Taking Sides: Tony Blair vs Prince Charles

Would you have fancied John Major in such a fight?

NOT THIS PART OF THE WE!

Blimey - I didn't know you had a vote!

But then, maybe they despise Prince Charles too. But... do they *fear* him?

Charles, now and forever = epitome of old High Tory (ie tradition over commerce)

Diana c.1985 = epitome of Thatcherite Tory (ie moneymoneymoney fuck tradition)

Charles's expression while watching eg Dire Straits with his then wife = epitome of old High Tory response to what Thatcherism set free (for High Tory Mark Knopfler = Merzbow)

Which is a roundabout way of saying that Charles's cultural values would resonate with High Tories, but he would be less to the tastes of those post-Thatcherite money-grabbing opportunist Tories who have always supported ie intensive farming over organic methods because It Makes More Money A Lot Quicker. Not that I endorse Charles's bonkers ideas on organic farming as more "authentic" and more "in touch with the land" - I simply support organic methods because I think they're better for the environment, end of story - but it's clear that, while Charles's cultural agenda is utterly opposed to New Labour, there is also a modernist, consumerist meme within the post-1979 Tory party that has scarcely more time for it. Reynard you were the one who made me realise just how anti-traditionalist much of Thatcherite Toryism was/is, and I'll never forget that.

(last genuinely traditionalist UK govt = Macmillan / Home 1959-64 = only two MPs still in the Commons, one Tory and one Labour, from that time = enough said I think)

I agree - that's why I suggested that the Tories might despise Mr Windsor as well as Mr Blair.

But are we overstating the 'organic' side of Mr Windsor? Maybe he deliberately overstates it himself, to give himself an organic 'brand image'?

I'm sure he does - after all he started manipulating that image for himself in the late 1980s, the highpoint of the heritage boom which proved, for a few years, a very successful means for the Thatcherites to reassure their heartlands and take attention away from their innate modernism. That his "organic" image is just as contrived and media-driven as were Diana's various images is the most important thing here.

As for whether or not Tories *fear* Blair, I would say, vis-a-vis my earlier comments, that they do for different reasons. The dying breed of High Tories fear his modernism, while the Thatcher-inspired aspirationalists fear that he has stolen their policies successfully enough that they might never get in again.

Yes.

I am still a British subject though, so I've decided to switch my allegiance to Prince Charles.