In the News
Channel 4 programme: Dispatches
12th March 2007
Clarence House today published on its website copies of the two letters which Sir Michael Peat, The Prince of Wales’s Principal Private Secretary, has sent in response to questions from Channel 4’s Dispatches programme.
The letters deal with all the points raised with Clarence House by the makers of the programme, including the central criticism that The Prince “meddles” in politics and this could lead to a constitutional crisis when be becomes King.
In the correspondence, Sir Michael explains that The Prince is “someone who cares deeply about the well-being of the United Kingdom and everyone in it, and wants to add value to his position by helping people and making a difference for the better.”
He continues: “His Royal Highness is always careful to ensure that he is not politically contentious or party political and…if an issue becomes party political or politically contentious after His Royal Highness has raised it, he will not do so in public again.”
Sir Michael also points out: “The Prince of Wales, of all people, knows that the role and duties of the Heir to the Throne are different to those of the Sovereign and that his role and the way he contributes to national life will change when he becomes King.”
As His Royal Highness explained in an interview with Sir Trevor McDonald in 2006:
“I think it would be criminally negligent of me to go round this country and elsewhere in the world, and not to want to try and do something about what I find there; and if I can bring people together in order to try and tackle the gaps that exist, and perhaps to remind people of the areas that need attention…then I think it is my duty to do so.”
Letter from Sir Michael Peat – dated 5th March 2007
Letter from Sir Michael Peat – dated 9th March 2007