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Harry and Meghan named world’s most influential icons

DANIEL LEAL-OLIVAS - WPA Pool/Getty Images

It’s still some months until awards season gears up but Mr S is happy to announce this year’s winner of the Steerpike ‘Slurp Prize for Sycophancy.’ In a tough field, full of the usual deferential dross, slimy pseudo-babble and glutinous grovelling, one entry has today blown away all competition to clinch the gong, with an entry so obsequious it would make Uriah Heep cringe.

Step forward José Andrés with his fawning submission to this year’s Time magazine list of the ‘World’s 100 most influential people.’ The Spanish chef has prepared an appropriately nauseating entry on the Duke and Duchess of Sussex, replete with a suitably airbrushed front cover which has them staring vacuously into the distance. The pair topped the ‘Icons’ section of the list with a tribute worthy of the Soviet organ Pravda. It begins thus:

There’s a famous TV interview of Harry, the Duke of Sussex, when he was an Apache helicopter gunner a few years ago. He’s sitting close to an airfield in Afghanistan, commenting on some royal news, when there’s a bang and a group of soldiers scramble behind him. In one swift motion, he stands up, rips off his microphone and runs toward the action. That same sense of urgency drives Meghan, now the Duchess of Sussex, who has long been an active humanitarian and a powerful advocate for women and girls around the world.

This would of course be the ‘same sense of urgency’ which has driven the couple to, er, fail to produce one of their much-vaunted Archewell podcasts since 2020. Indeed Steerpike wonders what exactly Harry and Meghan have done to deserve inclusion on a list of the world’s most influential people, given that Angela Merkel, Boris Johnson or the Queen didn’t make the cut. Fortunately José is on hand to tell us why exactly the exiled royals are among the greatest embodiments of humanity alive today:

They turn compassion into boots on the ground through their Archewell Foundation.

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Steerpike
Written by
Steerpike

Steerpike is The Spectator's gossip columnist, serving up the latest tittle tattle from Westminster and beyond. Email tips to steerpike@spectator.co.uk or message @MrSteerpike

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