A POLITICAL storm erupted last night after it was announced that the

Duke of Edinburgh is to represent the Queen at next month's funeral of

Emperor Hirohito of Japan.

Angry protests came from both Labour and Tory MPs over the choice of

the Duke, who is president of the Burma Star Association, the

organisation of Far East war veterans.

Many ex-servicemen regard Hirohito as a war criminal, and one back

bench MP said bitterly: ''We should not be worshipping at the shrine of

the Adolf Hitler of the Far East.''

Another said that whoever advised Buckingham Palace on the choice of

the royal representative at the February 24 funeral ''should be shot''.

Mr Harold Payne, president of the National Federation of Far Eastern

Prisoners of War Associations, said he was deeply saddened by the

decision.

The announcement, and the disclosure that Foreign Secretary Sir

Geoffrey Howe would represent the Government at the funeral, will almost

certainly provoke a row in Parliament today when the Prime Minister

answers Commons questions on the first day after the Christmas recess.

But Tory MP Mr Ivor Stanbrook, a constitutional expert, applauded the

decision to send Prince Philip.

Mr Stanbrook, chairman of the Conservative back bench Constitutional

Committee, said: ''The proper time to consider relations with the

Emperor of Japan was when we invited him here in 1971 as an honoured

guest on a state visit. That means that we have a duty now to honour

that commitment and to respect him on his death.''

He added: ''I agree the Queen should not go -- she never does. But it

is quite appropriate that her Consort should.''

However, Mr Ron Brown, Labour MP for Leith, who has described Hirohito

as a war criminal of the worst kind, called for a nationwide campaign to

change the decision.

Mr Brown said: ''The wisest course would have been to ignore this

event altogether, just as the royal family ignored Lockerbie.

''Clearly, the royal family operate double standards. They should have

been at Lockerbie and they were not. This decision is unacceptable to

the majority of British people whatever their political views.

''It is a grave insult to many people who were enslaved, tortured and

killed by the Japanese during the last war.''

Mr Brown said he was not against the Japanese people. ''I am simply

against the outrage that is about to be perpetrated unless we can stop

it.''

Mr Terry Dicks, Conservative MP for Hayes and Harlington, said the

Duke should now resign from the presidency of the Burma Star

Association.

He went on: ''I am appalled to hear this news, and that the Foreign

Secretary is going as well.

''It is the most disgraceful and disgusting decision I have ever heard

of and whoever tendered this shameful advice -- whether from 10 Downing

Street or anywhere else -- should be shot.''

Mr Dicks said that if anybody had to go to the funeral, it should be a

''very junior civil servant''.

For the ex-PoW associations, Mr Payne called on the Duke, ''as a mark

of respect'', to lay a commemorative wreath at the Commonwealth War

Graves Commission cemetery in Yokohama to the memory of those who died

in prisoner-of-war camps.

The cemetery contains the graves of 1800 British, Australian,

Canadian, Indian and New Zealand servicemen, who died as prisoners of

the Japanese.

''We feel, given the fact the Duke is now going, that this is the most

sincere thing we can ask him to do,'' said Mr Payne.

Buckingham Palace would not comment on the Duke's programme. A

spokesman said: ''We have no further details.''

The Japanese Embassy had no comment on the announcement. A Embassy

spokesman said: ''We are not in a position to make any comment.''

Prince Philip followed his uncle, Earl Mountbatten of Burma, as head

of the 175,000-strong Burma Star Association. The former Supreme Allied

Commander South East Asia, accepted the Japanese surrender in 1945.

Dr David Owen, the SDP leader, described the choice of the Duke of

Edinburgh as ''imaginative, correct and courageous''.