Is Prince Charles fit to be King?

Soon we shall be revving up to celebrate the 60^th of Her Maj.

I reckon this will be the high water-mark for the Monarchy. By common consent she has never put a foot wrong, but inevitably people will be reflecting on how much longer she can go on. Hopefully, she will have a longevity that matches her mother’s. If so, Chuck will be pushing 80 before he gets his chance, and he may decide (but almost certainly won’t) to hand the baton to Wills.

I reckon there are widespread misgivings about Charles as King. Part of this must be the post-Diana effect, as Camilla seems to have some difficulty in gaining acceptability. The debate about whether she should be called ‘Queen’ is, of course, totally sterile because if Charles becomes King she automatically becomes Queen, just as she would automatically have become ‘Mrs’ if she had married a commoner.

I am sure that she is a very nice and worthy person, and appeals to me if only because she is clearly no stranger to the odd ciggie and double G&T. But to the public she just ain’t Diana. She will never be accepted as a true Queen simply because of the ‘Diana effect’. People will see that her way to the title was thoroughly besmirched.

The question in my mind is whether Charles is actually fit to be King.

On the plus side he has a remarkable record of public service. He did his time in the RN on small ships, hardly the most comfortable way of spending your days.

He has founded no less than 16 charities, many of them devoted to young people, which raise c. £110 million annually. He is patron of 350 other charities.

He has been very influential in what could be generally called the built environment, and it was really he who launched organic farming. He was much laughed at when he began. They aren’t laughing now. It’s a mega-million business.

He is exceptionally well-thought of in the world of Islam, and the significance of this can’t be overstated – he was one of the driving forces behind the establishment of the Oxfords Centre for Islamic Studies.

And yet……

Monarchy rests on a tacit understanding, a silent compact between monarch and people that, in return for wealth and privilege, monarchy will represent certain national standards and virtues, such as trust, dedication, probity, integrity and fidelity. We expect the monarch to set an example to the whole nation of good behaviour.

At the time, the wedding of Charles and Diana seemed like a marriage made in heaven that would ensure the continuance of the Crown for another generation.

There was Charles, as future head of the Church of England, making solemn vows before God that he clearly had no intention of keeping. He committed adultery over a long period with Mrs Parker-Bowles and cuckolded the worthy Brigadier Parker-Bowles. Is it any wonder that when Diana realised that her sole function was as brood-mare to preserve the Windsor line that she went completely off the rails and dedicated the remainder of her tragically short life to embarrassing the Royal family at every turn?

Even if Charles discovered too late they he and Diana were irredeemably incompatible, it was his duty, as heir to the throne, to stick it out, to put a brave face on it, to abide by his vows and to set the example expected of Royalty.

Instead, he brought the institution of monarchy into disrepute and triggered a wave of media hostility and mockery that lasted for many years and badly damaged the Queen herself. And made matters worse by marrying the source of the marriage break-down.

So should Chuck chuck it?