Prince Charles veto thing

Maybe I'm naive but to me this is incredible news. How can this be? Surely they can't fob questioners off with "We never discuss the Royals" - I mean I know that our democracy is far from perfect but surely our leaders are at least supposed to pretend that we live in a democracy.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2011/oct/31/prince-charles-veto-planning-legislation#start-of-comments