Tell that to James II
I see a lot of negative opinions on Charles here but AFAIK his image is fairly rehabilitated in the UK. I think it is mostly an American audience that largely only remembers him as having “cheated” on Diana (in a relationship that seemed to frankly have never been very monogamous) and held a grudge ever since. He’s certainly not up for a sainthood, but all the profiles I’ve read on him in the last 10+ years largely say he has been a very workhorse royal largely patronizing uncontroversial charities and doing other functions without any serious drama.
Of course. It was just a figure of speech.
On the other hand, Elizabeth has some agency here. She could technically abdicate for health readons or ‘retire’ if she wanted to. However, retirement has never been part of Britain’s royal tradition. She could abdicate, but I don’t think a British monarch has ever abdicated the throne due to age. Edward did it for love.
Knowing what I do of Elizabeth, she’d never abdicate the throne. She might work hard to stay healthy to keep Charles off the throne as long as she can, though.
Actually, not so much. And it goes way beyond embarrassing revelations about his sex life.
Charles has been under fire in recent years for promoting homeopathy along with other forms of health quackery. It’s bad enough that he’s in a position to have a deleterious influence on public opinion. He’s also had the ability to lobby British political leaders in secret for his pet ideas and projects - and gotten a sympathetic hearing.
http://dcscience.net/2015/05/15/prince-charles-letters-confirm-that-hes-not-fit-to-be-king/
Well, he has to maintain the image of the ‘Royal Laying On Of Hands’ to cure scrofula (the King’s Evil), so homeopathy is right up the same street.
Most of those controversies seems fairly tabloid manufactured. Advocacy for homeopathy isn’t criminal or immoral, just not that bright. The idea that he has untoward “access” is…well, a consequence of having a monarchy. The solution for that is to not have a hereditary monarchy.
Opinion polling in the UK shows Charles is generally seen favorably by a majority of the country most of the time for the last 20 years.
Public opinion of Prince Charles improves in latest royal favourability poll | YouGov
The “embarrassing revelations about his sex life” sounds incredibly American-centric and dated. He hasn’t been unfaithful in decades, has been with the same women since the 90s, is married to her, and she herself is a working Royal. This isn’t 1880, most people understand that people have affairs and get divorces.
Are you including The Guardian and the British Medical Journal on your list of “tabloids”?
Promoting a huge array of alt med quackery (also including iridology, “detoxification”, reflexology and Gerson therapy for cancer, which involves taking a boatload of “detox” supplements and daily coffee enemas, not only shown to be ineffective but causing much worse outcomes for cancer patients), while successfully lobbying the government to delay regulation of herbal drugs, goes beyond “not that bright” into the realm of being destructive to public health.
I’m not aware that the Queen has come under fire for secretly lobbying government officials to support the kind of goofy and dangerous policies that Charles has.
I mentioned that predominantly U.K.-focused scandal only in reference to your claim that he’s been “rehabilitated”. The great majority of Americans, minus the small contingent of those fascinated by royals, couldn’t care less whose underwear he wanted to live in.
You seem to have a personal animus against Prince Charles, which is fine, I’m just saying he has largely rehabilitated his image in Britain, as evidence by years of generally above water favorable/unfavorable opinion polling. Someone who dislikes Charles will, of course, focus quite a bit on all negative press about him. But my point was simply that the public at large has largely turned favorable towards him for a good period of time now, I don’t believe he has had lower favorable than unfavorable in over 20 years (he has fallen below 50% favorable off and on, but the unfavorable number generally didn’t top it.)
I generally don’t care to defend Charles or anything he does, he has little relevance to my life–I am simply stating the reality that he has a generally favorable public opinion and has largely rehabilitated his image from its lows. There are individuals who will always view him unfavorably–The Guardian for example is a Republican paper and famously has been for years. There are also people who have viewed QE2 unfavorably her entire reign (because some people are just anti-monarchy–which, BTW, I’m very much against monarchies and am glad we don’t have one here–so more power to them.)
This is just silly.
I couldn’t care less about him personally. His promotion of useless alt med helps place many at risk, including those who would forego evidence-based, effective cancer therapy in favor of coffee enemas. As for homeopathy and other grotesque nonsense, you may think it’s harmless, in which case I’ve got a website for you.
