Prince Charles proves he's a chip off the old block after Hitler-Putin gaffe
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Version 0 of 1. It was, said Marianne Ferguson, "just a little remark. I didn't think it was going to make such a big uproar." But – after the Prince of Wales told the 78-year-old during a royal visit to Canada that he thought Vladimir Putin was behaving like Adolf Hitler – Downing Street, Buckingham Palace, Ed Miliband, the Kremlin and even Nigel Farage were sucked into a controversy that sparked a call for Charles to abdicate. Ferguson, a volunteer at the Canadian Museum of Immigration in Halifax, had told the heir to the throne about her flight from Poland to Canada in 1939 and how the family she left behind perished in Nazi camps. He then reportedly said: "And now Putin is doing just about the same as Hitler." In a flash of royal diplomacy worthy of his father's famous gaffes, Charles had blundered far beyond his usual "meddling" interventions in architecture, the environment and medicine into a simmering international conflict. Ferguson said she agreed with him and said his comments were "very heartfelt and honest", but the royal remarks swept around the world. Dmitry Peskov, a spokesman for Putin, who was in China, said the Kremlin was "not commenting right now", but the popular Russian daily paper Moskovskij Komsomolets said the remarks risked "triggering an international scandal" and complicated "clouded" UK-Russian relations. "Good old Charley," commented one anti-Russia activist in Ukraine on the Facebook page of Euromaidan, which helped organise the protests in the Ukrainian capital, Kiev, that led to the ousting of the pro-Russia president Viktor Yanukovych. Labour MP Mike Gapes, a current member and former chairman of the House of Commons foreign affairs committee, said the prince should have kept his views private. The Ilford South MP tweeted: "If Prince Charles wants to make controversial statements on national or international issues, he should abdicate and stand for election." There was no sign that Charles was perturbed by the uproar. During a visit to an aircraft hangar in Winnipeg he good-naturedly aimed paper aeroplanes at the press corps. In London, David Cameron and Ed Miliband offered Charles some backing, if only for his right to the freedom of expression, in private at least. The Labour leader told Sky News: "I think lots of people across the country will share Prince Charles's concern about President Putin and his actions in the Ukraine. I think it's also the case that Prince Charles should be entitled to have private conversations with an individual and those are private conversations. I'm not going to comment on the detail of those conversations. "I think he has got a point about President Putin's actions and I think he is absolutely entitled to say that there are real concerns about that." Cameron tried to avoid commenting on the issue despite being asked repeatedly in an interview on Radio 4's The World at One. "Everyone is entitled to their private views," he said, a position echoed by the Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg, who said Charles should be "free to express himself". Clegg would not be drawn on whether the Hitler/Putin comparison was fair, but said: "Right now I think the behaviour of Putin is not only menacing to Ukraine but it is very destabilising for Europe more generally." Farage, who has spoken of his admiration for Putin, said: "There are times when it might be better for Prince Charles not to get involved in things like this." The Daily Mail, which broke the story, reported that Charles was surrounded by media when the exchange happened and his remarks were heard by several witnesses. Ferguson, who had the local and international media clamouring for an interview, declined to comment further. A spokesperson for the prince said: "We would not comment on private conversations. It was a private conversation at a reception for war veterans." The prince's off-the-cuff remark came on the second day of a royal visit to Canada with the Duchess of Cornwall. Ferguson had been showing him the exhibits before telling him about her family's story when he made the Putin comment. According to Britain's former ambassador to Russia, Sir Tony Brenton, Charles's intervention may even cause Russia reconsider its policy in Ukraine, albeit inadvertently. "It will be picked up in public circles in Russia," he told the BBC. "The Russians have taken over Crimea, they are debating with themselves about where to go next. The fact that they have generated the impression in some minds that they are behaving a bit as Hitler behaved, while I think is a false judgment, will help [them] to reconsider a little bit." Brenton added: "Hitler is the ultimate ogre in Russian public opinion … The fact that Russian policy is generating these sort of reactions ought to have a calming effect there." As the third day of Charles's Canada visit passed off unremarkably, it was left to Prince Philip to keep the royal gaffes flowing. He quipped with staff at a family-planning centre in London: "At least you are all legitimate." |