Brendan O’Neill Brendan O’Neill

Prince Harry the Tyrannical

(Credit: Getty images)

It is often said that Prince Harry is a ‘New Royal’. Emotionally literate, racially aware, eco-friendly (except when he’s flying in a private jet to hang at Elton John’s swanky pad in the south of France) – he’s nothing like the stiff royals of old. He’s the metrosexual prince. He even occasionally partakes of a cheeky Nando’s, as he revealed in his book Spare.

I’m not buying it. Here’s my question: if he’s such a modern prince, a valiant escapee from the prison of aristocratic prejudice, why is he always throwing his monarchical weight around? Why is he so quick to wag a blue-blooded finger at the government, the press, even us, the plebs? Why does he come off as more entitled – entitled to hold forth on the democratically elected government of the day, no less – than even his father, the King?

New Royal my foot. When I see Harry in action – whether he’s fuming against the tabloids or chastising the Tory administration – I get a chilling vision of what it must have been like when we Brits lived under monarchs who had real power.

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