Happy birthday King Charles: 75 year old monarch launches food campaign as country continues steady decline

King Charles was born plain old His Royal Highness Prince Charles of Edinburgh, on November 14 1948, four months after the NHS was founded, though I imagine his mother went private. In the seven and half decades since, whilst many positive changes have swept the UK, we’ve also seen the great successes of the welfare state come under threat.

The NHS is at breaking point, an estimated 4 million children are affected by food insecurity, and around 3,000 people sleep rough every night in a country symbolically ruled by a billionaire, who today celebrates his birthday whilst launching his latest vanity charity campaign.

As the monarch’s head graced the cover of The Big Issue this week, it must have really stuck in the craw of those who sell the magazine. Whilst the king shared his birthday wish (he’s 75, not seven) that a new Coronation Food Project will reduce food waste and ensure those in need are fed, it’s worth noting that his personal net worth is estimated to be around £1.8 billion. That's around 36 times what the Trussell Trust, the one of the UK’s biggest food charities, spent last year actually tackling food poverty.

Put your money where your mouth is Charles - if our King deigned to sacrifice a measly tenth of his vast fortune, he could boost his professed cause of ending food poverty in the country he rules over to the tune of £180 million.  And whilst we’re on his Big Issue front page, let’s remember that many of the magazine’s vendors are homeless or in unstable accommodation, whilst Charles owns, according to Forbes, a $25 billion real estate empire. Among his impressive (or sickening depending on your perspective) portfolio are 10 castles, 12 homes, and 56 cottages.

If the King were feeling really generous he could keep hold of Buckingham Palace and donate the rest of his empire to housing charity Shelter, who could then house up to half of the country’s homeless population. Or at the very least, he could stick two fingers up to Cruella, buy 3,000 tents, and give 100 acres of the 300,000 acres of rural land he owns across the UK to every rough sleeping subject.

I appreciate that taking potshots at a grandfather on his birthday is not in great taste, but not is it tasteful to host a self-aggrandising tea party complete with gun salutes, whilst figuratively throwing crumbs to the little people by way of a vanity food project.