For decades now, the Duke of Edinburgh has been offending, stereotyping and provoking the politically correct with impunity. On 2nd August Prince Philip attended his last official public engagement. After 22,220 solo engagements, the often ignorant and derogatory wise cracks that have coloured his time as Britain’s most famous racially insensitive Grandad will now come to an end.
Here’s a run-down of the Prince’s public gaffes prior to the millennium. With ratings of course.
1966: “British women can’t cook.” 2/10
I’m not sure about this one Phil. I’ve eaten food cooked by British women before. I would go as far as saying the majority of food I’ve eaten was cooked by British women. In fairness to the Prince, I suppose the only women he comes into contact with are the Queen, who probably doesn’t cook, and high end prostitutes, who probably don’t cook in front of him.
1969: “What do you gargle with, pebbles?” (To Tom Jones.) 7/10
Refreshingly inoffensive towards entire groups of people. This one borders on the witty.
1981: “Everybody was saying we must have more leisure. Now they are complaining they are unemployed.” (During the 1981 recession.) 1/10
This one probably did very well in one of the old boys clubs that Prince Philip is a member of. It would probably do less well in one of working men’s clubs in the North East that Prince Philip isn’t a member of.
1984: “You are a women, aren’t you?” (In Kenya after accepting a small gift from a local women.) 1/10
Maybe this was a classic royal family in joke. Maybe every time the Prince receives a present he recites the line. The Queen loves the quip when he comes out with it at Christmas time.
It probably isn’t though.
1986: “If you stay here much longer you’ll all be slitty-eyed.” (To a group of British students during a royal visit to China.) 1/10
Unbeknownst to the Prince at the time, living with other races can’t morph you into other races. Science has come along since Phil was a boy, sometime during late Georgian era.
1993: “You can’t have been here that long, you haven’t got a pot belly.” (To a Briton he met in Hungary.) 2/10.
This is some racial stereotyping that I’m not aware of. Although I’m not aware of that much about Hungary. However, I don’t think Attila the Hun had a pot belly, and I got a 2:1 in history from a university, so I would know.
1994: “Aren’t most of you descended from pirates?” (To a wealthy Islander in the Cayman Islands.) 1/10
To which the islander replied, “Aren’t most of you descended from inbreeding?”
1995: “How do you keep the natives off the booze long enough to pass the test?” (To a Scottish driving instructor.) 4/10
Reasonably amusing. Going down the avenue of the stereotyped Scottish drinking problem, however, the Prince missed the opportunity to mock the Scotch with other hackneyed cultural perceptions. For instance, their perceived aversion to vegetables, resultant obesity and low life expectancy. 4/10 for the line, 1/10 for effort.
1999: “Deaf? If you are near there, no wonder you are deaf.” (Speaking to a group of young deaf people in Cardiff who were standing near a steel band.) 2/10
It’s a pretty insensitive thing to say. The deaf obviously couldn’t hear him say it, and the Prince had to be led away by his handlers after accusing the group of sedition when none of them acknowledged he had spoken.
1999: “It looks as if it was put in by an Indian.” (Referring to an old-fashioned fuse box in a factory near Edinburgh.) 1/10
This is quite a racist thing to say. Years on from the ‘slitty-eyed’ incident, royal protocol still hadn’t developed a sophisticated method of stopping Phil’s casual racism manifest itself in the public eye. It could, of course, just be a stock comment the Prince remarks when he sees something he doesn’t recognise. I can’t imagine he’s had much experience with fuse boxes. He’ll have a guy for that.
Throughout the late twentieth century, a series of memorable blunders came out of the Prince’s antipathy to the social norms of modern society. It could have been that with the millennium came forth a new, more empathetic and tolerant Philip. This was not the case. The early twenty-first century gave the Prince a chance to call a child fat, imply a sea cadet worked in a strip club, and continue the stereotyping that has characterised his reign as husband to the Queen. More to follow.
Kai Nicol-Schwarz 