Prince Phillip
At first it might seem slightly absurd that the Duke of Edinburgh, Prince Phillip, could possibly be an enemy of the people - his role in society is at the very top of government, and in in terms of how important he is, his bird is the Queen. And given the purely ceremonial role the royals play these days, and how by convention they have to be politically neutral… how can Phillip be on this site? Surely the Royals just sit about cutting ribbons? What have they done wrong?
Phillip is only an “Enemy of the People”, because of his own doings - for the past few decades he’s been doing his best to become an enemy of almost every identity group.
Famous for his politically incorrect gaffes, his flaws are perhaps best illustrated with quotes:
He said that “If a cricketer, for instance, suddenly decided to go into a school and batter a lot of people to death with a cricket bat, which he could do very easily, I mean, are you going to ban cricket bats?” in the wake of the Dunblane school shooting… which makes him approximately equally as tactful as Richard Littlejohn.
Speaking to a Scottish driving instructor, he asked “How do you keep the natives off the booze long enough to get them through the test?”. I wonder how many of the drinks at Balmoral tasted of urine that year?
Despite being a man of privilege, the Duke isn’t a spoilt brat - he knows how to respond to gifts. When a Kenyan woman gave him a present in 1984, he responded with “You are a woman, aren’t you?”.
“You managed not to get eaten, then?”, the Duke asked a student who was trekking through Papua New Guinea. No doubt this did wonders for Britain’s relations there.
“If it has four legs and is not a chair, has wings and is not an aeroplane, or swims and is not a submarine, the Cantonese will eat it.”
There’s stacks of quotes like this - why not share your favourites in the comments below?
Oh, and also, he killed the Queen of our Hearts, Princess Diana. Allegedly.
Posted on May 20th, 2008 at 08:00Categories: Royalty |
