THE PROBLEM with Prince Charles writing to government ministers is that it might encourage similarly important people to pen advice.
"Dear Prime Minister, As acting head of packaging at John Lewis's Cheadle branch, I thought I would write to you about the ongoing crisis in the Middle East."
After a 10-year campaign, the Guardian has secured the Prince's priceless epistles, written between September 2004 and March 2005.
The Conservative-led Government, obsessed with cutting public expenditure, spent £274,481.16 up to March last year on legal fees to block publication. Even decent, old-fashioned Tories would argue that the 16p could have fed a poor family for a week.
The letters include compelling remarks on Shackleton's Antarctic huts, public procurement of beef, and the architecture of Bishopsgate Goods Yard. On the prickly question of badgers, perhaps surprisingly for a royal, the Prince favoured killing the beasts, though he doesn't say if this should be done while dressing up in fancy duds and blundering aboot on horseback.
He is, on the other paw, fully behind the Patagonian Toothfish, if only as foodstuff for the "poor old albatross". And don't get him started on herbal medicine.
All citizens are entitled to write to the Prime Minister and other top comedians. The difference with Prince Charles is that he expects to be listened to. He talks of hearing things on "my own grapevine", implying he has sources, like a top journalist or somebody similarly significant.
As a bottom journalist - not the term I was looking for, frankly - I've two words of advice for Prince Charles: shut up. But a top aide suggested that was unlikely to happen. So we see the Prince flourishing his fountain pen to type: "And another thing ..."
Or picture him pacing back and forth in the spare room dictating: "Change that however to a moreover, will you? Or make it morever. Is that a word? Damned well should be. I shall mention that."
The problem with Charles isn't that his subjects see him as a caricature of himself. It's that he does too. He apologises for his "old-fashioned views" and writes of hesitating to bother anyone. Not enough hesitating, mate.
He says retailers "have the farmers in an arm lock and we will continue to shoot ourselves in the foot!" Yes, on the other hand, they won't have a leg to stand on. At least he restricts himself to one exclamation mark.
Writing to the Blairs (Tony and Cherie of that ilk) before a forthcoming reception at Clarence House, he strikes an almost melancholic note: "[I] do understand that you both have to slip off after my speech which I will now be giving before dinner." It's as if he'd noticed punters were clearing off after eating his nosh and before he started holding forth.
Mr Blair, for his part, replied in one letter: "I always value and look forward to your views - but perhaps particularly on agricultural topics." In other words: "Bang on about badgers, if you must. But belt up about the economy and helicopters. Not to mention Patagonian Toothfish and flippin' Antarctic huts."
Other Labour ministers were more sycophantic. Charles Clarke, then Education Secretary, signed off : "I have the honour to be, Sir, Your Royal Highness's most humble and obedient servant." To be fair, I once signed off like that to my bank manager.
Labour MP Paul Flynn has described Charles as "the lobbyist supreme in the land". Perhaps that should be added to his titles: Supreme Lobbyist; Commodore of Correspondence; or Monarch of the Pen, as our headline had it.
Arguably, the Prince made a titular of himself by writing down the stuff in this head. In an editorial, this newspaper noted that he must have known the risks. Prime among these was mockery, the principal pillar that props up our democracy.
There's also the constitutional issue of interfering with the democratically elected government of the day. I use the word "democratically" in its Westminster sense as "rule by the vicious on behalf of the selfish".
No wonder the Tory Government is tightening up the Freedom of Information Act to prevent further royal leaks. They force-feed us with irony: amending freedom of information legislation to ensure less freedom of information.
However, I fancy we haven't seen the last of this sort of thing. There must be material more incriminating than Charles's take on toothfish. In one letter, the Prince says sorry "for writing at such length." Yup, you will be, mate.
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