Denis MacShane: Prince Charles 'black spider' letters "odd"

Former Foreign Office minister Denis MacShane has described Prince Charles' so called "black spider memos" as odd but added that a member of the royal family should be able to privately communicate with the government.

Mr MacShane added that the publishing of the correspondence might prevent members of the royal family from writing to the government in the future.

"No member of the royal family will ever dare write to the government again... for fear that their private views just going to be front page news," he said