Saturday, November 05, 2005

Queen 2B


The Duchess of Cornwall, formerly known as Camilla Parker-Bowles, wife of the Princess of Wales is no Princess Diana. But she is a sensitive, smart, caring, imaginative person. She is quietly winning the appreciation and acceptance of many who have met her. If Charles does succeed – the Queen looks remarkably healthy and her mother lived to over 100, so she has some twenty or more years to go – Camilla will make an excellent Queen.

There has been some kafuffle over whether she will actually be Queen or Princess Consort. The deal is clear. Queen she will be. He will be King George VII (he doesn’t intend to take the name King Charles – he fears losing his head) and she will be Queen Camilla.

And good too. Charles obviously is besotted with her and has been all of his adult life. She is in part sexpot (we do remember the leaked phone calls and the sexy notes he has written to her) and in part mummy figure which Elizabeth never really was. She also shares his interests and passions as well as being keen on country life, which Dianna never was. She also has a teasing sense of humour, which was noticed during their visit to Washington and reported on in The Daily Telegraph, of all places.

Charles sometimes appears a bit of nerd, but he has raised huge amounts of money for charity (over £100million), his Princes’ Trust does amazing work and he keeps an eye on issues – quality of rural life, architectural standards, connecting people back to history – which others are not really doing well.

I am neither a monarchist nor a republican – I am an agnostican - but Charles has put up with one tonne of bad press. Give the lad a break and let him be happy with cuddly Camilla.

No comments: