Prince harry

It will be a saddened Prince Harry who will digest the verdict of much of the British media on the denouement to Megxit. In the eyes of most of those who write about the Windsors, the Queen is above reproach and the couple who exiled themselves are once again found wanting. Their West coast inspired talk of service being ‘universal’ is the latest entry on a charge sheet of sins they’ve committed against a venerated institution. To Harry and Meghan’s critics – and they have plenty – the equation is simple. If millions of Netflix and Spotify dollars are pouring into your bank accounts, you can’t be opening fetes in

Congratulations Meghan and Harry! Another baby. How lovely! You both look so happy and relaxed: all bare-foot, belly-cradling, fondly-gazing into each other’s eyes. It’s just adorable to hear that Archie can’t wait to become a big brother. And that the Queen and Prince Philip are delighted by the news of their tenth great grandchild; or eleventh if Zara gets there first. And so thoughtful to give a nod to Harry’s mum, Princess Diana, who also made a Valentine’s Day pregnancy announcement. I bet you were relieved to have that pesky case against the Mail on Sunday settled in time to break the news! But hang on a minute. I’m confused.

Meghan Markle hailed her victory in a high court privacy case as a ‘comprehensive win’ over the Mail on Sunday’s ‘illegal and dehumanising practices’. But is that right? If you dig beneath the headlines and read the judge’s ruling, it becomes clear that her victory has much to do with a burgeoning expansion of privacy rights based on human rights law. This change in the law has taken place with little fanfare and the victim – the press – generate little sympathy. Yet it is something that should worry any supporter of free speech. Until about twenty years ago, the English courts were pretty robust about celebrities’ privacy suits, then known as

Oscar Wilde’s Algernon observed: ‘All women become like their mothers. That is their tragedy. No man does, and that is his.’ No man? Not quite. Prince Harry is in so many ways turning into a version of his mother. The first sentence of the joint new year statement from the Duke and Duchess of Sussex on their Archewell Foundation website declares: ‘I am my mother’s son.’ For those of us who were around when Diana was on the scene, there’s a pang of recognition here. Prince Harry is indeed his mother’s son. He’s what might have happened to Diana if this essentially English girl had been transported to California, had

Why is there not a single trans voice featured in Harry and Meghan’s first podcast? It’s a question that needs answering. The half-hour recording – the couple’s first since signing a $25 million deal with Spotify – sets out to explore the psychological impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on, as the Duchess herself puts it, ‘people from all walks of life’. Given this description, excluding the trans community from participating seems, at best, problematic – perhaps even sinister. Why leave trans people out in this most public of discourses? This editorial decision – a slap in the face for an already marginalised community – seems all the more surprising because

We’re closing 2020 by republishing our ten most-read articles of the year. Here’s No. 4: Camilla Tominey on the Prince of Wales Three years ago, Sir Christopher Geidt departed as the Queen’s private secretary. For years, he had done much to hold The Firm together, but his influence was resented by Prince Charles. The festering acrimony between Buckingham Palace and Clarence House came to a head in 2017 when Geidt, a Cambridge-educated former Scots Guard, convened a meeting of staff to announce Prince Philip’s retirement without first consulting Charles’s aides. Geidt ended up being forced out after a decade of unwavering service. Many in the family — including the Princess Royal

Half a lifetime ago, I was, briefly, an occasional royal reporter – and watching The Crown, season four has revived memories of that inglorious chapter.  It began with my one and only encounter with my favourite Crown character, Princess Margaret, on a sweltering July evening in 1997. I had arranged a trial night shift on the Evening Standard, starting at 5pm, which only allowed me ten minutes to get from my day job at the Old Bailey across London to their offices in Kensington, by bicycle, in 90-degree heat. I arrived breathless, only for the news editor to spin me straight back out, saying I had just five minutes before

‘What if every single one of us was a raindrop?’  I have no idea what goes into the Californian drinking water, but the Duke formerly known as Prince Harry seems to have been knocking it back. We are fortunate indeed that, despite having fled State-side to secure greater privacy, the Duke and Duchess of Sussex continue to send us regular character-improving missives. This week sees Harry return to a favourite theme: climate change. Speaking at an online event to mark the launch of WaterBear, a new subscription television platform for environmental and conservation documentaries, Harry pondered: ‘Every single raindrop that falls from the sky relieves the parched ground. What if

The case of Johnny Depp vs the Sun, heard over recent weeks at the High Court in London, certainly gives fresh life to the old warnings about dirty linen and its public laundering. Whatever the results, I would be surprised if it didn’t provoke others to think again about the wisdom of reverting to the law. The influencers formerly known as the Sussexes, for instance, must be wondering whether their forthcoming legal case will result in them solely being showered with praise. Of course one has sympathy for famous people who feel that they have been badly portrayed. It is unpleasant to read nasty things about yourself in the newspapers.

In the Nineties, it was a husband and a wife who used supportive reporters, friendly biographers and the global reach of television to extol their own royal righteousness, as their marriage deteriorated. Now, it’s the sons of Charles and Diana who are settling scores after the searing pain of a shared bereavement failed to lash them together for life. Harry is first out of the traps with ‘Finding Freedom’, which is being serialised in the Times and the Sunday Times. The biography captures his intense hurt that the people who are variously described as ‘the men in grey suits’, ‘the old guard’ and ‘vipers’, didn’t properly appreciate what he and

Elton John did his royal pals Harry and Meghan few favours when he revealed he’d bought carbon offsets for the couple’s recent trip to Nice in Sir Elton’s private jet. It was also a mistake. ‘Offsetting is worse than doing nothing,’ according to Manchester university professor Kevin Anderson, one of the vanishingly small number of people in the climate world who actually walks the climate talk. ‘It is without scientific legitimacy, is dangerously misleading and almost certainly contributes to a net increase in the absolute rate of global emissions growth.’ Offsetting Harry and Meghan’s emissions must demonstrate ‘with a reasonable level of certainty’ that their flight emissions – plus any

Prince Harry’s revelation that he intends to only have two children for the sake of the planet is woke politics at its worst. As his critics have readily pointed out, if he truly believes that having fewer children will save the planet then why not stop at one child? As much as Harry might like us to believe that his decision comes at a great personal cost, he has simply adopted an ethical stance that best suits his lifestyle. This made-to-measure approach to morality is everywhere these days: from so-called ‘flexi-veganism’ to the long-haul flights enjoyed by some supporters of Extinction Rebellion. It enables people to signal virtue without having to change very

Surprise! Prince Harry has let it be known that he meditates daily after being presented with a copy of Eight Steps to Happiness by a Buddhist monk, Kelsang Sonam. It is of a piece with his assertively detoxed marital masculinity which reportedly involves eating kale and doing yoga, and describing himself as a feminist, which he also did yesterday. Perhaps he also uses Gillette. There’s obviously nothing wrong about meditating – Sister Wendy Beckett did it all the time – nor, I suppose, about eating kale, though I personally prefer eating pheasant. But let’s not go with the notion that there’s anything brave or interesting about all this; the Prince,