Peter Mandelson: Prince Charles's remarks on GM crops 'irresponsible'

Tony Blair asked Peter Mandelson to tell the Prince of Wales to stop his "unhelpful" attempts to influence government policy on genetically modified crops. In a sign of the private irritation among ministers at the prince's interference over the years, Mandelson accuses him of being "anti-scientific and irresponsible", in the third instalment of his memoirs. Mandelson writes that he regularly received representations from Prince Charles, who has been writing to ministers for more than 20 years. "Interested as he was in issues from architecture to agriculture, after Diana's death Charles would write me notes about areas of public policy which he believed to be misguided," Mandelson writes. He continues: "I would always answer and of course pass on his views to Tony. At times I would be the carrier of messages in the other direction, for example when Charles began publicly to speak out against genetically modified crops ... "Like Tony, I felt his remarks were becoming unhelpful. I thought they were anti-scientific and irresponsible in the light of food shortages in the developing world." He adds: "I am sure Charles did not change his mind as a result of our conversation, but he did tone down his public interventions on the subject."