Hasan Suroor A "Marie Antoinette moment'? Or much ado about nothing? Either way it had all the trappings of a perfect media storm with Prince Charles bang at the centre of it. He was dubbed a "modern Marie Antoinette' after his remarks in a newspaper interview recently were interpreted as effectively tellin g people to eat organic food when, thanks to rising prices, they are struggling to afford Pot Noodle. This, critics said, had echoes of the good old Marie A's arrogant advice to starving peasants to go and have cake if they didn't have bread. Dark references were made to the "fate of the Bourbons' alluding to the fact that Marie Antoinette and her family ended up on the guillotine. We are, of course, now told that she never made the remark that made her so infamously famous. And, so it seems, the Prince never meant what was attributed to him. For, as the controversy over his comment appeared to spiral out of control, "sources close to him' were reported as saying that he had been misunderstood. His critics were accused of putting a spin on his statement to make him sound like a latter-day "M.A.' The row started when the Prince, who has his own successful organic food business and markets a range of fashionably expensive organic products under the brand name Duchy Originals (don't try their biscuits; they taste like chalk), used an interview with The Daily Telegraph to launch a vituperative attack on GM food technology describing it as the "biggest environmental disaster of all times' and a threat to food security. His comment shocked scientists, angered government ministers and left his ordinary subjects choking on their bargain cornflakes. Republicans watched with glee as experts tore into the Prince, calling him "shockingly ill-informed,' and accused him of fuelling "hysteria' over GM food at a time when the world is desperately looking for cheaper alternatives to meet food shortages and avert hunger. One leading scientist dismissed his remarks as an "ignorant rant' and pointed that India's famous "green revolution' would not have occurred if such views were taken seriously. "He seems to be ranting about GM crops ... and even hybrid plants. He is inflating fears instead of contributing to reasoned debate,' Professor Alison Smith of John Innes Centre at Norwich, Britain's premier plant science institute, told The Times. The Prince also faced accusations of a "conflict of interest' with critics asking whether it was constitutionally proper for the country's putative next monarch to plug his business by so directly and aggressively attacking the Government's policy on GM food. Some in the Labour Party felt that he had ''overstepped the mark' and compromised his constitutional role. But on controversies, the Prince has form. Indeed, he seldom opens his mouth without ending up ruffling feathers. Anything that has a whiff of modernity