My good wife Charlotte this morning accused the TV programme “Charles: The Meddling Prince” of deliberately stoking up controversy by asserting that we stand on the edge of some sort of constitutional precipice because of Charles’s unfortunate habit of sounding off about things he’s not qualified to sound off about.   And also, says she, why are we all of a sudden surprised that he has servants…and uses them?  She seems to think that a lot of television is overstating matters just to make it more fun to watch.

I only mention this because it is so rare that my wife speaks out against things in this way that I feel she must have a point.  “What is Charles supposed to do?” she says. “Just take the money and go skiing all his life, or actually try and do something useful?”.  My mind is drawn to the likes of Bono, Sting and George Michael, not to mention Martin Sheen, Michael Douglas and George Clooney, all of whom feel qualified to make political statements despite not (to my knowledge) having either held office or studied PPE at Magdalen College, Oxford.  Of those it seems only Bono (in part) and Michael Douglas have a point worth listening to – but then I’ve cheekily allowed myself to make that judgement on my own.

My feeling is that it should, on balance, be left to us to decide, as it is with politicians or pop stars, whether someone is talking knackers or not.  I don’t support the monarchy in principle, but if the monarchy is to exist I’m not convinced of the value of forbidding them to interact with the populace or engage in the problems in our society.  I remain equally unconvinced, even after hearing young Mr Johann Hari telling us all to run for the hills, that Prince Charles is really a dangerous man.  In addition, you don’t make a decision about your constitutional future based on the personality of one particular incumbent.  The question isn’t whether Charles is fit to be King, but whether we should have a monarchy based on succession by birth.  If the decision is that we should, then it seems to me that Charles is not only fit to be King, but rather well qualified to be.

But what of the initial marital accusation, that a lot of television is striving a little too hard to convince us that something is seriously amiss?  Difficult one, because something clearly is, but I agree that it’s not always what they are talking about. 

It’s true that recent Panoramas have been positively hyperbolic about how ghastly and awful a certain story they are covering is, when in reality…does anyone remember the bungs documentary, the plastic surgery “scandal”, last night’s “murder could have been prevented” story?   What about the Iraq War, the Cockle Pickers, human trafficking, Halliburton?  Increasingly, it seems, feature films are stepping into the breach with films like Farenheit 9/11 (Michael Moore, 2004) Iraq in Fragments (James Longley, 2006), Ghosts (Nick Broomfield, 2006), Enron, the Smartest Guys in the Room (Alex Gibney, 2005), and leaving the scraps for telly. 

Thank goodness for Adam Curtis, (whose films are released in cinemas as features in the US) for saving British television’s bacon when it comes to current affairs.  For now.  His The Trap is on BBC2 on Sunday nights, no doubt repeated all over the place in the week.