A British Royal’s Gaffe in Australia

No one would ever accuse him of political correctness. In his long career as Queen Elizabeth II’s consort, the duke of Edinburgh has mastered the princely gaffe with ill-considered remarks about Indians, Scots, women and deaf people, among others.

The tongue that spares none struck again Friday. During a tour of Australia to mark his wife’s Golden Jubilee, Prince Philip added Aborigines to his verbal hit list when he asked a tribal leader, “Do you still throw spears at each other?”

William Brim, the entrepreneur whom the prince addressed, replied politely that, no, they didn’t do that anymore, and he told reporters in Queensland, Australia, that he was more surprised than offended by the question.

But it is just the sort of off-the-cuff remark that Britons have come to expect of his royal highness on diplomatic missions.

“Oh, Philip!” the Evening Standard newspaper’s front-page headline said in the tone of a dog trainer scolding a puppy for soiling the carpet again.

Critics say that Philip, 80, is disaster-prone on official duties or that he suffers from “foot-in-mouth” disease. Supporters counter that he is friendly, jocular and just a tease with outdated views.

Moreover, the prince isn’t constitutionally restrained from expressing opinions other than those of the government, as is the queen.

“The queen has learned that the only safe thing to say to anyone is, ‘What do you do?’ ” historian David Starkey said. “Then if they say, ‘I throw spears,’ she says, ‘Oh, do you?’ But she will never say, ‘Do you throw spears?’ ”

Philip has “resolutely refused” to adapt to 21st century sensibilities, Starkey added. “He is openly contemptuous of political correctness and probably saw this as a joke.”

Buckingham Palace said Philip’s conversation was a private matter and refused to comment.

“I don’t think he ever means offense,” said Ben Pimlott, a historian and royal biographer. “In any of the gaffes of the last 55 years, I don’t think there has ever been any suggestion of malice.”

But gaffes there have been, with recorded insults dating to the 1960s, when he offended half the royal subjects by stating categorically that British women can’t cook.

Of course, when he made the remark in 1966, many people around the world might have agreed that Britons couldn’t cook, but they weren’t married to the queen and they didn’t tell the press.

During the devastating recession of the 1980s, Philip managed to appear less than sympathetic with the plight of the commoner when he said: “Everybody was saying we must have more leisure. Now they are complaining they are unemployed.”

He once asked a driving instructor in Scotland, “How do you keep the natives off the booze long enough to get them through the test?”

And, during a tour of a car factory in 1999, he famously commented that an old-fashioned fuse box looked “as if it was put in by an Indian.” Britain has a large Indian population, and India, a former colony, is a member of the Commonwealth.

Speaking to deaf students in Cardiff, Wales, that year, Philip acknowledged the school’s steel band and said: “Deaf? If you are near there, no wonder you are deaf.”

The Evening Standard article noted that Philip’s comments in Australia represented the ignorant and offensive attitudes Aborigines have been fighting for 200 years.

But when it comes to insults, Philip does not discriminate. Referring to the love his daughter, Princess Anne, has for horses, he once said, “If it doesn’t fart or eat hay, she is not interested.”