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Monday, 6 November 2023

We made this discovery years ago



King's Speech: Charles will have to announce measures we know he is bound to dislike

The cameras will be there to record any involuntary reactions and indications of dissent - yet he has practiced all his life to ensure there won't be. It will be one of the many moments he uses to show he understands what it means to be King...

The pressure will also be on because we all know he will have to announce - without flinching - measures we remember from his time as Prince of Wales that he is bound to dislike, rolling back some environmental protections close to his heart.



And now he made the cardinal discovery, which marks an epoch in the life of every man who arrives at it, that world-celebrated persons are very like other persons.

Arnold Bennett – The Old Adam (1913)

5 comments:

Sam Vega said...

He must know that those environmental causes "close to his own heart" are rubbish, just recommended by his advisers to make him popular with the young and middle-class bien pensant groups while he was a prince. His position is similar to that of Marie Antoinette playing at being a milkmaid.

It's very easy to cut back on your environmental footprint when you are a jet-setting multi-millionaire with a penchant for blood sports and fast cars.

Surely, he must be in on the joke as well...

DiscoveredJoys said...

There a quite a few clever people out there who communicate well. But... of these people some are more adept at seeking patronage/social acceptance than others and their intellectual contribution is subordinate to their thirst for recognition. Get yourself hooked up with some Royals or QUANGOs and you can dine out on the fame for the rest of your life. And of course it suits The Powers That Be - every Patron wishes to have courtiers thirsting for their patronage.

But the game has nearly run its course. The unimpeachable probity of 'experts' is no longer a certainty. The attempts to shoehorn 'social justice' into university courses and scientific research is rapidly becoming laughable.

I wonder if King Charles has sufficient self awareness to realise how much he has been exploited?

Peter MacFarlane said...

"Surely, he must be in on the joke as well..."

Sadly I fear not.

Note his unbounded enthusiasm for attending the COPxx festival of nonsense and hypocrisy; He was very wisely forbidden to go to the last one by Liz Russ, but it appears Sunak is not willing to follow the precedent.

It is very unwise in a constitutional monarch, to take sides in such a controversial matter - royalty are supposed to be above politics, else why not just have politicians?

His mother would never have made such a mistake.

Tammly said...

Well we all have to pretend to respect him as our King when we know that he's mad.

A K Haart said...

Sam - I don't think he is in on the joke. He may have his suspicions about some of the more obvious charlatans, but he comes across to me as a middle class believer rather than an upper class cynic. Nothing like his father.

DJ - I think you may be right, there are hints that the game has nearly run its course. Quite where it goes next is unclear, but it isn't easy to see how it could include people and institutions like King Charles.

Peter - I agree, he has been very unwise and made mistakes his mother wouldn't have made. COPxx is too obviously an annual jamboree, he should always have distanced himself from it, even more so now.

Tammly - the number of people who don't respect him must be pretty large though.