Prince Harry and Meghan Markle’s ‘private’ family squabble is one sorry situation

Prince Harry’s demand for an apology from Buckingham Palace seems to be invoking an age-old benchmark of outrage, writes Joe Hildebrand. Have your say.

I was heartened to learn this week that Prince Harry would refuse to go to his father’s

coronation as King of England without receiving an apology from Buckingham Palace for the

countless injustices he had suffered.

Finally, here was an issue that the common man could relate to.

The problem with the world, I realised, was not an impending global economic crisis or the

potential outbreak of World War III but an internal family squabble among the richest

people on the planet about whether someone may or may not have uttered a borderline

racist microaggression at a garden party.

What an exciting time to be alive!

So why are the Duke and Duchess of Sussex, or whatever they’re allowed to be called now,

actually asking for?

Can King Charles and Prince Harry kiss and make up? Picture: Getty Images

Well, for one thing, we don’t know. Whatever they actually do or say, even in their own self-

curated media appearances, seems to end up getting denied by them whenever it is

repeated by anybody else.

But it seems to be an invoking of the standard benchmark of the outrage class whereby you

demand an apology from whomever has offended you and then courageously refuse to

accept it.

As someone who has at times attempted to apologise sincerely for offence rarely intended

but often taken, I can assure you it doesn’t work.

On the contrary, the baying mob typically demand you prostrate yourself and plead

forgiveness and then execute you anyway.

So what do Harry and Meghan really want?

Do they expect a private apology for sins unspecified after which they will graciously attend

the world’s biggest elitist box-tick?

Can we expect they will then carry that private apology to their graves, resisting all

pressures from their media mogul overlords?

Or was the whole story cooked up by the media – except, of course, the media they are in

cahoots with – in yet another of their countless evil journalistic conspiracies?

No doubt they’ll tell us it was all our fault. And that we should all apologise.

Originally published as Prince Harry and Meghan Markle’s ‘private’ family squabble is one sorry situation