the family floats above vulgar political disputes. I never believed this was true for a moment, given that people who enjoy power and influence are usually keen to make the most of it. My suspicions were confirmed when I attended a Christmas party at Buckingham Palace where I was introduced to the Queen – I think I can safely say she didn’t take to me – and heard her talk about future membership of the EU in a way that clearly breached constitutional boundaries.

The party was in a long gallery on the first floor of the palace, where some of the Queen’s impressive art
collection is crammed onto the walls. I was with my then partner Denis MacShane, who had been Europe minister at the Foreign Office until 2005 and was still a backbench MP. The first thing that struck me was how nervous and overawed most of the guests appeared to be at the prospect of being in the same room as the monarch. Isn’t it a
sine qua non
that the head of state of a democratic country should make its citizens feel welcome and at ease? It is hard to see how that could happen at Buckingham Palace, where a suffocating atmosphere of protocol is reinforced by the presence of flunkies in antiquated court dress. One of the latter approached me and said that the Queen was about to arrive; was I prepared to be introduced to her? I said that I was and the courtier asked me and Denis to wait in a corner by the grand entrance doors. Several other couples joined us, including some Conservative MPs and their wives, and then the Queen walked into the room. She greeted Denis, whom she recognised, and he gestured towards me: ‘May I introduce my partner, Joan Smith, who is a novelist.’ I smiled and said ‘hello’. The Queen looked aghast.

A silence spread between us; as well as failing to curtsy, I had broken the unspoken rule of not speaking until addressed by the monarch. Finally, as though I didn’t exist, the Queen cut me dead and moved on to the Tory MP who was standing next to me. He introduced his wife, who curtsied, and the MP explained that she was Turkish. The Queen immediately looked brighter and said that she and her husband, Prince Philip, had been on a state visit to Turkey. The MP’s wife nodded enthusiastically, saying how pleased people in Turkey had been about the visit. At this point, the Queen turned back to Denis. ‘The EU is getting awfully big, twenty-eight countries,’ she observed. Denis gently corrected her, pointing out that it was actually twenty-seven, and added: ‘We’re hoping Turkey will come in soon.’ The Queen frowned. ‘Oh no, we don’t want Turkey to come in for a
long
time,’ she said.

I simply do not believe that this is the only time, in her entire reign, that the Queen has uttered a controversial – and, indeed, unconstitutional – political opinion. If that were the case, how likely is it that this supposedly out-of-character event would be witnessed by a committed republican? It seems more likely to me that most
people who meet the monarch are royalists, and they would not dream of repeating unguarded remarks which might damage her or the institution. When I mentioned the exchange on the BBC’s
Newsnight
programme and published an account of it on my blog, it became a news story for the simple reason that it is so rare for anyone to tell the truth about such encounters. The Palace’s response to a
Daily Telegraph
reporter was both awkward and sneakily
ad feminam
:

The last line is a very good illustration of how the Palace operates, not directly accusing me of lying – there were too many witnesses to take that risk – but trying
to undermine me by mentioning my political views. At least I am open about them, unlike members of the royal family who habitually push pet causes behind the scenes.

The Queen sees the Prime Minister at weekly audiences but we know next to nothing about what is discussed on those occasions or about her meetings with other ministers; that would be acceptable in a system where the head of state had democratic legitimacy, but it is hard to justify when she is both unelected and unaccountable. A rare exception to this protective silence emerged when the BBC’s security correspondent, Frank Gardner, revealed in a live interview on the
Today
programme that the Queen had told him she raised concerns with the government about the Egyptian cleric, Abu Hamza al-Masri. Abu Hamza, as he is usually known, was a deeply unpleasant Islamist who preached at the Finsbury Park mosque in north London; he fought a long and ultimately unsuccessful battle to avoid extradition to the US, where he faced trial on terrorism charges.
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Gardner was talking about the case
in 2012, just after the European Court of Human Rights refused to refer Abu Hamza’s case to the Grand Chamber, paving the way for his extradition. According to Gardner, the Queen told him she had raised the case with a former Home Secretary, asking why someone who incited hatred in his sermons had not been arrested earlier. ‘Like anybody, she was upset that her country and its subjects were being denigrated by this man,’ said Gardner.

