I thought I'd open this one up since it's currently before the UK Supreme Court. Should Prince Charles's memos be made public? If they are, how damaging might they be? I don't think his mum, the Queen of Papua New Guinea and a few other countries, is going to be too happy about this.

If you haven't a clue as to what I'm going on about have a look at :

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_spider_memos

Hopefully this thread can survive a bit of rough and tumble and not end up getting locked as threads on the Queen of Papua New Guinea and her family can get a bit boisterous.

GT93 wrote:Should Prince Charles's memos be made public?.

No.

Private and confidential correspondence should remain that way.
It's none of our business.

OT......................

Yes ...... Any letters or memos sent to elected members of parliament HAVE to be in the public domain to avoid the possiblity of corruption

I kind of feel sorry for Prince Charles if he wrote them assuming they would never appear in public. But part of me says he should be well used to things being leaked. Surely he exercised some caution in writing them?

But there might be some really damaging material amongst all these memos. Presumably the Queen has already been briefed on the worst bits.

I understand the judgment isn't expected to be issued until next year. That suggests to me that the decision might go either way and isn't a slam dunk for one side.

I suspect if this case was in a jurisdiction other than the UK, then the judges would instinctively side more towards disclosure. Fortunately it's way less likely that Prince Charles would pen a black spider memo to a government in one of the former colonies.

old-timer wrote:

GT93 wrote:Should Prince Charles's memos be made public?.

No.

Private and confidential correspondence should remain that way.
It's none of our business.

OT......................

I agree 100% - but with one proviso, and that would be if they had been used to obtain personal monetary gain.

I suppose as a Citizen of my Country I have every right to send letters to my MP or even my PM about things that concern me. I suppose Prince Charles has those same rights ??

You cannot have "Private & Confidential" correspondence with an MP ..... any letter/memo written to an MP has to be to the public he is representing in his capacity as MP, and therefore cannot be private, even if you are the Prince of somewhere west of Bristol

Actually you can have private correspondence with your MP however should said MP decide that it is in the public interest to disclose that you wrote that is his decision. One must be aware that that could happen. In the above case I would think that a 'D' notice could and probably would be placed on these memos in that case we have to wait for 50 years before they can be considered for general publication and I doubt he ( HRH ) will live that long so he won't ,care.

Is there an enormous downside for the Prince of the area west of Bristol if his memos are published? There might be serious problems for him. I can't imagine UK judges permitting the memos being published if it would raise serious questions about the Prince being fit to succeed his mum.

They would have to be pretty damning to make him less "fit" than most of his predecessors GT

KP wrote:- "Actually you can have private correspondence with your MP however should said MP decide that it is in the public interest to disclose that you wrote that is his decision."

Then it is not Private & Confidential is it?

Khun Paul wrote:Actually you can have private correspondence with your MP however should said MP decide that it is in the public interest to disclose that you wrote that is his decision.

Quite right KP.
This is taken from the DFP Freedom of Information Staff Handbook:

MPs and their constituents do not have the same confidential relationship as a
doctor and patient or lawyer and client. However, MPs often assure
constituents that their dealing with them are confidential and there is usually in
any event a legitimate expectation by a constituent that information disclosed
in their dealings with their MP will be treated as confidential. This means that
letters sent on behalf of a constituent may be subject to a duty of confidence

Presumably Charlie has no rights to confidentiality, he should have known that when he was writing to Ministers who are renowned for being grasses to suit themselves.

OT.................

WEll if Betty is still head of Papua and Islands East of Australia, then she will probably be on record for another

horrible anus year

I hope that was a 'mistype' Wazza otherwise sound's painful

He's a Parra for heaven sake, he loves pain. Other Peoples

Well I understand we're still waiting for the judgment in the black spider memos case. Meanwhile here's a link to an article highlighting how an activist Charles III is going to be a problem and a big change from his mum:

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfre ... neutrality

It seems the BBC has chickened out from showing a documentary (Reinventing the Royals) negative on Prince Charles. Surely this damages the BBC's credibility? Why is this a no go area?

I think if his black spider memos are published he's going to be in serious difficulty even before getting the big job. But I doubt conservative elderly public school educated judges are going to rule against the Charles in this case.

Wont even get to.page 5 soon as Prince Andrew named underage US scandal.

Ha ha. For now I don't have much confidence in the allegations against Prince Andrew. Still it's fun reading about the allegations and who he hung out with in the past. It would seem that the average half cut guy sitting in a bar late at night in Udon with a couple of cute Thai girls is a better fella than some of Prince Andrew's friends. Let's drink to that.

The black spider memo judgment can't be too far away.

Meanwhile even the Queen is now reportedly concerned that there will be big changes when individual Charles III is crowned:

http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2015 ... e-of-wales

If I was the Queen and those were my thoughts I'd give serious consideration to abdicating as Queen of NZ etc. and hanging around to advise my oldest son. There seem to be no signs of that happening soon.

From 93's link above:

A Clarence House spokeswoman said at the weekend: “This is not an official biography, therefore, we have no comment to make.”

It is understood that Mayer was given no special access to write her book.

Ms Mayer could write what she wants, couldn't she?