Meghan markle

The words pouring on Meghan’s head are written for a witch, because that is the natural progress of the story. The royal family are our national myth and sacrifice: our small flesh gods, without whom we would have to have a serious political system requiring serious engagement, instead of which we have this. Interlopers are sanctified if they comply and demonised if they don’t. It is a sort of trial by ordeal, it’s-a-royal-knockout — how much can you take? All interlopers get it — Prince Philip was once considered a dangerous moderniser — but the women have it worse. Sir Timothy Laurence might wonder where his made-up feud with his

An institution that weathered and survived the abdication crisis and the aftermath of the death of Diana Princess of Wales is now left reeling by a two-hour long programme on primetime American television. It’s a broadcast in which the grandson of a queen and his wife made crystal clear that marrying into the British royal family in the 21st century is no fairytale. It’s a one-sided account of Megxit that will incense those who insist they did try to help the newest Windsor The claim of racism is one that will endure. No Palace spin can erase it from the collective memory. The charge is that one of Harry’s relatives asked

It will be a saddened Prince Harry who will digest the verdict of much of the British media on the denouement to Megxit. In the eyes of most of those who write about the Windsors, the Queen is above reproach and the couple who exiled themselves are once again found wanting. Their West coast inspired talk of service being ‘universal’ is the latest entry on a charge sheet of sins they’ve committed against a venerated institution. To Harry and Meghan’s critics – and they have plenty – the equation is simple. If millions of Netflix and Spotify dollars are pouring into your bank accounts, you can’t be opening fetes in

Congratulations Meghan and Harry! Another baby. How lovely! You both look so happy and relaxed: all bare-foot, belly-cradling, fondly-gazing into each other’s eyes. It’s just adorable to hear that Archie can’t wait to become a big brother. And that the Queen and Prince Philip are delighted by the news of their tenth great grandchild; or eleventh if Zara gets there first. And so thoughtful to give a nod to Harry’s mum, Princess Diana, who also made a Valentine’s Day pregnancy announcement. I bet you were relieved to have that pesky case against the Mail on Sunday settled in time to break the news! But hang on a minute. I’m confused.

Meghan Markle hailed her victory in a high court privacy case as a ‘comprehensive win’ over the Mail on Sunday’s ‘illegal and dehumanising practices’. But is that right? If you dig beneath the headlines and read the judge’s ruling, it becomes clear that her victory has much to do with a burgeoning expansion of privacy rights based on human rights law. This change in the law has taken place with little fanfare and the victim – the press – generate little sympathy. Yet it is something that should worry any supporter of free speech. Until about twenty years ago, the English courts were pretty robust about celebrities’ privacy suits, then known as

Why is there not a single trans voice featured in Harry and Meghan’s first podcast? It’s a question that needs answering. The half-hour recording – the couple’s first since signing a $25 million deal with Spotify – sets out to explore the psychological impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on, as the Duchess herself puts it, ‘people from all walks of life’. Given this description, excluding the trans community from participating seems, at best, problematic – perhaps even sinister. Why leave trans people out in this most public of discourses? This editorial decision – a slap in the face for an already marginalised community – seems all the more surprising because

The case of Johnny Depp vs the Sun, heard over recent weeks at the High Court in London, certainly gives fresh life to the old warnings about dirty linen and its public laundering. Whatever the results, I would be surprised if it didn’t provoke others to think again about the wisdom of reverting to the law. The influencers formerly known as the Sussexes, for instance, must be wondering whether their forthcoming legal case will result in them solely being showered with praise. Of course one has sympathy for famous people who feel that they have been badly portrayed. It is unpleasant to read nasty things about yourself in the newspapers.

In the Nineties, it was a husband and a wife who used supportive reporters, friendly biographers and the global reach of television to extol their own royal righteousness, as their marriage deteriorated. Now, it’s the sons of Charles and Diana who are settling scores after the searing pain of a shared bereavement failed to lash them together for life. Harry is first out of the traps with ‘Finding Freedom’, which is being serialised in the Times and the Sunday Times. The biography captures his intense hurt that the people who are variously described as ‘the men in grey suits’, ‘the old guard’ and ‘vipers’, didn’t properly appreciate what he and

First they came for the statues, then Basil Fawlty got ‘cancelled’ and three spoiled millionaires turned on their creator. So it was with J.K. Rowling’s woke progeny. Harry Potter, it would seem, is deathly shallow. Rupert Grint looked for a moment like holding firm, but he too quickly succumbed to the growing pressure to slip his golden dagger between Rowling’s shoulder blades. Surely these rich list regulars are perfectly placed to say what they actually think, protected from the ever-tightening vice of censorship? Apparently not. Fearing for their virtue or their future or both, the three children rounded on their mother. We must hope for better from Neville Longbottom. I,

‘Ha, ha,’ said my husband, as though he’d made a joke. ‘Here’s one for you.’ He waved a page of the Guardian. A piece by Afua Hirsch about Archie Mountbatten-Windsor called him ‘a child who will have to navigate for themselves the madness of all the ways in which we have been taught to essentialise and fetishise race’. The plural pronoun as a gender-neutral device, ‘navigate for themselves’, makes Mountbatten-Windsor sound more like a firm of solicitors than a single baby. But what I want to focus on is essentialise. When Justin Webb asked Rachel Shabi on Today last week whether it was fair to call her a Jewish supporter

Strictly in terms of its implications for the succession, the arrival of the Duke and Duchess of Sussex’s son this week was not the most important of royal births. The boy has been born seventh in line to the throne, but that position can be expected to fall rapidly once the Cambridge children begin to marry. He is not born to be king, and may never even be granted the title of prince. Nevertheless, the birth has attracted wide attention and celebration, inspiring front-page headlines on foreign newspapers and eliciting interest in Britain from types of people who don’t normally care about royal events. Partly this is down to the