Revealed: the Prince’s ‘black spider’ letters

THE Prince of Wales launched a three-pronged attack on the Government’s Human Rights Act in one of his most overtly political campaigns, The Times has learnt. The Prince personally lobbied the Prime Minister, wrote a series of letters to the Lord Chancellor and ordered his own staff to gather evidence from the military about the impact of the new laws. He scrawled the word “rubbish” on a letter to him from Lord Irvine of Lairg, then the Lord Chancellor, who had written to him in 2001 with a robust defence of the legislation.

A copy of the letter, complete with the Prince’s distinctive “black spider” handwriting, has been passed to The Times. It confirms the evidence in the High Court last week that the Prince regularly corresponds with ministers on a range of contentious issues from the environment to international development.

But the sharp exchange of views on the Human Rights Act, which came into effect in 2000, will reinforce the claim by a former aide that the Prince deliberately operates as a “political dissident”. It will also add weight to the criticism from some MPs that he interferes in the party political arena: the Human Rights Act divided the Commons and was opposed by the Conservatives. Both claims have been denied by Clarence House.

In a strange twist, it was the Human Rights Act that was deployed by Lord Irvine’s successor as Lord Chancellor to allow the Prince to marry last year in a civil ceremony which, under the Marriage Act, was prohibited for the Royal Family.

In a letter in June 2001, Prince Charles, the Colonel-in-Chief of more than 20 regiments, warned Lord Irvine that there would be a sharp rise in litigation in the public services, from the police to the Armed Forces, because of the human rights legislation.

Lord Irvine, the head of the judiciary, brusquely rejected the Prince’s argument in a letter in August: “There is in fact scant hard evidence that people overall are more litigious,” he wrote. “There has been no upward trend in the work of the civil courts over recent years.”

The Prince, who is engaged in a high-profile civil action alleging breach of copyright by a newspaper that published extracts from his travel journal, scribbled an initial response all over Lord Irvine’s letter in his spidery black handwriting.

His handwritten comments were addressed to Lieutenant-Commander William Entwisle, of the Royal Navy, his military equerry, who was instructed to show it to Stephen Lamport, his private secretary. The Prince wrote to Commander Entwisle: “William, I want to return to the change over the Human Rights Act as it affects the Armed Forces in particular. Could you collect evidence of all the problems afflicting them (by talking to the) commanding officers of my regiments and your colleagues running ships? Lord Irvine should know of the aspects of this legislation which are causing unnecessary problems etc.”

He contradicted the assertion by Lord Irvine that society could not be more conscious of individual rights but less conscious of individual responsibil-ity. The Prince wrote: “He may find it more difficult to conceive of, but it is becoming a society that is less conscious of individual responsibility.”

In a second missive obtained by The Times, written in February 2002 — which indicates the length of the correspondence — the Prince returned to the subject in what he admitted was a “rather over-long letter”. It ran for almost five pages. He wrote: “I simply do not accept, as you suggest in your last letter, that rights and responsibilities are marching forward hand in hand.

“The Human Rights Act is only about the rights of indi-viduals (I am unable to find a list of social responsibilities attached to it) and this betrays a fundamental distortion in social and legal thinking.”

Expressing his fears about the effects of the legislation on the Armed Forces, he said that he had heard that soldiers could now sue superior officers who made poor decisions in the heat of battle which resulted in them being wounded.

“In short, why should individuals continue to operate in the way which has always made our Armed Forces so capable and professional if a different set of rules based on individual rights makes the potential penalties too great?” The letter disclosed that the Prince had raised the issues with Tony Blair, whom he sees regularly.

“As the Prime Minister has warned me, I am sure you will not agree with much of this, but I should welcome the chance to talk through these issues with you privately in more detail when we next have the chance to meet.”

One Cabinet minister, who had been regularly targeted by the Prince since Labour came to power, said: “He relays information he has received in his role as Colonel-in-Chief of many regiments or through his charities.

“He is always polite and argues his case. But equally we have to put him right and he then usually goes away.”

By Andrew Pierce