A letter to eurofacts which was published on 11th March 2005.

After its behaviour in the North East referendum, the Electoral Commission’s approval of the Government’s choice of question in the Referendum Bill was hardly unexpected, but the Conservative leadership’s endorsement of the question is extraordinary.

As you say, the question implies the Treaty establishing the Constitution is something remote from the British citizen – like say the treaty which established the International Maritime Organisation – while the reality is totally different.  As big a difference in fact as lies between the two questions, “Do you approve of the marriage of the Prince of Wales to Mrs Parker Bowles?” and “Would you like to marry the Prince of Wales/Mrs Parker Bowles?”

Any referendum question should reflect the reality of the change in the status quo.  In this case the simplest question which does this is: “Do you agree the proposed Constitution for the European Union should apply to the United Kingdom?”  This question, with its focus on the application of the Constitution to the United Kingdom, would also force the Electoral Commission to tackle the issue of informing the people about the main provisions of the Constitution, e.g. Clauses I-6 to I-16.

A letter to the Daily Telegraph which was published on 8th September 1997.

That Earl Spencer should use this solemn occasion to lecture the Royal family on the upbringing of Princes William and Harry is deplorable.  He needs to be reminded that their upbringing is the sole responsibility, in law as in fact, of the Prince of Wales (to whom he did not once refer) and the Queen.

A letter to the Daily Telegraph which was published on 28th November 1995.

One of the most depressing features of the discussion unleashed by the Princess of Wales’s interview is the extraordinary gullibility of a large proportion of the British public as evidenced by the Gallup Poll (report, Nov. 25th).

There was a time not long ago when British people, of all classes, would look askance at someone parading their good works and would look behind a flashing smile and “caring” countenance to see what actually was being achieved.  Still less would the British have been inclined to believe without corroboration allegations against her husband and his family of someone who denied to Sir Robert Fellowes, the Queen’s private secretary and her own brother-in-law, that she had anything to do with the Morton Book.

Following the disclosures in her interview, the Princess is now the subject abroad of coarse jokes and advertisements.  Her undermining of Prince Charles’s position as heir to the Throne is seen by many at home and abroad as a calculated affront to the Queen for whom there is huge respect.

For such senior politicians as Douglas Hurd to support the Princess’s desire to be some sort of roving ambassador for Britain, a kind of alternative monarchy, is the purest folly.  Besides the Crown itself, which represents other countries besides Britain, the best ambassadors for Britain are British goods and British soldiers.  The British people need to put aside the type of self-deluding sentimentality the Princess represents and concentrate, as Prince Charles does, on what will secure our future as a serious nation.

A letter to the Daily Telegraph which was published on 21st May 1990.

Few readers will, I suspect be convinced by Ferdinand Mount’s assurances (article, May 18) that European Union would not affect the position of the Monarchy.

Nor do bland assurances along the same lines from such as Mr Edward Heath and Mr Gerald Kaufman at the time of the Dublin summit carry conviction.  Nobody of course is suggesting that the Queen will simply disappear if Mr Heath’s passionate desire to convert this country into a province of Franco-German Europe is fulfilled.

Nor is it supposed that the Prince of Wales will stop making speeches.  What people see is that the essence of the Queen’s role as Head of State will evaporate as she is replaced in that role by a President of Europe.

In fact the first unification of Germany, after the Franco-Prussian war in 1871, provides an exact illustration.  Bavaria Wurtemberg and Baden were kingdoms which were incorporated into the new Germany.  Their monarchs, while continuing on their thrones until 1918, became of vastly diminished significance.  Today these states are simply provinces of the German Federal Republic.

In Britain the queen symbolises the freedom of the British people alone to make their own laws and employ their armed forces to defend that freedom, as they alone see fit – arguably the essential freedm contained within clause 39 of Magna Carta itself.  When that freedom is abolished the single most important aspect of the Queen’s role is abolished with it.