As for Charles’ lukewarm support in the U.K…
“…a survey by BMG Research reveals that nearly half of the British public wants Prince Charles to step aside and give the throne to his oldest son when Queen Elizabeth II passes away.”
So why do so?
Well, how did you become King, then?
The two time-honoured approaches are to either slaughter the incumbent on the field of battle or be the incumbent’s oldest son.
Given the results that the paper in ballot box approach have produced recently you’ve gotta admit they have their merits.
ISWYDT.
I’m not defending Charles I’m correcting incorrect things you keep saying, I’m just pointing out that most people don’t care about the thing you seem overly concerned about–which is Charles’s occasional and fairly irrelevant support of alternative medicine, and that the weight of public opinion has seen him largely viewed in a favorable light for some twenty years or more. Royals have literally dozens and dozens of “causes” they support, Charles also supports things like organic farming and has a peculiar take on architecture. One can argue that it is inappropriate to use Royal status to promote such causes, but that is simply the system they have in the United Kingdom. It could be corrected by abolishing the monarchy (which I think would be frankly reasonable), or curtailing the portfolio of allowable activities by the Royal family (which would be more difficult, it is hard to stop people who have relatively robust personal wealth from patronizing things.) You’re presenting an inaccurate view that Charles is a deeply scandal plagued figure because of some support he has put forth for alternative medicine, which is a deeply gray area to begin with. It should also be noted he never forced anyone out of their job over it either, so that claim was not even factual.
You haven’t shown them to be “incorrect”; they’re just irrelevant from your bizarre perspective.
Most people would view deceiving desperate patients with cancer quackery like “Gerson therapy” to be despicable. You evidently don’t.
So it goes.
Since you bring it up, it takes a great deal of credulity to conclude that pressure from Charles’ supporters had nothing to do with Professor Edzard Ernst being forced out of his complementary medicine professorship at the University of Exeter, and to believe the claim that Charles was completely unaware of his personal secretary having filed a complaint about Ernst with the university.
You mean the Professor who violated a professional standard for confidentiality in writing publicly about a paper given to him for pre-publication review, and who was investigated for that (and ultimately the university chose not to fire him, but his department did get defunded and he then retired)? The same professor that afterward made it a life’s mission to publish anti-Charles polemics because he blamed Charles for his own professional misconduct?
Yes, I am going to be more than skeptical of his claims.
Lots of people believe in alternative medicine, including lots of rich people who promote alternative medicine. You are attempting to cast it as a moral failing to believe things that are wrong–under those grounds the entire world’s religious population would be guilty of that same failing. You also are simply wrong in thinking that the alternative medicine stuff is a big deal in public opinion, there is no evidence that it is. This is clearly a topic you have a personal obsession over, but most people do not care if a rich royal believes in taking herbs or crystal healing or what have you. Gwyneth Paltrow has been making millions of dollars on alternative medicine for years now (which is more than you can say of Charles, who doesn’t run any alternative medicine businesses AFAIK.)
Yeah, she’s an idiot too and deservedly has become a laughing stock for her views and the crap she sells, so I don’t think you presented a good counter-example, at all.
You probably misunderstood my point then. I was not mentioning Gwyneth Paltrow as someone who is lauded, but simply pointing out that it is not particularly novel for a wealthy person to believe in, and promote, woo. I think the reputation the wealthy / powerful person has is usually not tightly tied to that unless it becomes a dominant part of their public persona.
It is my opinion, based on 20 years of positive opinion polling in the UK, that most Brits either do not care or don’t pay enough attention to know or care about Charle’s promotion of alternative medicine. My original point is that Charles’s public opinion had largely been rehabilitated after the 1990s, which is largely born out by evidence. Jackmanni’s claim is that “no it isn’t, see this stuff about alternative medicine.” He is promoting a conclusion based on a fact that doesn’t actually prove his conclusion, it is absolutely true Charles promotes alternative medicine, but it is not true that it means he has failed to rehabilitate his image.
In the case of Paltrow, I strongly doubt that. Quick, what’s the first thing you think about when her name comes up, vagina scented candles or her latest blockbuster (which must’ve been at least 15 years ago, before her reputation went down the drain because of her woo)?
Someone is not a Marvel fan, I see 
. When I think of Paltrow I mostly think of Shakespeare in Love, but I think most people probably see her as Pepper Potts these days. The woo side business is probably a secondary thought.
I mostly think of her movies, but I often am on a 10 year delay in terms of movie watching.