Sussexes

Who or what drove Harry and Meghan to leave the royal bosom for the land of slebs on the other side of the Atlantic? That’s one of the central questions of a new two-part documentary, The Princes and the Press, that aired on the BBC last night. The obvious suspect is the dreaded British media — barging, intrusive, xenophobic — riddled with prejudice, we’re told, against a mixed-race American in the monarchy. But the jostling between royal households seems equally responsible. After the early days of Hazza and Megz, a clear jealousy from some of William and Kate’s people began to seep into the media. The younger brother and his

‘Why do you lot hate Harry and Meghan so much?’ It’s a question the formerly royal couple’s supporters often ask whenever the pair trend on Twitter, as a clip of the Sussexes’ latest pronouncement, or news of their latest corporate deal, goes viral. They think they already know the answer of course: it is sexism, racism or probably both. Meghan is a woman of colour who dares to speak out about equality and this infuriates gammons and ‘anti-woke’ commentators alike. But the answer is actually very simple, and has nothing to do with Meghan’s skin colour or sex. Harry and Meghan are profoundly annoying. They are virtue-signalling made flesh. They

Meghan Markle has written a book for children. Of course she has. There is no celeb, no matter how busy, who doesn’t have a children’s book in them, because children’s books, you might think if you didn’t know better, don’t need plot or character or much in the way of style. It was either that, or a cookbook. The Bench, for that is the name, is based apparently on a poem Meghan wrote for her husband for father’s day, a month after little Archie was born. Because that’s what you do with a small baby, isn’t it… you write a poem. It’s short, it would seem, but then William Nicholson’s

Monarchy is madness, a national delusion in which adults behave as children and project onto the objects of their desire. (Children make excellent monarchists. They believe whole-heartedly). You look at monarchy and see what you want to see: a wholesome family (really?); a powerful nation in, say, 1912 (not anymore); the security that comes from an ideal of unity embodied in a single woman (flimsy). Sometimes delusion runs out. It has no choice. It did last night, when Prince Harry, in conversation with Oprah Winfrey, called his family ‘trapped’. His father and his brother couldn’t leave, he said. He could and he was happy that he did. Royal men are

Obviously, I can’t wait for the Meghan and Harry audience with Oprah Winfrey. Alas, it’s going to be broadcast at about one o’clock in the morning our time (I’m still thinking popcorn at the office around a flat screen). But meanwhile there are tasters from the programme to keep us happy. What got me going from the most recent excerpt wasn’t Meghan’s observations about ‘The Firm’, interesting as that was, but the question put to her by Oprah:  ‘How do you feel about the palace hearing you speak your truth today?’ Eh? ‘Your truth’? I think what she means is ‘putting forward your point of view’ or ‘offering your take

Without going into the ins and outs of the Duke and Duchess of Sussex’s withdrawal from royal life, still less the merits of the Duchess’s privacy case against the Mail on Sunday, a claim made by her lawyers this morning cannot be allowed to pass without comment. They claim: ‘This contribution of public funds towards crowd security was far outweighed by the tourism revenue of over £1 billion that was generated from the royal wedding of the Duke and Duchess of Sussex which went directly into the public purse.’ Should we really be thankful to the Duke of Duchess of Sussex for stuffing the UK’s coffers as a result of