The news that appeared in the Sunday newspapers was intriguing, to say the least. A meeting has taken place at (appropriately enough) the Royal Over-Seas League club between Meredith Maines, the latest in Prince Harry’s apparently endless line of California-based press officers, Liam Maguire, who has that similarly thankless task in this country, and Tobyn Andrae, who acts as the King’s communications secretary.
Few will be convinced that this is the beginning of a renewed bond between father and son
A well-briefed source told the Mail on Sunday, not sparing the clichés, that ‘there’s a long road ahead, but a channel of communication is now open for the first time in years’. Stressing that ‘there was no formal agenda, just casual drinks’, the clubland equivalent of Deep Throat reflected that ‘there were things both sides wanted to talk about’.
Suspicion immediately arose that the news of this encounter had been deliberately leaked by Camp Sussex in an attempt to suggest that Harry wanted to build bridges with his father, and that this was a first tentative step in such an initiative. This would hardly have been surprising. The Sussex PR operation is hardly known for its Garbo-like recalcitrance. Its willingness to brief newspapers on often sensitive, even embarrassing, topics has meant that Buckingham Palace is often driven to distraction.
Such remarks as how the meeting was only the ‘first step towards reconciliation between Harry and his father, but at least it is a step in the right direction’, and that ‘everyone just wants to move on and move forward now. It was finally the right time for the two sides to talk’ appeared to suggest that there was an element of blame on both sides. Many would disagree with this, but still, if the Gallagher brothers could overcome their differences in pursuit of their mutual goals, surely the King and his younger son might find their own accord for rather more principled and less mercenary reasons.
However, any positive effects that came out of last week’s meeting have been almost immediately jeopardised by the leak, which Team Sussex has loudly insisted that it is not behind. They are claiming that it was not in their, or anyone else’s interests, to have such a delicate negotiation splashed over the newspaper front pages.
For once, something coming out of Montecito seems possible; it does, indeed, make no sense to have thrust something like this into the public domain. Yet many other antics of Harry and Meghan’s have also been similarly nonsensical, and so there will be many who will think that this has been a piece of duplicity, firstly dangling a story like this in front of hungry newspaper editors, and then snatching it back with feigned outrage that anyone could ever have been prepared to print such a thing.
Few will be convinced that this is the beginning of a renewed bond between father and son, given everything that has happened. (Tellingly, neither the Prince of Wales’s private secretary nor press officer were present, suggesting that fraternal reconciliation has not even been discussed as an idea.) The current hope is that the King will be invited to the Invictus games in Birmingham in 2027 and that this will be an opportunity for him publicly to reconcile with Harry, whom he has not seen since February last year.
Theoretically, this makes a good deal of sense – on all parts – and there will be many at Buckingham Palace, and beyond, who would like to see such a harmonious meeting take place, with a view to putting this prolonged squabble to bed. Yet as we have all seen, an awful, awful lot can happen over the next two years. Even those who are hoping that last weekend’s story does herald a renewed bond between father and son may have to be prepared to be grievously disappointed all over again.
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