[rebelmouse-image 27089008 alt="""" original_size="750x965" expand=1]
The Times, May 14, 2015
After a 10-year legal battle, the contents of 27 secret letters written by Prince Charles to British ministers were published Tuesday, revealing the extent of the prince's attempts to influence the government.
On the front page of its Thursday edition, The Times ran a picture of the Prince of Wales in front of what have become known as the "black spider memos" (so called because of the prince's scrawled handwriting). According to the London-based newspaper, the heir to the throne wrote to members of the government, including then-Prime Minister Tony Blair, suggesting changes to policies concerning a variety of topics ranging from badger culling to global warming, agriculture, the defense budget and alternative medicine.
The letters are controversial because members of the royal family are not supposed to interfere with governmental matters. He wrote them between September 2004 and April 2005, and they were made public under the Freedom of Information Act on the orders of the Supreme Court.
ABOUT THE SOURCE: The Times is a British daily national newspaper based in London. It began in 1785 under the title The Daily Universal Register and became The Times on 1 January 1788.
