In the UK, the Charlies Fight While the Commonwealth Schemes for Their Money

Foreign Affairs While the upper classes bicker, former colonies are preparing a great shakedown. TakiMag Photo by Aaron Chown - Pool/ Getty Images Two megalomaniacal, pompous, and definitely self-entitled Brits have been hogging the headlines lately in snobby old England. They are both named Charlie—one surnamed Windsor, the other Spencer—but it’s much ado about nothing. Actually, it’s a handbags-at-dawn kind of fight, two old men arguing over who said what 30 years or so ago. The media in Britain are, needless to say, going bananas over the non-event, but then they always do go nuts over non-stories—so long as the rich or the royal are involved. Charles Spencer writes in a book that Charles Windsor was rude as hell after Diana’s death in Paris 29 years ago. I met then-Prince Charles once—he asked to meet me, actually, during a Greek royal wedding—and he was rude after I didn’t answer in the way I was expected to. Never mind. He’s very spoiled, always wanting to have his own way, an absurdly insulated, self-indulgent old boy, and I shall leave it at that. The Spencers were around that rainy old place long before the Windsors, just like the Cabot Lodges were here long before the Trumps, if you get my drift. Charles Spencer is a four-times-married father of seven, and the owner of Althorp, a 13,000-acre pile in the north of England. As Princess Diana’s younger brother, he refused her access to one of the cottages on his enormous estate after her divorce from the other Charles. Now he’s her champion, but I know better. His nephew Harry and wife Meghan have been staying with him, and you can guess the rest. Actually, the reason I don’t completely believe Spencer’s allegations against Windsor—although I’d like to—is based on something that has nothing to do with the story of Diana. An old school chum of Spencer’s, Darius Guppy, asked Spencer to look out for Guppy’s wife while Guppy was doing a stint in prison for a failed robbery. When Guppy emerged he broke Spencer’s jaw, because his supposed best friend had made an unsuccessful pass at the jailbird’s wife. End of story, except one doesn’t ever do that to the wife of someone doing time. Especially one’s best friend. Mind you, King Charles has more pressing problems in mind, not that he will have to personally dish out any of his billions. Caribbean states and some African ones like Ghana are preparing to sue Britain to secure reparations for slavery. Mia Motley, Prime Minister of Barbados, is hosting a conference to discuss strategy. It’s called “Stop being advocates in a movement, and start being advocates in a case.” If the case goes to the International Court of Justice, there is a problem. The wily Brits secured a clause exempting them from legal action over things that happened before 1987. Nevertheless, the Caribbean nations will persist, as will Ghana, because they are all eager to have some funds in order for their leaders to attend the Red Cross gala in Monaco next summer. I say this because for the life of me I cannot understand how any adult with the minimum of common sense can take all this bull seriously. Subscribe Today Get daily emails in your inbox Ghana has been free since the early ’60s and has received billions in aid from a guilty-for-no-reason-whatsoever west. The Caribbean islands, starting with Jamaica, have had their own self-inflicted troubles, including involvement with the drug trade, and their leaders have stolen billions since independence close to three quarters of a century ago. Yet now they think that they can extort more money for the very few on top. The cult of the victim is their only way to proceed. The former colonies angling for moola from a broken-down UK should really sue the people actually responsible for slavery: The Africans and Arabs who enslaved and sold those poor souls to the highest bidder. They were enthusiastic sellers, and after all without sellers there would have been no Western buyers. Slavery has been a constant feature of human societies over thousands of years, and it still exists in parts of the world. The Brits are a busted flush, with one-fifth of the population on welfare. Their royal family is abased by scandal and greed. The Commonwealth is a joke, an opportunity for a British royal to travel to a faraway place and listen respectfully while a local sultan insults them. In the meantime, the two Charlies are hogging the headlines.