THE Prince of Wales is endangering the monarchy by surrounding himself with a right-wing coterie which has brought him into conflict with new Labour, a leading historian has said.

In an article for Prospect magazine, Tristram Hunt says that the “politically adventurous” stances taken by the Prince in recent years threaten to have disastrous consequences for the future of the Royal Family.

Dr Hunt, a former Labour adviser who has since forged a career as a “TV historian”, is understood to have interviewed senior Downing Street figures and members of the Royal court.

He identifies 1999 as a turning point in relations with the Government which culminated in October of that year in the Prince boycotting a state banquet in honour of President Jiang Zemin of China. The article quotes Downing Street sources saying Tony Blair was “livid” at the rebuff, details of which were disclosed to the press so that the Prince could demonstrate his opposition to China’s occupation of Tibet.

The controversy could be rekindled tomorrow when the Prince hosts a reception at St James’s Palace for the Dalai Lama. In contrast, the Prime Minister’s aides say “diary pressures” mean that Mr Blair is unable to meet Tibet’s exiled spiritual leader.

Dr Hunt charts a series of other clashes between the heir to the throne and the Government on issues including genetically-modified food, constitutional reform, foxhunting and the plight of farmers during the foot-and-mouth disease epidemic three years ago.

“Perhaps most damaging of all for Downing Street relations, Prince Charles is said to have harboured deep reservations over war in Iraq and its effect on Anglo-Islamic relations,” says the article.

Dr Hunt says the Prince has a “romanticised ideal of Islamic societies” which has been reinforced by his close links with the Saudi Royal Family. “The Prince’s engagement with Israel and America is noticeably sparser. Like many of his future subjects, he is unconvinced by their Middle East strategy and instinctively hostile to the rampant modernity of the US.”

The article says that new influences on the Prince over the past five years included Melanie Phillips, the Daily Mail columnist whom he talked of in “awed tones”, Chris Woodhead, the former Chief Inspector of Schools, William Shawcross, the neoconservative journalist who became his “most favoured polemicist”, and Edward Heathcoat-Amory, another Daily Mail columnist. “St James’s Palace started to resemble an Associated Newspapers editorial conference,” says Dr Hunt.

“Most of these journalists shared a cultural conservatism, fierce opposition to the legacy of the 1960s and, in some cases, a personal disgust for Tony Blair and the new Labour ‘project’.”

He points out that the Prince’s contacts with Gordon Brown, the Chancellor and likely successor to Mr Blair, have been minimal. “The country therefore faces the prospect of a politically adventurous Prince Charles assuming the throne ... lacking the popular support enjoyed by the Queen. If that were to occur with a less indulgent prime minister (Gordon Brown?), the consequences for the House of Windsor could be disastrous.”

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