Prince Harry needs tact in Belize on first solo Royal tour

He is known as the party prince, but Prince Harry will need to show tact, maturity and diplomacy when he arrives in the Caribbean today for his first solo Royal tour.

Prince Harry will begin his tour in Belize today Photo: Getty Images

By Gordon Rayner, in Belize

10:03AM GMT 02 Mar 2012

One of the key engagements being undertaken by the 27-year-old will be a meeting with Jamaica’s Prime Minister, Portia Simpson Miller, who said in January that she intended to remove the Queen as head of state to turn the country into a republic.

Rumours in Jamaica that the Prince’s itinerary was changed as a result of Mrs Simpson Miller’s forthright comments have been strenuously denied by St James’s Palace, which arranged the tour at the request of the Queen as part of her Diamond Jubilee celebrations.

The Prince will begin his tour in Belize today, where he will meet the country’s prime minister before a visit tomorrow to the Mayan pyramid of Xunantunich.

He will also visit the Bahamas, moving on to Jamaica, where he will meet the world’s fastest man, Usain Bolt, before undertaking a trade mission to Brazil.

Royal aides are alert to the possibility that the visit to Brazil could be hijacked by protestors from neighbouring Argentina following increased tension over the sovereignty of the Falkland Islands.