Princes Charles

We have read many articles like this. Just month after zillions of people were glued to footage of the royal marriage people are now ruminating on the cost of the royals. It reflects our love hate relationship with our ancient establishment. In the case of the much misunderstood Prince Charles I don’t have any reservations whatsoever about his costs. The man is a rural hero. In my experience he has deployed his influence in support of rural England in a number of ways which notwithstanding Stuart Burgesses hugely likeable approach to rural lobbying make him our best “Rural
Advocate” and from my point of view very good value for money.

This level of informal rural championing at a time when all the influence rests with big urban players – I still reflect on the major contribution to the case for Cities made by Lord Rogers compared to the relatively anonymous scribes of the 2004 Rural White Paper, which was nonetheless a good document – is in all too short supply. Should the Rural Coalition seek to bolster it’s good work by recruiting a few more quiet big hitters to sit alongside Lord Taylor as a means of upping our punch?