"This trend was encouraged by the well-known sympathies of the Prince of Wales, or King Edward VIII as he became on 20 January 1936. Lacking both intelligence and a sense of constitutional propriety, the Prince made his views clear when he told Prince Louis Ferdinand of Prussia, in July 1933, that it "was no business of ours to interfere in Germany’s internal affairs either re Jews or re anything else" and that "dictators were very popular these days and that we might want one in England before long". Four months later, he told the former Austrian Ambassador Count Mensdorff that national socialism was "the only thing to do", while, in June 1935, the diarist and Tory MP Chips Channon noted "much gossip about the Prince of Wales' alleged Nazi leanings". The reason tongues had been set wagging was the speech the Prince had given to members of the British Legion on 11 June 1935, in which he praised the forthcoming visit to Germany of a delegation of ex-servicemen. This took place the following month and was, as Anthony Eden had warned, a propaganda gift for the regime."