Prince Charles: why isn't he more popular?

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Kelly Rissman

US News Reporter

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Everyone knows the House of Windsor has had a good couple of years. The marriage of William Windsor and Catherine Middleton secured an emotional contract between the British public and their Royal Family. Then, this year, we've had the Diamond Jubilee. Even the pictures of a half-naked Prince Harry went down mostly well. And yet somehow none of this positivity rubs off on Prince Charles, whose popularity - or lack of it - stubbornly refuses to budge. Why? The Daily Beast has some thoughts.

"For Charles, it [2012] has arguably been even worse than for the family in general", writes Tom Sykes. "In recent weeks he has finally been forced to give up his long-cherished dream of making his wife Camilla queen when he inherits the throne and, to complete Charles’s dreadful year, he has just been voted the least popular senior royal, withjust 21 percent naming him one of their “two or three favourite members of the royal family” in a Mori poll."

"Even worse, his aim of rehabilitating Camilla in the public perception is revealed by the poll, which questioned more than 1,000 people, to have been an utter failure, with just 2 percent naming her as one of their favorites. William, by contrast, is the most popular royal with 69 percent approving him. Unsurprisingly, treacherous murmurings are starting to be heard again of the crown skipping a generation."

"Even if 2012 doesn’t quite qualify as an annus horribilis for Charles, it is still a year he would probably rather forget."