Booker On Prince Philip
By Paul Homewood
Time to reminisce:
Like countless others, I have a personal reason for wishing to pay tribute to the Duke of Edinburgh as he finally steps back at the age of 96 from many of his more obvious royal duties. In 2009 I published The Real Global Warming Disaster, a history of the the great panic over climate change, which soon ranked with one by Al Gore as one of the three top-selling books on the subject published in this century.
This prompted notably contrasting responses from two members of the Royal family. The Prince of Wales protested that he was quite “bemused”’ by my views on global warming, struck me off his Christmas card list, where I had been ever since was one of his advisers on environmental matters back in the Eighties.
I was, however, startled and delighted to have a long, thoughtful and sympathetic letter from his father, who also wanted to correct a mistake in my book. I had said he was still a supporter of the World Wildlife Fund, which he co-founded in 1961. In fact, he said, he had withdrawn from the WWF after it switched from its original focus on saving endangered species to relentless campaigning against global warming.
Back in the 1960s, I wrote a far from kindly profile of Prince Philip in Private Eye. But over later decades, like many others, I came to have ever more admiration for him, not least since he has represented those values of robust masculine common sense which in the post-war years when I grew up were taken for granted but which in public life today are little more than a distant memory.
In 2011 one newspaper marked his 90th birthday by publishing a whole page of his more “notorious gaffes”. I later met several people who, like me, had gone through that list ticking off every one of his supposedly embarrassing remarks with a nod of amused approval. How fortunate we have been to have such an extraordinary man at the centre of our national life for 70 years.
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NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT 
I always thought that he seemed OK . I’m slightly hacked off that the BBC has cancelled my quiz shows in order to have continuous rolling news across all channels. Why on earth does it need to be on more than one?
Be fair, it’s only once in 99 years.
no – they did the same for Diana … and then there was no satellite or internet. What annoys me is that whilst i expect the BBC as national propaganda outlet to cover this in depth, i cannot see the justification for broadcasting the same programme on both BBC 1 and BBC2 . ITV are going the whole hog as they like to be taken seriously. C4 and C5 are showing some token programmes so as not to be accused of ignoring it but getting back to normal fairly quickly.
And i thought Philip a decent bloke. Did his duty well, never afraid to call a spade a bloody shovel , and not woke…..
A lifetime of devotion and service to his country. A very distinguished naval career too.
The link to the Telegraph article is behind a paywall.
disabling javascript for telegraph.co.uk in your browser set up works. allegedly
Also try Safari/Google.
The Royal Family has lost Philip and gained Meghan.
It has thankfully lost Markle, try and keep up
Hear hesr
The old vulture wanted to become a virus to kill as many humans as possible.
Swallowed the overpopulation lies whole.
Good riddance to bad rubbish, say I.
John Doran.
We can’t all be as perfect as you, John. 😉
I’m not perfect, eejit, but I don’t want to kill as many humans as possible, fcukwit.
What a sad life you must lead John if you dont even have a sense of humour.
FCUK you, idiot. They are words out of the old monster’s mouth.
It’s all in the tone and context. IT WAS A JEST. It’s a sad state of the world today that some people are obsessed with calling out non-existent ‘hate’, creating a humorless culture of heinous intolerance.
Calling the guy a monster – you’ve lost the plot. Yes the guy was incredibly privileged, but he gave his life and made enormous personal sacrifices for our country through his service in the war and public life – he did not have to do that.
John, you need to keep up with your medication.
John
No he didn’t. His comment was taken completely out of context. He was asked to write a foreword for a book about animals and to imagine what an animal would wish for who had been hunted, marginalised and driven to the verge of extinction by mankind. That was the animals response.
Now you know better you will presumably revise your opinion?
John
Here is the actual quote
That quote was taken completely out of context. Here is the context
“I just wonder what it would be like to be reincarnated in an animal whose species had been so reduced in numbers than it was in danger of extinction. What would be its feelings toward the human species whose population explosion had denied it somewhere to exist… I must confess that I am tempted to ask for reincarnation as a particularly deadly virus.” ― Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh[2] (in his Foreward to: If I Were an Animal; United Kingdom, Robin Clark Ltd., 1986.)
Tonyb, thanks, but I’ll not be changing my opinion.
Philip was led by the nose into his response, but he still made it.
Biden was led into his reply that Putin is a killer, but Biden is senile.
What excuse did Philip have?
His family name is Battenberg, as the Windsors are Saxe-Coburg-Gothas.
They changed their names 1917, in the middle of WWI.
His sisters married high-ranking Nazis.
Near as I can see, they’re all disguised Nazis.
He co-founded the WWF with ex(?) Nazi Prince Bernhardt.
The real goals of the faux ‘environmentalist’ movement are a vast depopulation, de-industrialisation & a world govt.
Book, by PhD nuclear engineer Robert Zubrin: Merchants Of Despair.
Web: http://www.c3headlines.com
Click on Quotes.
John Doran.
