The royals - Kitty Kelley [220]
He theorized that the differences between men and women were best illustrated by women’s ability to knit. “I do think it shows that girls have an ability to disassociate what they are doing with their hands from what they are doing with their minds,” he told the writer Glenys Roberts. “It is why they are able to carry out repetitive production line jobs which intellectuals find so deadening. I once asked a girl in a factory what she thought about while she was working. She said she thought about her boyfriend, the shopping, the film she was going to see. Fascinating.”
Philip scattered his opinions on a broad canvas, always colorfully, sometimes offensively. The Mother’s Union of Great Britain took exception when he equated prostitutes with wives. In defense of hunting, he had said there was no moral difference between killing animals for sport and killing them for money. “It’s like sex,” he said. “I don’t think a prostitute is more moral than a wife, but they are doing the same thing.”
When a Member of Parliament asked him how he could justify being president of the World Wildlife Fund with his pursuit of blood sports, Philip snapped, “Are you a vegetarian?”
“No,” replied the MP, Anthony Beaumont-Dark.
“Do you eat red meat?” Philip demanded.
“Yes, but that’s a different matter from blasting poor birds out of the sky.”
Philip disagreed. “It is like saying that adultery is all right as long as you do not enjoy it.”
The MP smiled. “You, sir,” he said, “might know more about that than me.”
TWENTY
The Princess of Wales stood in the middle of her shoe closet and pointed to three rows of low heels. She waved her hand at the stubby shoes she had worn so she wouldn’t tower over her husband. “You can throw out those dwarfers,” she told her dresser. “I won’t be needing them anymore.” Within days she started wearing her highest heels—the ones with ankle straps and open toes that she called her “tart’s trotters.” She had been liberated by the Prime Minister’s statement to the House of Commons:
It is announced from Buckingham Palace that with regret, the Prince and Princess of Wales have decided to separate. Their Royal Highnesses have no plans to divorce and their constitutional positions are unaffected.
This decision has been reached amicably…. The Queen and Duke of Edinburgh, though saddened, understand and sympathize with the difficulties which have led to this decision….
When the Prime Minister made that announcement, he looked like a man at a funeral forced to deliver the eulogy. His words had been crafted by the Queen’s lawyers and courtiers to convey sad news without quite telling the truth. Despite the public reassurances, the couple did plan to divorce, their decision was not amicable, and their constitutional positions were affected. The Queen and Duke of Edinburgh were not saddened: they were incensed. And they did not understand or sympathize. Rather, they believed that the marriage should continue, no matter how miserable, for the sake of the monarchy.
Television programs were preempted on December 9, 1992, to carry the Prime Minister’s statement, and when he rose to speak, the House of Commons fell strangely silent. Afterward the fiery Labor MP Dennis Skinner said, “The royal family has just pushed the self-destruct button.” He was immediately barraged by indignant shouts. But he continued: “It is high time we stopped this charade of swearing allegiance to the Queen and her heirs and successors, because we don’t know from time to time who they are…. The reigning Queen could possibly be the last.”
The Prime Minister bristled. “You do not, I believe, speak for the nation or any significant part of it.”
But the Prime Minister was wrong. After his announcement, polls showed that three out of four Britons believed