Prince charles

Beatrice Elizabeth Mary. Anne Elizabeth Alice Louise. Elizabeth Alexandra Mary. These are the full baptismal names of Princesses Beatrice, Princess Anne and the Queen respectively. And what use are any of them other than the first one in each case? Today the papers have worked themselves up into a state of mild hysteria over the Cambridges' choice of name for their daughter. Charlotte: fine, one for Prince Charles. But the Elizabeth and especially the Diana bit really got them going - the child's third name merited an entire front page in the Mail. Diana won't be forgotten, says her 'closest friend', Rosa Monckton. Well, fine.

The day of my investiture at Buckingham Palace dawned bringing freezing rain and fierce winds, which lashed at the windows as I regarded the outfit I had painstakingly planned — a lightweight, cream wool suit. A little damp didn’t bother me, so I didn’t care if I’d be shivering as Prince Charles pinned the medal on to my cape. No — it was the fate of the hat that worried me most. Designed by milliner Philip Treacy, it was a frothy creation of white grosgrain, chiffon flowers and delicate veiling, and I was concerned about the wind whipping it off. My best friend Judy Bryer said soothingly, ‘Philip has put so much construction inside that even a gale wouldn’t shift it.

In 2006, when David Cameron was leader of the opposition, he made an infamous speech that is remembered as an exhortation to hug a hoodie. Feral youth, he said, should be helped rather than demonised. He was reaching towards what he hoped would be a new, ‘compassionate’ conservatism inspired in part by the charismatic social activist Camila Batmanghelidjh. She was the perfect lodestar for the young Tory leader. She began her drop-in centre — the Kids Company — in 1996 and within a few years, was helping thousands of disadvantaged inner-city children. She’s colourful, powerful but also a former Sherborne girl with whom Cameron and other members of the establishment felt at ease. Cameron told his shadow ministers that Camila embodied the Big Society.

Prince Charles has a lot on his plate this week after a new biography claimed that the Queen thinks Britain is not ready for her son's activism should he become king anytime soon. While his lawyers are set to examine the book closely to check if the author Catherine Mayer used 'artistic license' over her access to the Prince, Charles can take some comfort in the fact that he still has one ardent supporter. The model Olivia Inge, who is a descendant of William Gladstone, is keen to go into business with the heir-to-the-throne. She hopes that he will help her open a teepee in Regent's Park, offering free tea and acupuncture to the public. 'I plan to pitch the idea to Prince Charles,' she tells this month's Tatler.

When republicans meet, we console ourselves with the thought that our apparently doomed cause will revive. The hereditary principle guarantees that eventually a dangerous fool will accede to a position he could never have attained by merit, we chortle. With Charles III, we have just the fool we need. I don’t laugh any more. Britain faces massive difficulties. It can do without an unnecessary crisis brought by a superstitious and vindictive princeling who is too vain to accept the limits of constitutional monarchy. If you want a true measure of the man, buy Edzard Ernst’s memoir A Scientist in Wonderland, which the Imprint Academic press have just released. It would be worth reading if the professor had never been the victim of a royal vendetta.

[audioplayer src='http://traffic.libsyn.com/spectator/TheViewFrom22_6_February_2014_v4.mp3' title='Fraser Nelson discusses the Environment Agency:' startat=1350] Listen [/audioplayer]When Prince Charles arrived in Somerset to meet some of those caught up in the disaster which in five weeks has drowned 50 square miles of that county in floodwater, a reporter asked him whether he blamed the Environment Agency. Judiciously, he replied, ‘You may well think that — I couldn’t possibly comment.’ Later, having spoken to several of those intimately involved in this crisis, he hinted rather more plainly at his own view by saying, ‘The tragedy is that nothing happened for so long.

I’d just like to take this opportunity to say a big thank you to our heir to the throne, Prince Charles, for, as he put it, spending ‘twenty years’ trying to ‘build bridges between Islam and Christianity and (to) dispel ignorance and misunderstanding.’ Sadly, he has concluded that this noble endeavour was in vain and that Christians are being persecuted right, left and centre (or indeed wherever they are unfortunate enough to live in Muslim countries). Still, how kind of him to have tried. The thought of Prince Charles dispelling ignorance on any topic, let alone this one, is a captivating one.

The Silence of Our Friends, my Amazon Singles ebook about the persecution of Christians in the Middle East, is published today. I know I’ve written several posts on this subject recently, so I promise to stop, so long as everyone buys the book. Otherwise I won’t. Ever. It’s a subject that has become ever more urgent this year with violence against Christians in Syria, where Islamists have been engaged in ‘religious cleansing’, and in Egypt, which saw the worst anti-Christian violence in centuries.