Yes, Steve: I know that HRH has the luck to find himself in a position where he can promulgate his views. But I can't see anything untoward or culpable in his doing so. So ~~ he's lucky & your friends in the pub who 'know as much on the subject as he does' aren't. Nothing to stop them trying to make a political or journalistic career, say, so they can. If they would rather do something else, that's up to them. I was lucky enough [still am, part-time] to become a theatre, folk, & book critic, to have an outlet for my views. So I expressed them. Why not? Prince Charles didn't have to work so hard to establish himself in a position where he had outlets for his views: but, I repeat, why should that disqualify him from expressing them, or make them unworthy of attention? It is the quality of the views that matter, not the means by which the expresser obtained the platform to express them.

~M~