Royal Family Called Insensitive

The Sunday Times, one of Britain’s most respected newspapers, launched a blistering attack on the Royal Family’s role in the Gulf War, accusing some members of exhibiting “upper-class decadence and insensitivity.”

“Britain’s armed forces . . . stand on the brink of the biggest land battle since the Second World War. Yet, on the home front, too many of the royals . . . carry on regardless with their peacetime lifestyles, parading a mixture of upper-class decadence and insensitivity,” the paper said in an editorial today.

It said Queen Elizabeth II “of course has behaved impeccably” and praised some others. But in a scathing reference to Prince Charles and the queen’s husband, Prince Philip, the newspaper said they had taken up arms, “but only to go hunting birds.”

A Buckingham Palace spokesman defended the Royal Family’s record, saying it staunchly supports the war effort.