Hidden meaning in Harry’s birthday post

The royal family acknowledged the Duke of Sussex’s big day for the first time in years but that’s not the whole story.

In 1988, King Charles spent his 40th birthday in about the unlikeliest way imaginable: Dancing, yes, dancing with strangers at a day party in a former tram shed in Birmingham. (And by ‘dancing’ let’s not enquire too closely about what sort of jerky-hipped, arrhythmic jiving this actually represented.)

It was a charity engagement, what else; the guest list, 1500 “disadvantaged youths” to whose aid his Prince’s Trust had swooped, trying to save them from the dangerous lure of too much Morrisey and Thatcherite malaise.

When his son, Prince Harry, the Duke of Sussex passed the same milestone birthday on Sunday, it was in an equally unexpected manner for the son of the monarch: Without a single chap named Jago or Jonty eagerly, cheerily pressing pints upon him and with the world’s media speculating about whether Buckingham Palace would even deign to acknowledge the day.

Were there locally-sourced streamers? Ethically curated party poppers? Anyone in attendance who was not on the Sussex payroll or Doria Ragland? Sadly, the publication People, which seems to have had a direct phone line plumbed into their Montecito living room, has yet to breathlessly update the world.

With the vague smattering of dust having settled and the Sussexes’ household staff finally having gotten lemon cake crumbs out of all of those bone linen sofas, the case can very easily be made that the Palace mucked this one up.

Today we have another gloomy entry to add to the already-bulging ‘missed opportunity’ file.

King Charles did, in the end, recognise his younger son’s day with the @royalfamily accounts posting a photo of a grinning Harry taken in 2018 with a simple message and a cake emoji. Prince William and Kate, the Prince and Princess of Wales then reshared the same post, though skipped the excesses of any sort of symbology. One has some standards.

🎂 Wishing The Duke of Sussex a very happy 40th birthday today! pic.twitter.com/sAlSiV9EaZ

— The Royal Family (@RoyalFamily) September 15, 2024

Wishing a Happy 40th Birthday to The Duke of Sussex! https://t.co/ZKJbYDmV6L

— The Prince and Princess of Wales (@KensingtonRoyal) September 15, 2024

This official Palace birthday post, the first for Harry since 2021, should and could have been a good news story for the soft of heart and the warm of inclination; it could have represented the most tentative thawing of Ice Age-worthy relations.

Instead, the Palace’s offering looked like it came from the dregs of their bottom drawer, ‘bare minimum’ collection.

What Charles’ social media team served up was a post that had all the genuine sentiment and warmth of a long forgotten Paddle Pop iced onto the back of the freezer.

The photo they chose was one that harked back to 2018 when Harry was still repping Crown Inc, subtle that, and showed the duke and a glass of tap water during an event at an Irish coworking space. The whole thing has to be one of the most limp bits of royal social media since records began.

This, you see, is not the standard Palace way. The Waleses are treated to having their birthdays celebrated with genuinely affectionate and meaningful images that reinforce the close ties between the prince and princess and Charles.

For example, this year for Kate’s birthday in January, the Palace selected a never seen before, behind-the-scenes shot of her from the coronation yucking it up with the King.

Wishing The Princess of Wales a very happy birthday today! 🎈🎊

📷 @ChrisJack_Gettypic.twitter.com/NhkHYdTFIf

— The Royal Family (@RoyalFamily) January 9, 2024

For William’s go in June, it was a picture of him as a baby being sweetly dandled by Charles for a moment before nanny swooped in. Cue the ‘awwws’. The year before, we got a shockingly warm example of father-son amiability with a photo of them engaging in some terrifically bourgeois bonding during coronation rehearsals.

And Harry? Tapwater.

His shot, by contrast, is about as personal as a Swansea box manufacturing firm’s annual Christmas card. Really, you shouldn’t have.

The fact is, like it or lump it, the Palace could not have gotten away with not publicly wishing the Duke of Sussex a happy birthday because that would have made them appear as heartless and reptilian as he and Meghan, the Duchess of Sussex have oft portrayed them.

So, Harry got his tap water and Buckingham Palace got their headlines and we the public were left with an odd metallic taste in our mouths.

Yes, the Palace’s anaemic effort is understandable given that the Sussexes have, for years, been attempting to stage their very own auto-da-fé in front of the Palace gates, well-shod feet being held to the fire again and again. (Trial by titbits?)

But that doesn’t mean that Crown Inc should have succumbed to the temptation to deliver the particular low-grade social media slight we have just seen. Unfortunately, just to be all adult and pragmatic, it is impossible to get away from the fact that the ongoing cold war between Montecito and London is not doing either side any good. The longer it drags on, the worse for everyone. It’s one of those lose, lose situations.

According to The Sunday Times’ royal editor Roya Nikkhah, “Some royal insiders feel that the status quo of shattered family ties cannot and should not continue for the sake of the monarchy.” Said a royal source: “They have to reach an accommodation. This standoff can’t go on and on. People will get impatient with the fact that nobody’s trying to mend this.”

What the King missed this week was the chance to be the bigger man, the better person and the smarter tactician.

Imagine if the Palace had put their hands into royal family archives and found a shot of, say, an adorably smooshy toddler Harry with Charles. Even the vaguest trace element of real feeling could have nudged the needle a bit in the right direction.

This photograph of Harry and Charles, taken on Christmas Day in 1992, might’ve sufficed. Picture: Martin Keene/PA/Getty Images

But no. We got room temperature tap water birthday.

Harry has made it clear that, despite for some reason now always being chosen for the cavity search when he lands at Heathrow, he intends to spend time back in the UK. In February he visited his father after His Majesty revealed his cancer diagnosis, he was there May for a St Paul’s service to mark ten years of his Invictus Games and the coming weeks will see him return for the WellChild awards. Next year will see his hacking court cases and government security fight back in High Court and come 2027 the Invictus Games will be held in Birmingham, meaning there will likely only be more UK trips booked in and keto in-flight meals requested.

If the King doesn’t want his family melodrama to regularly overshadow his actual hard and good work, tramshed shimmying notwithstanding, he’s got to find some sort of vague resolution to the Harry mess. Because that’s what this is - a mess that only gets muckier and more entrenched with every day. No one is right, no side can or should claim victory and more importantly, no one is winning.

Sigh. If 40 was the year of tap water, how long until we even get to Soda Stream bubbles?

Daniela Elser is a writer, editor and a royal commentator with more than 15 years’ experience working with a number of Australia’s leading media titles.