Will Queen Elizabeth have a relative in Iraq before Blair?

[Recursion]

Kind of a puff piece on BBC about prince Harry and his military career:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/6385169.stm

But I was noticed the last bit especially:

A grandmother's anxiety is much the same in Windsor as it is in Wallasey or Wick, and in the context of this particular conflict, it is an anxiety which may perhaps be exacerbated in all of those places by doubts about the purpose of the whole endeavour.

But Second Lieutenant Harry Wales will be there, doing his duty with the rest of his regiment, while his father, elder brother and grandmother will - with several thousand other British families - suddenly have a very personal stake in the progress of this particular campaign, and an insight into the stresses that it can provoke.

They may even find themselves reflecting that not a single senior member of this government, the ministers of the Crown who committed Britain to the Iraqi intervention, has had an equivalent experience.

How sad is it when an unelected family presiding over a pre-medieval system has more stake in common with their "subjects" than the elected ministers have with their constituents? Euan and Nicky Blair are both old enough to serve.

[mr blur]

1. Perhaps they don't agree with the war

although, to be honest, they haven't said so. Should young people die because their father is a lying bastard? Harry has no choice in the matter and hardly enough brains to object to anything. He will do as he's told. I imagine he'll be kept out of harm's way as much as possible but if he were to die he'd be "doing his duty". To his grandmother, in fact. It's all such ridiculous, arrogant nonsense that you'd have to live here to fully appreciate it.

[Greeby]

2. As I said elsewhere

The royal family have a tradition of military service during peace or war.

And as for Euan Blair, I doubt British soldiers want to have to deal with a useless drunk like him in the middle of a war zone