The Monarchist 2.0

The vanishing future monarch.

He's constitutionally Canada's next head of state. A top aide says he's keen to deepen his relationship with the country. He wants to visit, get to know people. He's arranged meetings with key Canadian philanthropic and community leaders with the aim of cementing connections with his own charitable interests.

So where is he? Find the Prince of Wales. Find Charles Philip Arthur George.

He hasn't been here for eight years.

He wanted to come to Canada four years ago – to introduce his new wife on her first royal tour – but the federal government told him it likely wasn't a good idea because there might be an election campaign when he arrived. So he bypassed Canada and took Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall, to the United States, Australia and New Zealand.

Sure, he does hang out with all the cool kids, but he'd love to swing by your place too. Just waiting by the phone, humming "Saturday Night is the Loneliest Night of the Week." Perhaps in the style of a Handel oratorio. Minority governments are hell on everyone's schedule, but surely a quick trip to Ottawa or Toronto could have been arranged? The Queen visited Alberta and Saskatchewan in 2005 to celebrates those two provinces' centenary. Since then Prince Edward (twice), Prince Andrew (three times) and Princess Anne have all shown up and exchanged dignified pleasantries with their ex-colonial subjects. Is the future George VII - his rumoured styling upon ascension - just not worth the price of admission? Perhaps I'm just paranoid, but methinks certain republican elements in the Canadian government are perfectly willing to have the people of Canada forget who their future sovereign is.

The monarchy drags up all sorts of unpleasant memories for the country's governing elite. Terrible images of British overlordship when armies of Redcoated terrorists imposed the rule of law, free speech and property rights on their unruly Canadian subjects. Not the kind of things you'd want to talk about infront of the electorate. Who knows they might remember that principles of anglo-saxon jurisprudence don't fit well with secularized inquisitions like the Human Rights Commissions.

The Gods of the Copybook Headings

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Prince Charles as The Duke of Rothesay*, accompanied by The Duchess of Rothesay, unveiled the Queen Mother Memorial Gates at Glamis Castle yesterday.

Above: The crest on the Queen Mother Memorial Gates. Below: Glamis Castle in Angus was the childhood home of Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother. It is the home of the Earl and Countess of Strathmore and Kinghorne, and has been the family hearth of the Lords of Glamis since 1372.

* Just as The Prince of Wales is the ancient title bestowed upon the heir to the English throne, The Duke of Rothesay is the ancient title bestowed upon the heir to the Scottish throne. The thrones of England and Scotland were united under the Act of Union in 1707.

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The Prince of Wales and Chief of the Air Staff, Air Chief Marshal Sir Glenn Torpy, salute during a sunset ceremony at RAF Cranwell in Lincolnshire as part of the RAF's 90th anniversary celebrations, 10 April 2008. His Royal Highness is Air Chief Marshal of the Royal Air Force.

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For anyone who cherishes the principles that led Britain to reject Hitler's offer to safeguard the Empire and in the end voluntarily sacrifice it to finally go to war, the idea of China's communists using this year's Olympics as a huge propaganda victory must cause dismay. Nineteen years after students were mowed down by the People's Liquidation Army in the centre of the city awarded the honour of hosting the Games, the country still remains a fascist, totalitarian regime that aims missiles at democratic Taiwan to blackmail them, brutally occupies Tibet, ignores any idea of a rule of law to steal land from peasants whilst making their air unbreathable and water undrinkable, throws the elderly out of their houses to have them demolished for skyscrapers and Olympic stadia, subsidises Sudanese genocide and Mugabe's dictatorship and prevents my students from simply logging into Wikipedia or the BBC news.
Such is the regime that Churchill's latest successor visited last week where he seemed more interested in getting the Chinese to import pig trotters from Old Blighty than bothering to make the merest reference to human rights. In fact he jumped at the chance to accept the invitation to the Games' opening ceremony. There he will join other world leaders.

But he won't be joined by the Prince of Wales.

In a letter to the Free Tibet Campaign, Charles' deputy private secretary Clive Alderton wrote

As you know, His Royal Highness has long taken a close interest in Tibet and indeed has been pleased to meet His Holiness the Dalai Lama on several occasions.
You asked if the Prince of Wales would be attending the opening ceremony of the Beijing Olympics in 2008. His Royal Highness will not be attending the ceremony.

The Prince has long been known to be a champion for Tibet and an admirer of the Dalai Lama, forced into exile since 1959. At Clarence House six years ago he received two nuns who had been tortured in the Drapchi prison in Lhasa, so one can understand his support.
Many here will remember Charles' reported antipathy to the regime leaders, whom he referred to in his leaked diaries written during the Hong Kong handover as "appalling old waxworks". And yet this is a man who at the same time actively works through his Prince's Trust-type charities with the Chinese on urban regeneration projects. I myself have seen how they improve the lives of the particularly vulnerable, such as the old forced to live in traditional hutongs heated by coal, with poor insulation and erratic water supply, forced to walk a block to the communal toilets which are little more than holes in the ground without even a partition between stalls in many.
A man who refuses to accommodate injustice while still showing a willingness to engage. Qualities few of our politicians have shown an interest in displaying for some time.

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According to reports, Prince Harry is in training at at the British Army Training Unit Suffield, about 100 miles southeast of Calgary to prepare for possible deployment to Afghanistan after having flown to Canada from Heathrow on Wednesday. Unlike his previous plan to serve in Basra, a posting in the turbulent southern province of Helmand would be harder for Taliban rebels to determine his location.

It's in Alberta where the Prince is expected to practice "fire and manoeuvre" operations at Suffield, the largest training area available for British armoured vehicles, according to the Sunday Mirror.

"All the armoured live firing training is done at Suffield. It points towards a posting in Helmand. That kind of role is less in demand now in Iraq," a military source told the tabloid.
The British Army's website says: "This area is one of the largest our army trains on and it provides a highly realistic environment."

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Prince Charles has taken a leap into the internet age, posting a day-in-the-life video on his revamped personal website, www.princeofwales.gov.uk

The short film follows the Prince through a typical day.

It shows him working at his London office, carrying out public engagements with the Duchess of Cornwall and flying by helicopter to his country home.

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