Thursday 11 July 2013

Black Spiderman


Let’s see if I’ve got this right. 

King-In-Waiting (maybe), bored out of his head by hyperactive underemployment, employs black spider to write irascible scrawls to anonymised government functionaries, believed to include ministers of the (yes!) Crown, about topics of personal interest, including (we may assume, since we can’t know): the number of motorcycle outriders needed to bring Windsor town centre to a standstill whenever he wants to visit mummy; the brand of nail scissors being used to manicure the lawns at Highgrove; or his Toothbrush-Batman’s* complaints about the difficulty of squeezing these new-fangled plastic tubes from the bottom up, the old lead ones were so much better.  There may be others.
All smacks of National Security to me.  But no, I stand corrected by no less a personage than the attorney general.  (Who, as a minister of the Crown, will one day report indirectly to aforesaid King-In-Waiting.  Maybe.)  No, the problem is as follows. 
The monarch is constitutionally obliged to be politically neutral.  The black spider letters, if published, would incontrovertibly demonstrate that the heir to the throne is no such thing.  Which we already know to be true.  Therefore, they can’t be published, otherwise we would all start believing what we already know to be true.   

Have I got it right?  I have, haven’t I?
What I tell you three times is true.

* See what I did there?

9 comments:

  1. Were the Spiderman Papers(let's call them that)to be leaked(let's call it that) to Mr. Murdoch...would he a) publish,b)ignore c)deny all knowledge d)start a Spiderman blog


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  2. ?
    You put a little something in your tea?

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  3. My view has been interrupted by his bloody Poundbury estate several times this week. He should be barred from the succession just for that.

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  4. Are you going to tell us three times then?

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  5. Mago, Mig: see here if you've missed the story.
    Dinah, Liz: thinking about privatising the Royal Family.

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  6. I'm amazed that anyone's interested ...

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  7. 'Politically neutral' - well, I could be said to be politically neutral in that my starting point is to mistrust the lot of them, that doesn't mean I don't have opinions, some of them strong ones. Not in the least that I'm arguing on his behalf, but is there a definition of politically neutral for Royal purposes?

    And happy birthday, dear Tim xx

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  8. Zig, you will be once he takes over...! Remember the fate of Charles I!

    Z, thank you, darling!
    If you want a definition of royal political neutrality, just look at Queen Brenda. Although even she occasionally slips in a hint; "Didn't anyone notice?" she asked when the markets went bellyflop.

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  9. Oh, and catching up, Liz, I too had to pass by Poundbury several times last week. Looks like a rejected design for a rural Tesco. It didn't spoil our holiday though.

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