Black spider memos

The "black spider" memos are letters and memorandums written by Charles III of the United Kingdom, during his tenure as Prince of Wales, to British government ministers and politicians over several years.

Issues about which Charles has expressed public views include farming, genetic modification, global warming, social deprivation, planning and architecture.

[1][2] The content of the "black spider" letters, named after Charles' distinctive handwriting, was known only anecdotally and from memoirs and leaks, until 13 May 2015 when the Information Tribunal ordered the release of most of the correspondence.

[3] These events were set in motion in 2010, when The Guardian journalist Rob Evans made an application under British Freedom of Information legislation to see the Prince's 2004 and 2005 letters to ministers.

[8] After the letters are returned to Charles to sign, he often adds additional comments in flowing black or red ink across the page using underlining and exclamation marks.

"[15] In 2008, the Prince's friend and biographer, Jonathan Dimbleby, said that royal aides had informally started to consider redefining the role of the monarch to allow a future King Charles "...to speak out on matters of national and international importance in ways that at the moment would be unthinkable".

[17] In the letter, Charles associated himself with the views of a farmer from Cumbria, who, complaining of the British government's treatment of rural workers said that "If we, as a group, were black or gay we would not be victimised or picked on.

[13] Charles also complained to Irvine that the United Kingdom was "sliding inexorably down the slope of ever increasing, petty-minded litigiousness" and wrote in 2002 about "ever-more prescriptive laws – for example, health and safety at work legislation, the blame culture...and the bureaucratic red tape which accompanies new rules".

[20][22] Rogers claimed the Prince had also intervened to block his designs for the Royal Opera House and Paternoster Square, and condemned Charles's actions as "an abuse of power" and "unconstitutional".

[22] Lord Foster, Zaha Hadid, Jacques Herzog, Jean Nouvel, Renzo Piano, and Frank Gehry, among others, wrote a letter to The Sunday Times complaining that the Prince's "private comments" and "behind-the-scenes lobbying" subverted the "open and democratic planning process".

[19][21] In 2010, Rob Evans, a journalist for The Guardian newspaper, applied under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 to see copies of correspondence between Charles and ministers in seven government departments.

[13] The Secretary of State for Health, Patricia Hewitt, also received letters from Charles's aides, who recommended the adoption by hospital trusts of design techniques devised by his architectural charity.

[11] Richards said that Charles had complained to education secretary Ed Balls about changes to the primary school syllabus and had lobbied Yvette Cooper over the design of ecotowns.

"[11] The appeal also heard evidence from Rodney Brazier, a professor of constitutional law at Manchester University, who said that Charles corresponds with ministers "to a much greater extent than his predecessors".

[24] In evidence given to the tribunal, Stephen Lamport, who was the private secretary to the Prince of Wales from 1993 to 2002 said that Charles will stop writing to ministers were he to be crowned King, and that his letters formed part of his "apprenticeship convention", in which the "cardinal principle" of not commenting on public policy did not apply to him while heir.

[24] The attorney general's veto placed an absolute block on the publication of the letters, which Grieve described as containing the "particularly frank" and "most deeply held personal views and beliefs" of the Prince of Wales.

"[24] Grieve also said that any perception that Charles had disagreed with Blair's government "would be seriously damaging to his role as future monarch because, if he forfeits his position of political neutrality as heir to the throne, he cannot easily recover it when he is king".

Rusbridger said that "...if the Prince of Wales is going to try and influence public policy in a particularly frank way then I don't think he is acting as a private citizen and therefore like any other lobby group there ought to be transparency about what he's trying to do.

[30] On the second day of the hearing, Dinah Rose QC, acting for The Guardian, said that in contrast to the UT, Grieve was "...neither independent nor impartial but is a member of the government which is seeking to prevent disclosure of the documents.

Additionally Grieve had not identified any error by the UT and had simply disagreed with its conclusions for "...reasons which had already been advanced by the government departments, considered and rejected by the tribunal."

[4] Historian Andrew Roberts wrote in The Daily Telegraph that the publication of Charles' letters "backfired on those who seek to belittle him, and revealed the idiocy of the human rights industry".

[6] Simon Jenkins of The Guardian wrote: "The black spiders are harmless creatures compared with the multimillion-pound tarantulas of big-time political pressure, uncharted and undisclosed.

"[5] An editorial in The Guardian stated that "The letters show that behind that curtain, most of the time, Prince Charles behaves more as a bit of a bore on behalf of his good causes than as any sort of wannabe feudal tyrant.

It also defended Charles' right to communicate privately stating that the publication of his letters "inhibits his ability to express the concerns and suggestions" put forward to him by people at meetings and engagements.