More Iraq war, more badger killing, British Prince Charles urged Tony Blair

Tony Blair's bloody Iraq war, cartoon

Prince Charles ‘black spider’ memos reveal lobbying of Tony Blair

Publication of royal’s letters following freedom of information battle reveals correspondence with PM on helicopters, farming and complementary medicine …

Read the letters in full

A cache of secret memos sent by Prince Charles to senior UK ministers has finally been published, following a 10-year freedom of information battle between the Guardian and the government. The letters reveal that Charles lobbied ministers, including the former prime minister Tony Blair, on a wide range of issues, including agriculture, the armed forces, architecture and homeopathy. …

The letters, published at 4pm on Wednesday, reveal how Charles lobbied Tony Blair when he was prime minister to replace Lynx military helicopters. Charles complained: “I fear this one more example of our armed forces being asked to do an extremely challenging job [the Iraq war] without the necessary resources.” …

The relationship between Charles and the prime minister was so close that Blair even asked Charles directly what he wanted him to do about encouraging the use of herbal medicines in the UK, which some scientists believe do not work. Charles complained that an EU directive was having a “deleterious effect on the complementary medicine sector by effectively outlawing the use of certain herbal extracts”.

He wrote: “You rightly asked me what could be done about it,” and said he would ask an aide at his complementary health charity to produce “a detailed briefing … so that your advisers can look at it”. Blair replied: “We can do quite a lot here … we will be consulting with your contacts and others on the best way to do this – we simply cannot have burdensome regulation here.”

This video says about itself:

Counting young badgers in province Drenthe (Holland)

June 4 2013: there are ten badgers on this sett: female with three youngsters, female with four youngsters and a very big male.

The Guardian article continues:

In another letter to Blair, Charles attacked the government’s proposed programme for tackling bovine tuberculosis, warning: “There is no evidence that this will include a commitment to deal with the badger problem in the immediate future.” …

In one stridently expressed and explicit policy demand, he said: “I urge you to look again at introducing a proper cull of badgers where it is necessary. I for one cannot understand how the ‘badger lobby’ seem to mind not at all about the slaughter of thousands of expensive cattle, and yet object to a managed cull of an overpopulation of badgers. To me this is intellectually dishonest.”

Tony Blair resigns as Middle East peace envoy. Former British PM has written to UN chief to confirm resignation from job he took in 2007: here.