http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2015 ... ider-memos

It's hard to imagine anybody else would have gotten such a favourable response...





Salmond's right about Charlie having the right to send letters and that they should be private like anyone else's, but not when he's seeking pubic money. More public money.

I believe the salutation is standard fair when corresponding with the Royal Family. In fact I think it used to be fairly common in many forms of correspondence, not just to royalty. I've certainly read similar salutations in novels written in the 17th - 19th centuries, when people correspond with each other.

As to the letters, can't anyone write to MPs and ask for help? If he was asking for assistance with for the soil association, I don't see the problem, the same with the castle. He asked if additional funds could be made available, in one case they were explicitly rejected. The Mey food is a little different, but again, he was asking for assistance, he wasn't demanding special assistance, because he was Prince Charles.

In companies I've worked for, we have applied for state funds for research projects on a few occasions, although we haven't applied directly to the 1st Minister, but there again the CEOs didn't know them personally. But they did speak with ministers and civil servants at seminars to try and curry favour, it is part of business.

In the extracts provided, I didn't see anything that other influential business people don't do on a routine basis...

I agree, but it opens him up to all sorts of implications and IIRC he's supposed to stay out of it.

If I had my way we'd bypass Charles and go straight to William.