King Charles’ first year as monarch has been distinguished by a total lack of energy and engagement. If “steady as she goes” is his mantra, it’s time for real institutional change.
said that when he became king he would take a different approach “from his opinionated time as prince” and that it was “complete nonsense” to suggest he would be openly political because “I’m not that stupid.”
He could be wrong about that. As far back as 1997, when Tony Blair’s Labour government was elected in a landslide, the party was leery of royal meddling and strongly averse to their opulent lifestyle. Blair’s wife, Cherie, was a republican, as were powerful figures in the party, and Blair himself was on record as favoring the Scandinavian model of “looking like a modern royal family living more modestly and engaged in good works.
That was the theory. And when it was announced that next year’s grant would remain flat at £86.3m the spin was that the king was aware that millions of his subjects were in financial straits and, in view of the rate of inflation, he was taking a pay cut. The percentage taken from the crown estate was cut from 25 percent to 12 percent because its income was soaring.
A Labour government would, for sure, take a tougher line with this royal ATM. Starmer is not a republican and has more pressing priorities than the fate of the monarchy. To be certain of winning a clear majority in the next election he knows he needs to court older disaffected Tory voters, a group still solidly monarchist.
That was in great contrast to the former BBC news anchor Laura Trevelyan who, on discovering her own family’s wealth derived from the slave trade in Grenada, quit her job and founded a movement to make reparations to the islanders. She was joined by David Lascelles, a second cousin to Charles, who inherited an estate built on the earnings from sugar plantations on Barbados worked by slaves.
In his first year, Charles has already fallen far short of that standard, as she probably thought he would. There are few clues to her views of his suitability for the job. She did say that he lacked natural executive skills . His father was more blunt, declaring that Charles “was not king material”—but Prince Philip said that at a time when public opinion turned against Charles when his adultery with Camilla was revealed in all its bizarre carnal details.
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