Harry and Meghan can’t stand their growing irrelevance
by Allison Pearson
The King should move swiftly to remove the titles of his younger son and his wife, before they can do any more damage
Piers Morgan, the broadcaster, may have
finally blown apart the long-running Royal “racism row” when he
named on his Talk TV show two members of the Royal family a new book claims
were the individuals so disgracefully implicated by the Duchess of Sussex. You
may recall that Morgan was sacked by ITV when he said, after the Sussexes’ interview with Oprah, that he didn’t believe a word
Meghan had said. Like millions of us, he has had enough of this manipulative,
malevolent nonsense, apparently calculated to undermine the monarchy, and
believes that now is the time to have an “open debate” about what actually
happened.
It follows the publication of Omid
Scobie’s Endgame: Inside the Royal Family and the Monarchy’s Fight for
Survival. By some mysterious “accident”, the Dutch version of the book
revealed the names of the two senior Royals. Interviewed on Wednesday on ITV’s
This Morning, Scobie did not appear entirely heartbroken that two people, who
are not at liberty to defend themselves, had been named and shamed. Furrowing
his eyebrows – a pair of hairy caterpillars from the Ugly Bug Ball – Mr Butter
Wouldn’t Melt suggested that his true purpose was not spreading toxic rumours
to help hasten the end of the monarchy. Heavens, no. It was to direct Britons
to “conversations about the purpose, relevancy and future of the Royal family”.
What a gent!
The Palace is said to be “dismayed” that Morgan
has given away the names contained in Scobie’s book and is considering legal
action. But Morgan may have done them a service, I reckon. The guessing game
over which members of the Royal family supposedly wondered how dark Prince
Archie’s skin colour might be has been a sword of Damocles dangling over the
Royals since that notorious allegation was made in 2021.
“WHAT?” gasped Oprah. As if no mixed-race
family in human history had ever speculated on the appearance of a beautiful
forthcoming baby (good luck finding one that doesn’t).
With more kohl around her eyes than the love
child of Cleopatra and a giant panda, and milking the moment for maximum
soap-opera suds, the Duchess of Sussex played the part of the wronged relative
to perfection. Nodding sorrowfully at Oprah’s horrified reaction, and with a
fetching glisten of tears, she confided that, when she was pregnant, there were
“concerns and conversations about how dark his skin might be when he’s born”.
Her tone was soft, but her meaning could not have been harsher: “What a
bunch of bigoted bastards I married into, right?”
When Oprah asked for the names of the accused
Royals, Duchess Disingenuous declined. “I think that would be very damaging to
them,” said she solemnly. Well, we wouldn’t want that, would we, Meghan? Let’s
just leave your unsubstantiated allegations, aka “speaking my truth”, to do
their wicked work and cast a pall over the entire Windsor clan.
If you were being cynical – forgive me, I
find it hard to have any other reaction – you would have noticed that, in the bombshell
interview (watched by 12.4 million people in the UK alone), Meghan weaponised two of the fashionable concerns
of the age: race and mental health. It made it hard for the Palace to counter
the Sussexes’ wounding charges. Prince William came closest when
he snapped at a reporter: “We are very much not a racist family.” But the mud
from Montecito stuck.
That ticking timebomb exploded with the
publication of the Dutch version of Omid Scobie’s book which, he was amazed to
discover, revealed the identity of two senior Royals. Drat, those stupid,
careless translators in the Netherlands generating several million pounds worth of free
publicity! Funnily enough, my books have been translated into 32 languages and
never once has anything I didn’t write personally been interpolated into the
text. Translators as a breed are fastidious to a fault. I am prepared to bet the
inflammatory addition to the Dutch version had nothing to do with them.
What part, some of us are bound to wonder,
did Meghan and Harry play in this latest tome which exempts the Sussexes from any blame in the family feud started by Meghan
and Harry? Scobie appears to revel in the alleged animosity between King
Charles and his heir while taking several swipes at “Katie Keen”. Our widely
adored and admired Princess of Wales is painted as a “Stepford Wife” who was
“cold” to Meghan. Sounds like Catherine is an excellent judge of character who
saw a C-list American actress getting her talons into William’s nice but dim
little brother. Kate’s instinctive mistrust of Meghan proved prophetic. She was
Trouble with a capital t.
Resenting the allegations that he acts as
Meghan and Harry’s mouthpiece, Scobie claims the couple had no direct input
into this volume, nor into his earlier portrait of them, Finding Freedom.
That story came badly unstuck, however, when the Duchess of Sussex had to
apologise in court for “failing to remember” authorising a senior aide to brief
Scobie and his Finding Freedom co-author. In a devastating witness
statement, Jason
Knauf, the couple’s former press secretary, said the book was “discussed
directly with the duchess multiple times in person and over email”. He also
claimed Meghan provided him with several briefing points to share with Scobie
at a meeting. Knauf says he emailed Prince Harry about the meeting, to which
the Duke replied: “I totally agree that we have to be able to say we didn’t
have anything to do with it. Equally, you giving the right context and
background to them would help get some truths out there.”
My, what a tangled web those saintly Sussexes weave, eh? Their bitterness, a simmering desire to
avenge the wrongs they believe were done to them, is in inverse proportion to
the success of Megxit. When they quit the UK, the couple were convinced they could retain the
privileges and commanding heft of Royalty while behaving like the Kardashians
in coronets. Our late Queen wisely put a stop to that. Since then, there has
been a seemingly unstoppable slide into failure and irrelevance. Meghan’s
earnest identity politics and global humanitarianism have turned cheeky chappie
Harry, once the public’s favourite Royal, into a bore with his smouldering,
resentful stares and stupid “jobs”.
With their power waning, little wonder the Sussexes have made it known that an invitation to spend
Christmas with the relatives at Sandringham would be favourably looked upon. You can just imagine
how much Queen Camilla, the Waleses and the magnificent Princess Royal would relish
lectures around the fire on their “unconscious bias”. (I was delighted,
although not surprised, to hear that it was apparently Anne who urged her
brother, the King, following the publication of Spare, to frogmarch
Meghan and Harry out of Frogmore Cottage).
Well, they can forget that now. By publishing
those two Royal names, Omid Scobie must have crushed any prospect of a reunion.
This is war. Instead of legal action, the King should move swiftly to remove
the titles of his younger son and his wife. Scobie called his book Endgame –
the Monarchy’s Fight for Survival. We all know who – and what – the monarchy is
fighting. There can be only one winner.
