My own little Black Spider letter,
After initially hearing about the letters that Prince Charles has been sending over the years to key politicians I wasn't particularly interested. After all, what future king isn't going to pay some interest in his country and the state it's in?
Then seeing peoples' differing reactions to the letters made me want to take a better look at the topic. From the outside, before I began to catch glimpses of the letters, my initial opinion was that these were private letters and as long as there is nothing unjust going on then they shouldn't be published. They are typically the sort of thing that might surface after someone passes away and give a nice retrospective as to their intentions.
Now Prince Charles is being painted as either a 'meddling' villain or as a passionate man who cares about the issues he's raising.
The 'black spider' name itself conjures up the idea of bad behaviour and meddling. But it is in fact named this way because of the Princes 'memorable black, spidery handwriting'...not that sinister then is it?
I can understand why Charles and his advisors would want to keep all these letters under wraps as it would be damaging to the Royals if people thought they were meddling with and trying to influence parliament. But from what I've read (and this is from an impartial perspective), Charles appears to be drumming up attention to some important topics, whether it is agriculture, the safety of troops in war or sustainable fishing.
Whether his letters were even capable of having an impact on anything is perhaps an important point. We all nag to politicians and bosses about what needs to be changed but they don't listen, chances are that this will also ring true to Charles as well; "Oh Prince Charles wants us to do something about sustainable fishing? Lets put it at the top of our to-do list" somehow I can't imagine it.
From what I've read I don't think Charles or the Royals should be worried about these letters being revealed if there is no parliamentary lobbying involved. Perhaps they are worried that the anti-royals will drum up some support and this will damage the power and appearance of the Royal family. In fact I think that the majority of people will look at these letters and realise that they have a Prince who is interested and passionate about a variety of issues in the UK and perhaps that is better than having one who doesn't care at all.
So whether you see it as meddling or as someone who cares about the issues he raises, I think we should realise they are only words. Words of caution and concern that were designed to hopefully raise awareness to certain topics...the sorts of words people use on a regular day when voicing their concerns to local governments or on the internet about topics they're passionate about. It'd be naive to think Charles never interacts with the likes of Tony Blair and I for one am glad we've had the opportunity to see it.
Sincerely,
Philip W.
