All hail the first couple of
international statesmanship! Let us wonder at their wisdom and wait on bended
knee for their sage advice on how we should all live. I refer, of course, to
the Duke and Duchess of Sussex, who graced the United Nations with their
presence this week in honour of Nelson Mandela International Day.
Who better to celebrate the
memory of a man who managed 27 years in prison than a Prince who heroically
escaped his own gilded prison of royal castles, adoring crowds and unimaginable
luxury?
I haven’t always had such
disdain for Harry and Meghan. Far from it. When she arrived on the scene,
I thought this poised, beautiful woman would be a great asset for the UK;
another Kate Middleton to wow crowds around the world.
The Duke and Duchess of Sussex
graced the United Nations with their presence this week in honour of
International Nelson Mandela International Day
Indeed, so impressed was I
with the royal couple that I considered working for them.
In late 2019 I had a couple of
meetings with one of their senior courtiers about writing speeches for the Duke
and Duchess. Though they were already attracting some flack, I still thought
that the way people perceived them could be turned around and wanted to play a
small part in it.
If I’d had the chance, I would
have advised Harry and Meghan to proceed with a little more humility. Pick
gritty, unfashionable causes, not just the latest woke obsession. Learn the
royal craft under the radar, not with a thousand cameras flashing on your
latest designer outfits. Remember, you are servants of the nation, not
celebrities.
But then came Megxit and all
the unflattering stories that followed: the criticism that by agreeing to do a
documentary for Netflix (makers of The Crown — which is often deemed
unsympathetic to the Royal Family), they had been ‘disloyal and rude’; the
‘tell-all’ interviews that slurred those we thought Harry loved; the
accusations of racism that trashed our whole country.
Still, Harry and Meghan were
just desperate for a bit of privacy, weren’t they?
Alas, that privacy seems to
have eluded them. They are to public life what Japanese knotweed is to soil:
persistent, irritating and nigh-on impossible to see the back of. We’ve had
tears with Oprah, giggles with James Corden, endless ‘at home’ shots of the
couple and — coming soon to a screen near you — the aforementioned Netflix
documentary series, part of a deal thought to be worth around $100million.
God bless whoever is writing
their speeches these days — including the one at the UN. In it Harry talked
about how ‘climate change [is] wreaking havoc on our planet, with the most
vulnerable suffering most of all’.
