Well, what did Prince Harry expect? The Duke of Sussex has been involved in plenty of hubristic and pointless things since he decided to step down as a member of the royal family in 2020. But taking the government to court on the grounds that they were refusing to provide security to the levels that he and his family would expect, was perhaps his most pig-headed and idiotic publicity blunder.
Harry has made his living over the past few years as a professional martyr
Today’s verdict by Sir Geoffrey Vos, Master of the Rolls and Head of Civil Justice in Great Britain, that Harry is not entitled to appeal against the level of police protection that he receives when he is present in his former home country, represents a final and, one hopes, definitive humiliation in this particular matter.
Sir Geoffrey was not unkind to Harry. Acknowledging the obvious fear that the Duke has for his family’s safety from various terror groups – something arguably exacerbated by his decision to write about the number of enemy fighters he killed in his 2023 memoir, Spare – he noted that Harry’s recent court evidence, which was largely held behind closed doors, was ‘powerful and moving’.
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