Royal family

Some time around 2006 my then flatmate, a filmmaker, had a good idea: why not make a programme of reverse anthropology? Instead of going to the jungle with some square-jawed presenter to marvel at the natives, he decided to bring the natives here, to England, to see what they made of us. The islanders who arrived one drizzly day were from Tanna, in the South Pacific, and their particular interest in coming here was to meet god, aka HRH Prince Philip. Before they arrived, I felt a certain amount of patronising anxiety. They believed that Prince Philip had emerged from a volcano on Tanna. Would I be able to keep

Fourteen prime ministers; 18 general elections; seven changes of government. Even in a stable country like Britain it is remarkable how much political water has flowed under the bridge in the 69 years since the late Duke of Edinburgh became consort to Elizabeth II. Britain has gone from a country of outside lavatories to one of conspicuous wealth, from an independent nation to a member of the EU and back again, from an empire to a champion of global trade. Some see the past seven decades as a period of national decline, yet the quality of life has improved hugely. In 1952, life expectancy at birth for Britons was 69;

The reason why Greeks and Romans would have found it difficult to eulogise the Duke of Edinburgh was that he did not hold the supreme office: his wife did. This disturbance to the ‘natural’ order of things made the Duke an anomaly. Had he not been, handbooks on the topic would have extolled him as follows. His parents would be noble, of a splendid race and ancestry, and his place of birth a distinguished one. Omens would attend his birth. His education would feature the finest teachers, associates and friends, imbuing him with traditional values, a mind apt for learning, and attention to physical fitness. Then came his moral and

At the tender age of 36, Prince Harry has got his first job since leaving the royal family. Congratulations to him. As most teenagers will know it is both a liberating and formative experience. Paper boy, shopfloor dogsbody, chief impact officer – the roles can be unglamorous, but they’re almost always worth it. Harry’s big post-Megxit break into the world of work is everything we could have expected. He will be working as something called a ‘chief impact officer’ at a Silicon Valley firm called BetterUp, which offers professional-development and mental-health coaching to businesses and their employees. Going by BetterUp’s website, it seems to peddle therapeutic burble to firms with

Meghan’s adroitness Sir: Tanya Gold suggests that people criticise Meghan Markle because she is mixed race and a woman, and states it is because she has dared to attack the royal family (‘In defence of Meghan’, 13 March). I think that misses the point. For a great number of people, her narrative simply does not ring true. Over the past few decades, thousands of media articles have accused the royal household of being claustrophobic, pedantic and antiquated. But unlike the young and naive Diana, Meghan was a thirtysomething TV star with agents and PR people when she met Prince Harry. It’s hard to believe she didn’t know what she was

The institution waited two days before responding to the Oprah interview with a statement that acknowledged the allegations around race were concerning, but it omitted any condemnation of racism. In just twelve seconds this morning, Prince William tackled the central charge head on.  The brothers are riven, in their trenches and communicating via chat show hosts and off the record briefings to newspapers TV doorstepping — shouting a question at someone without prior agreement while armed with a camera and microphone — can be a fruitless task. Doing it when the target is a royal is a soulless endeavour. This morning, at a school in east London, fortune favoured the

Why is anybody offended by Piers Morgan? That’s the point. It’s his job to be offensive. It’s his job to say out loud what many in society are thinking but lack either the courage or the platform to voice. He is the Wat Tyler of the Whatsapp age. Now of course you won’t always agree with him — perish the thought — but the fact of his existence within the mainstream media ensures the expression of opinions that polite society might find distasteful. There is something almost dialectic about Morgan’s performances. His job is to provoke, and in their response the viewer better knows his or her own mind. But

Whatever you think of the Sussex saga, it’s clear that Buckingham Palace are waking up to more uncomfortable reading this morning. The coverage of the allegations made by the Sussexes is not going to die down anytime soon and the public is now poised to see how the Palace reacts. While the Duke and Duchess of Sussex did everything in their power to twist the knife during their two-hour tell-all with Oprah, the royal family’s well-intentioned actions last week may have worsened their predicament. It’s easy for the press to pooh-pooh Meghan Markle’s Little Mermaid metaphors but there can be no denying that the Sussexes have inflicted serious reputational damage