My brush with a royal literary crisis

The past week has seen another media splash about the self-exiled Duke and Duchess of Sussex. Following the recent ruckus over the statue of Princess Diana, the latest crisis to come off the royal conveyor belt was news that the Duke has written what his publishers sedately describe as a ‘literary memoir’. Cue general outrage. I was duly put to work by a weekend newspaper on an article that was expected to follow the anti-Harry orthodoxy but somehow it wandered off course. None of us has all the facts about why he and his family have moved to California, yet that hasn’t stopped pro- and anti-Sussex camps mobilising with a fervour more appropriate to a medieval war of religion. Having worked for eight years for another royal dissenter, I know caution is required when deciding who should be sanctified and who burned at the stake. For what it’s worth, I reckon there’s plenty of blame to go round, although I can see the easy appeal of shunting most of it on to the heretic who scarpered. Others see cruelty and even racism among the mortal sins committed by the House of Windsor against the novice Duchess from the city of angels. Let us hope a religion that puts a premium on forgiveness comes out on top.

The Prince has modestly set aside the Eton English skills expensively purchased for him by his father in favour of a kickass American ghostwriter. Given the raw material available in Harry’s head and the quality of sensation the publishers will expect for their reported millions, maybe we can look forward to ass-kickings on every page. The situation isn’t helped by both sides arming themselves to the teeth with spin doctors and social media cheerleaders. Long ago I concluded that the best way of handling royal PR would be to replace all the palace press officers with one slightly deaf octogenarian armed with a crackly phone line and lots of knitting.