William went to the Welsh borders to hear from people who live with rising water, planted a tree and called for a ‘holistic’ approach, and I have been thinking about whether that helps
Prince William’s Flooding Visit: The Purpose and Limits of Royal Engagements
I have stood behind a great many crash barriers in my time, in a great many kinds of weather, watching a member of the Royal Family walk slowly past a line of people. It is an odd spectacle. Nothing happens. Hands are shaken. A child gives flowers. Someone says “Have you come far?” and it is not always the royal.
And yet these visits are the daily substance of what the monarchy does. So when the Prince of Wales spent a day this week on the border between Wales and England, it seemed worth asking what such a day achieves.
What Happened
The facts, as reported, are these. A digest of royal coverage for 1 October lists the BBC’s report that the Prince of Wales told villagers a “holistic” approach is needed to tackle flooding, along with photographs of him visiting Monmouthshire and Herefordshire. A magazine described him as getting his hands dirty planting trees and drinking cider.
A live blog of the day’s royal news summarised the visit under the heading that the Prince was all ears about flood measures, meeting people living with the threat of the coming storm season.
Why Go?
The cynical view is that a prince in a waxed jacket cannot stop a river. That is true. He has no budget for flood defences and no power to direct the agencies that build them.
The less cynical view runs like this. Attention is a resource. When the heir to the throne visits a village that floods, cameras follow. The story appears on the evening news and in the next day’s papers. People in the village who have been writing to their council for years find that their problem has, for a day, a national audience.
There is also the matter of morale. Those who have had a royal visit after a disaster often say that it mattered to them. It is easy to sneer at. People in such places say often enough that being listened to by someone who did not have to come has a value, and I believe them.
The Word “Holistic”
I am interested in the word he chose. A holistic approach to flooding means, as I understand it, looking at the whole river system: what is planted on the hills, how the land is farmed, where water is held upstream, not only how high the wall is in town. Planting trees fits that.
This is close to the Prince’s known interests. He has made the environment central to his public work. It is also the nearest thing to a policy view that a royal can safely express. Nobody is against a holistic approach.
The Tightrope
And here is the difficulty for any member of the family who cares about an issue. They may highlight a problem. They may not prescribe a solution, because solutions involve money and choices, and those belong to elected governments.
Flooding is political. Who pays for defences, which communities are protected, whether farmers are compensated for letting fields flood, how much is spent now against future risk: these are contested. A prince who said that the government should spend more would be overstepping. A prince who says a holistic approach is needed has said something true that commits nobody to anything.
His father, as Prince of Wales, pushed at this boundary for decades, with letters to ministers and speeches on architecture and farming. He was criticised for it. The son appears to be more careful.
The Other Engagements
The same digest shows what the rest of the family was doing on the same day. The Duke of Edinburgh was at George Washington’s Mount Vernon. The Duchess of Edinburgh attended a memorial day for an army corps. None of it was dramatic. All of it is the job.
There are hundreds of such engagements each year, recorded line by line in the Court Circular. Most get no coverage at all.
Does It Work?
An honest answer has to be: it depends what you mean. If the test is whether the village is less likely to flood next winter, the visit changes nothing directly. If the test is whether the issue gets attention and the residents feel heard, it probably does some good.
Critics of the monarchy would say this is thin justification for an expensive institution. Supporters would say it is one of the things a head of state’s family is for, and that presidents and their spouses do much the same.
My own view, for what it is worth, is that the value lies in consistency. A single visit is a photograph. Returning to the same subject over years, as the Prince has with homelessness and the environment, builds something. Whether flooding becomes one of those subjects remains to be seen.
The Cider
I cannot leave out the cider. The Welsh borders make some of the best in the country, and a royal visitor who declined a glass would have caused more offence than any policy statement. It was, I am sure, diplomacy.
A Thought From the Barrier
The people who turn out for these events are rarely fanatics. They are locals who came out because it was happening on their street. They go home pleased or indifferent. But the ones who actually spoke to the visitor, who told him about the night the water came in, remember it. That is the whole transaction. It is small, and it is not nothing.
For Lighter Reading
The royal walkabout has long been a gift to humourists. The London Prat unwraps it in its English satirical news on royal walkabouts and UK satirical news about wellington boots, alongside the rest of my palace column. Bohiney Magazine covers the view from abroad.
SOURCE: https://bohiney.com/
