Daily Mail, 11 February 2005

Anyone tempted to write off Tony Blair as a lame duck politician should think again. The announcement that the Prince of Wales is finally to marry Camilla Parker Bowles has the canny fingerprints of the Prime Minister — that consummate political operator — all over it.

Consider first of all the timing. The wedding is to be held on April 8. The general election is expected to be called for May 5. Mr Blair has reportedly decided to fire the election gun in the week of the wedding and dissolve Parliament the day before, thus milking it to his advantage.

But an event of this significance would have been planned for some time, and the Prime Minister was certainly aware of it.

The timing of this marriage, so close to the election, is highly suspicious because it is so much in Mr Blair’s interests. It means that for him, much of the heat will be off because a firecracker — a major event of extraordinary constitutional significance and controversy — is being tossed (notwithstanding the leak) slap bang into the middle of the campaign.

The feebleness of his policies, along with any risk that the Tories might steal a march on him, will be overshadowed by the all-consuming interest in the forthcoming nuptials.

Just when the country’s attention should be focused upon the democratic choice before it, public debate will be dominated instead by the controversies arising from this unprecedented union, not to mention the human fascination and the passions it is likely to unleash.

In short, the country’s attention will be all but completely diverted away from the democratic process.

It means that the Prime Minister will either benefit from any ‘feel-good factor’ from the joyous event or, if the public are hostile to the match, from Prince Charles becoming a lightning rod for the country’s discontents. Instead of trying to counter the voters’ monumental disengagement from the political process, it means that Tony Blair will turn the popular desire to think about anything other than politics to his advantage.

And this is by no means the least of it. For although legions of royal advisers have been cudgelling their brains for years over how to resolve the constitutional conundrum posed by the desire of Prince Charles to marry Mrs Parker Bowles, the actual resolution of this most delicate of problems is pure, undiluted Blairism. For it is neither fish nor fowl.

Every child in the world knows that a King is married to a Queen, a Prince to a Princess. But no longer, it seems, in Blair’s Britain. The wife of the Prince of Wales is not to be the Princess of Wales, but the Duchess of Cornwall. But because she will be married to His Royal Highness, she will be Her Royal Highness — even though, as a mere duchess, she is not the same kind of Highness as he is.

When Prince Charles becomes King, his wife will not become Queen but a totally new invention, the Princess Consort. In short, Mrs Parker Bowles appears fated to go down in history as the first ever Royal Euphemism.

This is because of fears that the public won’t wear it if the woman who was famously — according to Princess Diana — the third person ‘in this marriage’ is seen to supplant her. It is also because of strong feelings within the Royal Family and in some church circles that the King, as supreme head of the Church of England, should not have as his Queen a woman he could not marry in church because she was involved in the break-up of his first marriage.

But like the whole Blairite box of tricks, the formula is an illusion. Just imagine the coronation of King Charles. Are we really to believe that the woman seated on the throne alongside him will not be his Queen? As they emerge from Westminster Abbey, will his loyal subjects really be cheering His Majesty the King and Her Royal Highness Not-the-Queen?

The sense that this is a royal con-trick is pure New Labour. Just as Blairism means never having to choose between two conflicting choices, so Prince Charles is thus able to have it all — the crown and Camilla. Thus the constitution is distorted into farce to enable the government to make it up as it goes along.

From ‘the third person in the marriage’, one might say, to the monarchy of the third way.

This is likely to have a number of baleful consequences. It will seriously weaken both the monarchy and the Church of England. Not only is Prince Charles tarnished, but the Queen herself also loses moral authority for having sanctioned this, with the public left feeling that a grubby episode has been grubbily resolved.

Instead of embodying an ideal of the nation to which all can aspire, the monarchy will finally become a lustreless reflection of a deeply flawed society in which the widespread failure of people to take responsibility for their actions, in particular when it comes to the betrayal of spouses, remains nevertheless a significant source of shame and concern.

And instead of holding the line, the Church of England has been complicit in this whole seedy saga, with the Archbishop of Canterbury giving his literal blessing to a union which is not a marriage in the eyes of the church, and which turns a blind eye to the fact that it legitimises an adulterous liaison that was part of the break-up of a marriage.

This second marriage makes it much more likely that when he becomes King, Prince Charles will no longer be the Defender of the Christian Faith and that the disestablishment of the Church will finally become a reality.

In short, it marks a seminal moment for the monarchy, the Church of England and the constitution. And in the monarchy’s weakness, the Prime Minister can now seize his moment.

The decision about this marriage had to be taken by the Queen. She would act only upon the advice given by her Prime Minister. Tony Blair has thus managed to resolve the royal dilemma, and both the Queen and Prince Charles are now in his debt.

As a result, Mr Blair effectively has them in his pocket. With the Prince of Wales so reduced in moral stature, and the role of his wife-to-be downgraded into absurdity, the way may be set not only for a drastically slimmed-down Royal firm but for the silencing of any potential Royal dissent over future Labour policies. Of these, the most crucial is Mr Blair’s overriding goal to sign Britain up to the EU constitution — and thus destroy this nation’s independence, of which the monarchy is symbol and protector.

When Princess Diana died, Tony Blair brilliantly hi-jacked the event and turned personal tragedy into political gold. He both manipulated the public mood as the grieving champion of ‘the people’s princess’, and rescued the panic-stricken Royal family from the fury of the public.

Now, it seems, he has managed to hijack the monarchy itself —leaving this ever-more diminished historical relic playing second fiddle to ‘President’ Blair. Far from the Prime Minister being finished, the monarchy of the third way could be Tony Blair’s crowning achievement.

Posted by melanie at February 11, 2005