We’ll miss our reticent Queen when she’s gone

How we are going to miss the (mostly) unopinionated Queen as she increasingly withdraws from public life in favour of her heirs. She may not have relinquished her royal duties, but her noted recent absences from a trip to Northern Ireland and the opening reception of COP26, are a harbinger of what’s to come.

Instead of the diminutive figure of HM making diplomatic progress through the dignitaries, more and more, we will get Charles and William marching to their soapboxes.

This week we’re going to see a lot of the pair as they pop up at COP on the eco warpath, Charles, as Great Green chief, opening the summit, and William only slightly less important as Earthshot Prize pioneer. They and their wives will grace events throughout the Glasgow climate change conference, having set out their stalls in the preceding weeks with campaigning zeal.

The Queen, who on doctors’ advice will appear by video link only, supports the cause too – we know that because she was overheard at the opening of the Welsh parliament saying it was “really irritating” when global leaders talk but do not take action on the climate. But she so rarely reveals what she thinks that there’s a media storm over any titbits, like the above, or when she let it be known, ever so subtly, on the eve of the Scottish referendum that Britain was better together.

Such reticence has been a hallmark of her monarchy for 70 years, but even before she is succeeded, her numbers one and two in-line are changing the rules. 

It’s not the championing of issues close to their hearts that departs from tradition – Prince Philip was associated with animal conservation efforts and served as president of the World Wildlife Fund, Princess Anne has her horses and lighthouses, the Cambridges do good work for mental health, and Camilla has spoken out on violence against women.

But there is something about the climate bandwagon and how it has been jumped on by Charles and William that is at odds with royal protocol.

The Prince of Wales, who has been banging on about organic farming and conservation most of his adult life, long ago determined to be a different kind of sovereign to his mother. He has given us his insights, whether invited or not, on everything from modern architecture “monstrous carbuncle”) to badger culls, lobbying the Blair government for more of the latter. It could be said that his passions have formed his personality but he has allowed them, on the environment, in particular, to cloud his judgement.

The Queen knows her limitations – constitutional and intellectual – and does not stray into blatant political territory.

Charles has set himself no such constraints. Last month he allowed a BBC journalist within the grounds of one of his many homes to explain how he cut his carbon footprint by feeding his Aston Martin with cheese and wine.

On its own, that would just be dotty old Charles, but in the same interview, he threw his weight behind climate activists whose antics have alienated the majority of the British public. In 2011, Charles told us we had 96 months to save the world; if he weren’t a heartbeat away from being head of state, he would be dismissed as a harmless nutter.

Now William is at it too. Though a more credible advocate than his brother and sister-in-law, who took their private plane all the way from California to New York to urge climate action, he has overstepped his brief. On the night of his inaugural Earthshot Prize, William vowed to “find the solutions to repair our plane”, a task beyond the world’s leaders, let alone a chap with just his geography degree to guide him.

A few weeks before, the young royal said he wanted “the outdoor life, nature, the environment” that he had enjoyed to be there for his children.

Watching him as he made his alarming predictions, I waited for a challenge from the reporter. How did he know the earth would be wiped out in a generation? Where was his evidence? His learning? His expertise?

If our two future royals approached the topics that interest them with greater caution, and better science, it would be more befitting of their supposedly neutral status. But on the climate, their pincer movement is not just political; it is on the “panic now” political extreme. Charles talks in apocalyptic jargon of catastrophes; he describes farming and fishing subsidies as “crazy”, “insane”, and “perverse”.

The extraordinary privilege of his position as a royal provides him with a pulpit but not a licence to preach this stuff.

Today, the subject is the climate which, while popular, is not uncontroversial. What if our leading royals seized on other, more divisive areas? Although the British crown’s clout was curtailed in the 17th century, the current incumbent is not without influence.

The Queen knows her place and keeps her own counsel, but that is a fading convention. We are at a crossroads, where our future monarchs drop the silence bit of their unwritten contract and demand to be heard. They may steal the limelight at COP26 next week, but soon we will yearn for a return to the “have you come far” era of regal engagement.