Plan B Forum

Private letters sent by the Prince of Wales to Labour ministers a decade ago have been published after a lengthy legal battle.

Clarence House said the move would "only inhibit" the prince's ability to express concerns. In one letter to the prime minister, the prince said the armed forces were being asked to do a challenging job "without the necessary resources". Release of the letters follows a decade-long campaign by the Guardian. The 27 letters to seven government departments on wide-ranging subjects, including the dominance of supermarkets, badger culling and the herbal medicine sector, were written between September 2004 and April 2005.

A government veto on publication was declared unlawful by the Court of Appeal last year - a decision which was upheld by the Supreme Court in March.

In one letter to the prime minister from September 2004, the prince expressed concern that the Army Air Corps' ability to deploy equipment was being "frustrated by the poor performance of the existing Lynx aircraft in high temperatures". "I fear that this is just one more example of where our Armed Forces are being asked to do an extremely challenging job (particularly in Iraq) without the necessary resources," he wrote. The then Prime Minister Tony Blair replied a month later saying he found the prince's letter "constructive and thought provoking" and that the limitations of the existing Lynx helicopters were recognised by the Ministry of Defence.

In February 2005, Prince Charles wrote a letter to Mr Blair in which he said the "dominant position" of retailers was the "single biggest issue affecting British farmers and the food chain". In response, Mr Blair said: "I have on occasion expressed precisely the concern about retailers' 'arm lock' on suppliers that you express so well. I know too that after something of an improvement things have recently got worse.
"As you may be aware (and this was the main reason why I have delayed writing until now) the OFT issued its report on this subject on Tuesday.

In the same letter, the prince said the rising number of tuberculosis (TB) cases in cattle was a "most pressing and urgent problem", which had been "caused and spread" by badgers. He wrote: "I do urge you to look again at introducing a proper cull of badgers where it is necessary. "I, for one, cannot understand how the 'badger lobby' seem to mind not at all about the slaughter of thousands of expensive cattle, and yet object to a managed cull of an over-population of badgers - to me, this is intellectually dishonest."

Prince Charles went on to write that an EU directive banning hundreds of traditional herbal remedies was "using a sledgehammer to crack a nut". He offered "a more detailed briefing" from his advisers. In reply, Mr Blair thanked the prince for his "contacts... who have been sensible and constructive". He said they were "absolutely correct" that implementation plans were "crazy".

More..

Letters Prince Charles sent to the government clearly show he believed he was actually writing to his plants, we can exclusively reveal.

The Prince, a staunch supporter of talking to vegetation, is said to write to his plants when he can not be there in person, insisting a servant read out his letters in full.

He is said to write dozens a day when he is away on royal duty, and the belief is that half a dozen or so may have been sent to politicians by mistake.

The letters will now be made public following a ruling by the supreme court that just because something makes you look stupid isn’t reason enough to keep it from the public.

A Whitehall insider told us, “Although in public we said our concerns were for the perception of the Prince as politically unbiased, in reality we’re concerned people will think he’s batshit crazy.”

http://newsthump.com/2015/03/26/prince- ... is-plants/

Clarence House said the move would "only inhibit" the prince's ability to express concerns.

Crackpot wrote:That's only on this side of the pond

MajGenl.Meade wrote:Say what you like - our language; we invented it. Y'all just mangled it. Back to your ESL lessons, at once!