There is no doubt that the cleric, who was accused of plotting to set up a terrorist camp in the US and involvement in abducting Western hostages in Yemen, was for a time the leading candidate for the title of ‘most hated man in Britain’. But the Queen’s intervention with the Cabinet minister responsible for the police, immigration and counter-terrorism was unwise to say the least; after the disclosure, which was unscripted, Gardner hurried on to say that this was not an instance of ‘lobbying’ and that the monarch was ‘merely voicing the views that many have’. Of course ‘many’ people do not have privileged access to ministers, who would feel obliged to respond to anyone else that they could not
(and should not) get involved in a case which was currently before the British or European courts. And while on this occasion the Queen’s view was no doubt widely shared, that is unlikely to be the case every time she has direct access to a minister. What other subjects has she lobbied – sorry, voiced the views of many – on? We do not know, but the response to Gardner’s revelation was in itself instructive. Within hours of the interview being broadcast, the story was no longer what the monarch said to a former Home Secretary but what the BBC’s security correspondent had said to the presenter of the
Today
programme. In no time at all, the BBC was forced to make a grovelling apology to Buckingham Palace: ‘The conversation should have remained private and the BBC and Frank deeply regret this breach of confidence. It was wholly inappropriate. Frank is extremely sorry for the embarrassment caused and has apologised to the Palace.’
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The effect of such a stinging public rebuke to a senior broadcaster was, no doubt, to make other people think twice about revealing controversial remarks
by the Queen. Silence and the ability to maintain it is, as we have discovered, one of the monarchy’s greatest protections.

We do know that Prince Charles is an assiduous networker, endlessly demanding private meetings with senior members of the government. In the three years following the 2010 general election, he held thirty-six private meetings with Cabinet ministers; the number of private audiences rises to fifty-three if meetings with junior ministers are included.
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The election was held at the beginning of May and the Prince’s first meeting with the Prime Minister, David Cameron, took place just two months later; they met once in 2011, three times in 2012, and twice in 2013. Charles was particularly keen to press his views on ministers at the Department for Environment, meeting three different ministers (including the then Secretary of State, Caroline Spelman) on five occasions. He was, if anything, even keener to get access to the top people at the Departments of Energy and Climate Change, meeting two secretaries of state
(Chris Huhne and Ed Davey) and two junior ministers over a series of seven meetings. In July 2013, Charles had an even more controversial meeting with the Health Secretary, Jeremy Hunt. The meeting came as critics complained that the NHS was wasting millions of pounds on homeopathy, an ‘alternative’ treatment dismissed by the government’s chief scientific adviser, Sir Mark Walport, as ‘nonsense’.
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Charles was unhappy with these science-based verdicts on one of his pet therapies and went to the top, knowing that Hunt shares his views on ‘alternative’ therapies.

The Independent
reported that several Labour MPs had reacted ‘with fury’ when they heard that Charles had lobbied Hunt, and not long afterwards they found support from an unexpected quarter. In a move which almost certainly reflects anxiety among monarchy-supporting newspapers about the prospect of Prince Charles ascending the throne, the
Daily Mail
joined the fray. It described his meetings with ministers as an ‘extraordinary lobbying campaign’ and suggested that
he was pushing favourite causes, including town planning and rural affairs. It described his views as ‘strident’ and even quoted a left-wing Labour MP, Paul Flynn, who accused the Prince of an ‘incontinence of lobbying’. The paper said:

Charles is not always so reticent, making an unwise foray into international relations in 2014 when he compared the Russian President, Vladimir Putin, to Hitler. Many of us share his suspicions about the president of a country with a dreadful human rights record, but that is not the point: an unguarded remark of this kind, which
amounts to little more than an insult, was a headache for the British government and a gift to Putin. Shortly afterwards, the extent of the Prince’s private lobbying became a little clearer when a number of Labour ex-ministers agreed to take part in a radio documentary.
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A former Northern Ireland Secretary, Peter Hain, said that the Prince was delighted with the ‘spectacularly good results’ of a trial of complementary medicine in the province and tried to persuade the Welsh and Whitehall governments to follow suit; neither department took any notice but Hain actually seems to have welcomed Charles’s lobbying, as did a former Environment minister, Michael Meacher. He said he had worked with Charles to persuade Tony Blair to support green energy and block GM crops: ‘We would consort together quietly in order to try and ensure that we increased our influence within government.’ Meacher did at least acknowledge that the Prince was ‘pushing it a bit’ when he used his influence in this manner, but said he was delighted to have his support. Charles’s interference did not get such a welcome response from the former Education Secretary, David Blunkett, who resisted the Prince’s lobbying to bring back grammar schools. ‘I would explain that our policy was not to expand grammar schools and he didn’t like that,’ Blunkett recalled.