Prince Charles' controversial speech against political correctness (1994)

On 4 May 1994, Prince Charles, Prince of Wales made one of the most political speeches in all his years of public service. Addressing the Newspaper Society Lunch at the Hilton Hotel in London, the Prince of Wales made a lengthy speech in which he criticised “political correctness”. He decried a perceived political culture that “intimidated” people out of questioning the “current fashions” for fear of being considered “old-fashioned or plain reactionary”. The prince went on to give examples of views that he believed were widely held yet circumscribed by the culture of intimidation: The importance of teaching people “the basic principles of English grammar,” and the idea that it might now and again be “necessary and sensible to administer a smack to your child”.

Some criticised the tone of Charles’ speech for echoing too closely the “Back to Basics” speech given by Prime Minister John Major in October 1993, in which he told the Conservative Party Conference that Britain had “listened too long and too often to people whose ideas are light years away from common sense”. And some Labour MPs voiced concern at the future monarch outlining his own deeply conservative worldview. The Prince of Wales described himself as “one of those people who believe strongly in the importance of well-tried principles, and of those more familiar things in life, which help anchor us in the here-and-now and give meaning and a sense of belonging in a world which can easily become frightening and hostile.” His comments about grammar and smacking children also caused upset among children’s rights campaigners and division in the education sector. The speech seems in some ways to be a harbinger of the vocabulary of political polarisation that has developed in the nearly three decades since the speech was made. The idea of a “culture war” between “woke” and “anti-woke” worldviews has its roots in the idea of “political correctness” and the reaction against it which Charles’ Newspaper Society speech was part of. It is to this day considered one of the most politically outspoken speeches given by the King in his lifetime.

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