Kerre Woodham: Charles to rescue of Cherie

Boy, I bet Cherie Blair is delighted that Charles and Camilla have announced their intention to marry. The wife of the British Prime Minister, who of course visited Australia - oops, I mean New Zealand - this week, has been scorched by the intensity of the media heat that has followed her speaking tour through the Antipodes, and she will be glad of the respite, as the scrum turns its attentions to Charles and Camilla.

If the tabloid gossip is to be believed, Charles has been chasing this girl for more than 30 years and in fact, he asked her to marry him when they were both in their 20s - when the woman Charles was to eventually marry was just a child. Camilla said no, but their affair continued. The sainted Diana, Charles' young bride, blamed Camilla for the failure of her marriage, and there is no doubt Camilla was the person Diana was thinking of when she referred to there being three people in the marriage.

Camilla will never win the hearts and minds of the people but she doesn't need to.

Years ago, she won the heart and mind of her prince.

Although contemporary commentators have not been kind to the star-crossed lovers, future historians may be more generous.

I hope they will be more generous than the Queen. Her terse, thin-lipped, message of congratulations could not have been more grudging. Reading between the lines, it sounded more like: "Philip and I have reluctantly conceded that this old slapper will never be out of our weak-spined first-born's life, so we accept it's better that they're married."

I wish them well. But I have no doubt that there will be three people in Charles' second marriage, too - Charles, Camilla and the ghost of Diana.


- Herald on Sunday