Birthday party brings out the stars

Members of Prince Charles’s inner circle are preparing the ground for him to break the monarch’s traditional vow of silence when he is king.

The Prince of Wales, who celebrated his 60th birthday on Friday, has told confidants he would like his role to “evolve” so that his knowledge and experience are not wasted once he inherits the crown, Jonathan Dimbleby, his friend and biographer, reveals today.

Writing in The Sunday Times, Dimbleby says that “there are now discreet moves afoot to redefine the future role of the sovereign so that it would allow King Charles III to speak out on matters of national and international importance in ways that at the moment would be unthinkable”.

The Queen has for more than 50 years adhered to the tradition that the monarch’s views are heard only in private by the prime minister and the privy council.

“To breach this convention, however cautiously, would represent a seismic shift in the role of the sovereign,” says Dimbleby. It “has the potential to be constitutionally and politically explosive”.

A YouGov poll for The Sunday Times published today suggests strong public support for the idea, however. Those believing the monarch should have “a voice on current political controversies” outnumber those opposed by 49% to 38%.

Dimbleby also reveals that Prince Charles is setting up an academy school in a poor area of south London through his charities, and that “informal discussions” are under way between Downing Street and Buckingham Palace about the abolition of the centuries-old ban on a Catholic monarch — prompting fears “at Buckingham Palace and Clarence House” about the disestablishment of the Church of England.

Although Charles’s official spokesman yesterday denied any knowledge of discussions about his role as king, Dimbleby is regarded as an authoritative reflection of the views of the prince and those around him. The broadcaster has been close to the Prince of Wales since writing his authorised biography in which Charles admitted adultery with Camilla Parker Bowles, now his wife.

He writes that Charles, as king, would not speak out as provocatively as he does now on subjects ranging from education to climate change.

“But those who believe that Britain needs an ‘active’ sovereign for the 21st century claim that it would be a waste of his experience and accumulated wisdom for it to be straitjacketed within the confines of an annual Christmas message or his weekly audience with the prime minister,” says Dimbleby.

“Prince Charles, they continue, would inherit a very different world from that bequeathed to his mother. Because the ideological chasms of the 20th century have been bridged, today’s politicians are driven to compete for power by packaging together marginally different varieties of the same produce as they scrabble for votes on the centre ground. It is thus virtually impossible to have any horizon beyond the next election. As a result, there is a vacuum of national leadership.

“In such circumstances, they argue, it would be missing a trick for him to be required to take a vow of monarchical silence. Believing that he has his finger on the popular pulse, they think that he would be uniquely placed to offer reassurance and hope to the British people.”

Dimbleby reveals: “This is not an issue that the prince likes to discuss in such terms even with his most trusted intimates.” But “he has latterly intimated to one or two of his confidants that he would like his present role to evolve so that once he inherits the crown, his knowledge and experience, his contacts and his unique ability to ‘convene’ others in the national interest could be put to good use rather than go to waste”.

Writing in today’s News Review, Dimbleby says Charles would speak “for the nation and to the nation” in a role similar to that of the Irish and German presidents.

“Although these heads of state are required to be politically non-partisan, they are otherwise free to speak their mind in public. The two most recent Irish incumbents, Mary Robinson and Mary McAleese, have made careful but notable use of this dispensation.”

McAleese has recently attracted controversy in Ireland by publicly airing her views on drink, immigration and climate change.

Reactions to the idea of a “presidential king” are likely to be mixed. A senior cabinet minister said last week that Charles has “an amazing range of interests and none of them is superficial. It would be a shame to lose these” when he became king.

However, Lord Taverne, the Liberal Democrat peer, indicated the depth of feeling the issue can arouse when he told the BBC’s Today programme on Friday: “I think Prince Charles should use the occasion of his 60th birthday to pronounce a vow of silence on issues of public controversy because it is incompatible with the role of a constitutional monarch. If he doesn’t, he will certainly bring the monarchy into disrepute.”

Charles triggered a strong reaction from traditionalists 14 years ago when he told Dimbleby that, as king, he would wish to become “defender of faith” rather than “defender of the faith”, the traditional coronation oath in which the new monarch swears to uphold the established church.

Dimbleby now says the prince’s respect for other faiths “does not mean that he foresees any difficulty in swearing to become ‘defender of the faith’ ” as the supreme governor of the Church of England.

The broadcaster asks, however, “whether he will have an established church to defend”. He reveals that proposals to abolish laws that bar Catholics from the monarchy have “reached the stage where informal discussions are now under way between No 10 and Buckingham Palace” and are under “active consideration” for inclusion in the next Labour election manifesto.

It was revealed two months ago that Chris Bryant, the Labour MP, had at the prime minister’s request drawn up constitutional reforms that include abolition of the anti-Catholic provisions in the 1701 Act of Settlement. No Catholic may inherit the crown and any member of the royal family who marries a Catholic is barred from the succession unless his or her spouse agrees to renounce the Church of Rome.

“According to my source at Downing Street,” Dimbleby writes, “the government is determined to get rid of this ‘bizarre’ piece of discrimination.” Abolition, however, “is rapidly emerging as a deeply divisive political issue — though it has yet to burst into the open”.

He says reformers argue that it would not entail the demise of the established church. But “the sceptics — both at Buckingham Palace and Clarence House — fear it would inevitably mean ‘disestablishment’ by the back door”.

Dimbleby reports that the issue is dividing senior Labour politicians because of its significance to the independence referendum proposed by Alex Salmond, the Scottish Nationalist leader and first minister, for 2010.

Labour supporters of scrapping the act believe the move is vital to prevent large-scale Catholic defections to the nationalist cause in a referendum, but other senior party figures fear it would damage relations between Catholics and Protestants in Scottish cities.

Salmond said last night the act should be consigned to “the dustbin of history”.

The YouGov poll finds that 62% of respondents back scrapping the bar on a Catholic succession, compared with just 19% who oppose change.

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