The war of the Waleses - Prince and Princesses of Wales

National Review, Nov 21, 1994 by Anthony Lejeune

What has chiefly provoked disillusionment, however, is not the MPs' private misdeeds but their collective behavior. People were genuinely shocked by the ruthless manner in which the Maastricht Treaty was forced through Parliament, contrary to the known wishes of the electorate, and are increasingly outraged by the surrender to Brussels of rights and freedoms which they had behaved inalienable. They resent the complacency, the evasions, the sheer incomprehension which so many politicians display.

Backbench members of Parliament, having yielded their independence, no longer fulfill their duty of keeping governments in check. Neither Prime Minister John Major nor the new leader of the Labour Party, Tony Blair, seems overburdened with political philosophy. Decent enough they may be, but they could hardly inspire a wet sponge. Labour's tacticians have been seeking advice from the spin doctors of the Clinton Administration, which seems hke consulting Lizzie Borden about family values: and the managers of the Conservative Party, like Californians determined to ignore the San Andreas fault, keep sliding around the potentially catastrophic question of Europe.

Labour, at the moment, appears set to win the next election - still two years off - not because its policies are very popular, or even clear, but simply because the government has accumulated so much antipathy. Britain's economy is moving rather well, and the Conservatives believe they should benefit: but when the chancellor of the exchequer says there can be no tax cuts (there have been large tax rises) until the government borrowing requirement comes down, he talks as if the borrowing requirement were a fact of nature for which the government bears no responsibility.

British voters, like American voters, are angry. But not With the Waleses. Compared to the politicians' bickering, the Charles and Diana story comes as a welcome relief. Here at least are two flesh-and-blood human beings, loving and suffering, with passions, jealousies, and affections which we can all understand.