Prince Charles, Honours & ‘Old Corruption’
Stories about how Prince Charles has raised money to restore and run one of his properties Dumfries House in Scotland have been in the media for a while and another episode appeared on the front page of the Sunday Times on 5th September.
The stories invariably seem to involve his currently ex-office manager Michael Fawcett. Both Fawcett and HRH of course deny they have been doing anything wrong and quite possibly in legal terms they may not have been.
Indeed Prince Charles’s long running efforts to keep the historic Dumfries House in a decent state are in themselves worthy of note.
How the money is raised however is another matter. In the current case a Saudi businessman M.Mahfouz is reported to have donated considerable sums and in return was promised (and received) an honorary CBE from Prince Charles himself.
The Gong in itself is meaningless of course except that holding a CBE adds to an individual’s standing in some circles(not I note on Tottenham High Rd)and apparently Mahfouz thought it would help him to obtain British citizenship which he reportedly wanted for unknown but quite probably business related reasons.
If as I and many socialists think the honours system should be scrapped since it adds nothing at all of worth the story underlines the point.
There is however a more serious angle. If indeed the honour was received for donations given this suggests a political system belonging to the pre-democratic age before the 1832 Reform Act where honours and appointments were handed out as a matter of patronage rather than for any genuine endeavour.
It maybe that the Royal Family has never really left that age but Britain is supposed to have done.
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