Prince Harry and Meghan

There are important constitutional elements wrapped up in our Constitutional Monarchy - certain Government business actually cannot officially happen without the Monarch or a Counsellor of State.

Much of the stuff downstream of that is pure nonsense. Actually completely made-up stuff that has accrued over the centuries to mark out status among the aristocrats. Unfortunately lots of people are wrapped up in the ‘specialness’ and ‘tradition’ of the nonsense.

The best argument for abolishing the monarchy is that it’s a human rights abuse to force someone into a Government role because of their birth, let alone their spouse and close family. It’s totally contrary to our modern notions of liberty.

Some People have extremely short memories.

I remember, from my middle-aged lifetime, acres of press coverage about:

Charles having an affair with Camilla (including the Tampon phone call)
Diana having an affair with James Hewitt
Fergie being too fat
Fergie wearing unflattering clothes
Fergie having an affair with a bloke who sucked her toes (including pictures)
Diana believing that Charles had an affair with their kids’ nanny
Diana and Charles separating
Diana and Charles getting divorced
Fergie and Andrew divorcing
‘Randy Andy’
‘Airmiles Andy’ making sure his duties as a ‘trade envoy’ took him to a variety of golf courses
Philip making various ‘gaffes’ on Royal engagements (including comments that we would call racist today)
Philip having various female ‘friends’
Edward possibly being gay
Edward possibly being in a relationship with a PR girl
Edward getting engaged and married to the PR girl (and not being gay after all!!)
The PR girl (Sophie) having had her shirt yanked up by Chris Tarrant to show one boob in a photo and The Sun buying that picture off their colleague to publish on Page 3.
The media outrage at The Sun treating putting That Photo on Page 3
Sophie and Edward attempting to run production company, and the fact that the company mainly made programmes on Royal stuff
Fergie being in load of debt
The Queen Mum being in loads of debt
Fergie getting a £1m contract with Weightwatchers
Fergie losing weight
Fergie writing children’s books about helicopters
Sophie bragging at a trade fair about their production company’s Royal connections
Sophie and Edward’s production company filming a piece about Prince William near his school, in breach of media agreements to Leave him alone
Harry drinking
Harry doing drugs
Harry wearing a Nazi fancy dress costume
Charles taking Harry to visit a rehab Center
Sophie and Edward finally giving up on the production company and becoming ‘working Royals’
Royal money, too much of it being spent
The Windsor Castle Fire, and who was going to pay to fix the damage

William having his fancy dress birthday party gate crashed by a comedian who rushed the stage and grabbed the mic
Harry’s girlfriends
William’s girlfriends
William’s time at Eton and at St Andrews
Fergie being in load of debt again
Fergie doing a photography book
Diana going to the gym
Diana visiting India
Diana taking a picture in a landmine site
Diana being terrible for taking on the ‘political issue’ of landmines
Diana having boyfriends post-divorce
Diana comforting Elton John at Gianni Versace’s funeral
Diana having a nice holiday
Diana being in a relationship with Dodi Fayed
Diana shockingly dying in a car crash

ALL THE DIANA HYSTERIA
OMG THE DIANA HYSTERIA
HONESTLY THE EXPRESS PUT DIANA ON THEIR FRONT PAGE EVERY WEEKEND FOR YEARS

Charles and whether he should be allowed to marry Camilla
Whether Camilla should be Queen if she marries Charles
Whether legally Charles and Camilla can have a morganatic marriage in English law
Charles marrying Camilla
Camilla’s children and what their position is/should be
Fergie getting caught out by the News of the World Fake Sheikh offering to sell access to Andrew
William and Kate being together
William and Kate breaking up
William and Kate getting engaged and married
French paparazzi taking pictures of Kate sunbathing topless on private property
Kate’s skirt being blown up by the wind at Royal events, and what she was/was not wearing under it
William being an air ambulance pilot
William being lazy and not doing enough Royal Engagements, including skipping the BAFTAs
William using his work as an air ambulance pilot as an excuse for not doing Royal engagements, because of ‘rest’ regulations
The Air Ambulance service saying actually pilots are free to do other work in their off-time, ‘resting’ just means ‘not flying’
William ending his part-time work as an Air Ambulance pilot and taking up full time Royal Duties
Kate being very sick during pregnancy and being admitted to hospital
A radio station prank-calling the hospital Kate was admitted to
The nurse who fell for the prank call committing suicide
Kate giving birth to George
Kate taking maternity leave
Kate not doing enough ‘work’ as a result of being very sick, maternity leave for George, getting pregnant again, being very sick again, then taking more maternity leave
Beatrice and Eugenie having jobs but taking ‘too many’ holidays from them
Kate being too middle class and not fitting in with the aristocratic set
Andrew and Epstein and the horrific trafficking allegations


And that’s all off the top of my head. I could probably find more with a flick through some newspaper archives.

And none of that was anything to do with Meghan!

kathryn don’t forget this: www.theguardian.com/uk/2009/jan/12/prince-harry-racism which I can’t help thinking of whenever he talks about the racism Meghan has faced.

Good point, forgot that one!
Always wonder how much of that was ‘army lingo’/‘banter’ given that it didn’t seem to dent his popularity in the army at all. Which is really grim.

I also forgot the thing when he had to be pulled out of Afghanistan because of the Ozzie press leaking. And the naked Vegas pool thing.

Honestly, the idea that what Harry has done since meeting Meghan is some huge unprecedented scandal that justifies them being hate figures, compared to all of the other stuff he and other members of the Royal Family have done over the past 40 years - well, it’s straight-up barmy.

This too shall pass, folks. And the tabloids will move on to fresh meat.

There’s actually loads of new stuff - it’s just it’s stuff about their courtship and personal relationship, and stuff with them and their kids now, that lots of people don’t care about because it’s not controversial.



If you want to enjoy the broader story of two people from very different backgrounds meeting and connecting with each other - the very human part of it - then there’s lots to enjoy.


Also for the global audience a lot of the commentary about the history of slavery and the Empire/Commonwealth will be very interesting. It’s not news to anyone in the U.K. but not everyone watching it will be from the UK.


I am actually hoping that the last episode will take us on to what they’ve been doing in the past year or so, setting up their foundation and projects. The haters won’t be interested but I am genuinely curious as to how they are carving out their niche in the world as content producers and philanthropists, in their post-Royal life.

Or maybe the trailers are just click bait to tempt you to stream it.

I know I won't be.

Me neither. Didn't watch the first three either. 

Yes indeed, why listen to what the people themselves have to say, rather than taking the Daily Mail’s word for it?!

The Daily Mail and The Sun are so known for being fair and reasonable commentators on public events….

SW can you shed some light on Kate's photography? I cant see anything from a google search. Please and ta

Kate always takes and releases her own pictures of the kids on social media. She doesn’t do photo calls or portraits with professionals, and the newspapers don’t get Exclusives.

That means there’s lots of photographers (and media outlets) who’d normally be able to score a nice little income for official Royal portraits who are missing out, and newspapers can’t use even bland official portraits to drive clicks - you just follow the Royal SM account to see the kids pictures.

Eventually the people losing the money are gonna get pissed off…

Yes, to be clear I think Kate is well within her rights to only release photos of her kids she herself has taken.

But I’ve seen grumbling from more than one professional photographer about the money they are not earning from photos of them. And snark about the quality of Kate’s work.

She’s well within her rights but it’s blatantly nothing to do with privacy, since they’re happy to trot the kids out at every opportunity. It’s about money and playing silly power games with the press with the poor children as pawns.

Both William and Harry seem so damaged by what the press did to their mother, but the royals survive due to the unspoken agreement. Where will it end?