You’re talking absolute rubbish as even a cursory bit of research will tell you
Mr Doran I presume? It seems you swallow news media reports without checking. Prince Philip escaped Greece and joined the Royal Navy in 1939 as a teenager. His views are those of his generation and background. Your own views and language give away your own background! No one is perfect.
I have been an unashamed Royalist all my life: King George VI and Queen Elizabeth II – and a firm supporter of Prince Philip. But when the Queen goes … ? (should I still be around, slightly unlikely!).
That’s my feeling too, sadly, but on the other hand that’s probably going to assist…….. .
I think it will also be quite a dangerous time for the country as the ‘progressives’ will see it as another ‘covid opportunity’ for a paradigm shift.
You would need to change the Constitution. Parliament advises the Queen so it can’t be done by voting… Parliament would go too. So you will need to take to the streets .
A very erudite and amusing man he will be sadly missed. Population control and wildlife conservation go hand in hand. He was nearly always right. More often than me anyway.
An end blockquote seems t have failed…. sorry.
Seems Charlie boy has inherited the Greens preferred MO of ‘agree to everything I think or I I’ll cancel you’. What is it with these clowns?
As for Phillip, a proper man, who served Queen and country admirably. I’ll admit I’m very saddened by his passing, even though it’s not a surprise. I’ll raise a glass for him in due course.
RIP, HRH The Duke of Edinburgh.
CR: I enjoyed an old clip of Philip being interviewed on TV about his involvement with WWF – and did this mean he was now a ‘Green’? His face was a picture: at first, I thought he didn’t know what the term ‘green’ meant but then he said (I paraphrase), no, Green is not environmental, they are political. (at least, that’s the gist of what he was saying afaik).
Booker was being slightly disingenuous, the Duke was still a President Emeritus for the WWF.
He quit them completely as they went leftie bonkers. At which point he gained respect from me.
Thanks Paul for digging out that old Booker cutting. Good timing. Two great personalities now lost to us.
Prince Phillip believed in protecting the environment without smashing civilization.
He promoted engineering solutions and agricultural advances to empower developing countries to enrich themselves so that they could become honourable custodians of the environments in which they lived for the benefit of themselves and all of mankind.
Poor countries have a dismal record of environmental protection. Rich counties much better. With wealth comes higher environmental standards. Wealthier, mechanised societies need less people to make them function sustainably but also provide greater scope to improve the environment they inhabit. This was the point that Prince Phillip was making with his ‘virus’ joke, a point that swerved the, sadly embittered, John Doran in his comments above. Unlike the traditional Malthusian, like Sir David Attenborough, Phillip merely saw industrial and economic advancement as the key to improving the lives of the world’s poorest whilst protecting the environments in which they lived. He never advocated a ‘final solution’ unlike some of the world’s leading Pharisees of early global warming theory.
Mack,
embittered or realistic?
The Windsor/Saxe-Coburg-Gotha/Battenberg regime has been imposed upon this country in exactly the same manner as the Norman/Northmen/Viking/regime of William the Conqueror 1066 & The William III 1688 regime: via the money powers of Europe.
I would suggest you read. Pawns In The Game, by WWII Canadian naval intelligence officer, William Guy Carr, as well as what I have posted above, to get some grasp upon reality.
Can be read free online: http://www.bibliotecapleyades.net
JD.
I was born two days before the Germans invaded my country of birth. I have always admired and venerated those young people who selflessly put their lives on the line to defend our freedom. The Duke of Edinburgh was one of those youngsters. Whatever negativity the ‘smart’ people utter about him – they are wrong as they do not understand.
The single most influential person of our age to stand for educated common sense and against political correctness.
I’ll miss the old boy.
I had the pleasure of visiting the Windsor Estate with the Royal Forestry Society and inevitably talk came round to the late great Duke as on our visit we had the future custodian of the estate, the current one and his predecessor as well as a long serving estate employee. As we talked one of them said that he was talking to the Duke about sustainability and his response was ‘Sustainability! I hate that word!’.
It is interesting to read the late great Booker saying that the Duke epitomised a ‘robust masculine common sense’. Booker’s long term team mate, Dr Richard North only recently mentioned the ‘feminisation’ of the media when it came to reporting on the stuck container ship in the Suez Canal. Having raised a son and a daughter, he was fully aware that they were different, his daughter nurtured their dolls while his son armed them to to teeth and sent them into battle. You only have to look at our police to see the top brass as social workers in uniform consumed by trivia when we taxpayers want them to deal with crime. interestingly it is the Duke’s daughter Anne seems to have inherited his common sense rather than the sappy Charles who will become King this decade presumably.
Gosh, some of you aren’t half showing your age.
Emma Gatten in the Telegraph is wrong. She says that Prince Philip ;believed in the threat’ of AGW. I understood he did not and that he argued with his son and that Charles was bemused by his father;s stance on the issue.
Princess Anne has similar views and personality to her now late father, I believe, which is why you never hear from her on the BBC.