BBC Radio played a journalist’s tape recording of an interview with the Prince of Wales this morning in which he is heard getting very angry over genetically-modified crops (GM).

Jeff Randall of the Telegraph, and formerly the BBC’s Business Editor, interviewed the Prince at the Castle of Mey in Caithness where Charles and Camilla are holidaying.

At one stage Randall asked him why he objects to “large corporations” making the running on GM, since only they can afford the investment for research and development.

Charles replied that large companies are conducting a “gigantic experiment with nature and the whole of humanity which has gone seriously wrong. Why else are we facing all these challenges, climate change and everything? That would be the absolute destruction of everything, and the classic way of ensuring there is no food in the future.”

The Prince believes food security should be put above an unregulated race for food production.

He continued with considerable passion, “And if they think it’s somehow going to work because they are going to have one form of clever genetic engineering after another then again count me out, because that will be guaranteed to cause the biggest environmental disaster of all time.”

The phrase “Count me out!” is used at least twice to hammer home his point. Commentators are today speculating precisely what he meant by it.

My personal interpretation is that he means to go on as he has for 40 years, making his case strongly and, as he sees it, non-politically. However, currently he is boycotting the Olympic Games because of China’s activities in Tibet. He also refused to attend a State banquet for the Chinese President in London and met the Dalai Lama openly, flaunting political advice.

Clearly Charles is treading a fine line on these issues now that food and climate change have become hot political topics around the world.

His position could become serious once he is King. Going against the Government of the day on policy would create not just an unseemly row but a major constitutional crisis. Already the usual crew of grumbly Labour backbenchers are feigning outrage at his remarks.

With the phrase “Count me out!” could Charles be signalling that he will not preside over a country that has relinquished its control in these crucial areas to the European Union, which has significantly softened its attitudes to GM crops and research in recent years?

Might he be saying, I just can’t do this job, it would be against all my principles and life’s work?

Or was it just a rush of blood to the head in response to some shoot-from-the-hip questioning?

Jeff Randall’s background to the interview can be read here.