Who needs Hollywood Harry and awful Andrew? All hail Queen Anne
If anything, judging by history, modern and not so recent, the opposite is true with the blokes seemingly attempting to trash the crown. Here’s looking at you Edward, Charles and Harry with your proclivities and personal drama interfering with your work.
Then there’s Andrew, the senior member of staff who should have been sent off to learn how to make gourmet sandwiches at Pret rather than continuing to produce ones filled with waste for his colleagues – like his daughters, his late mother and Catherine – to clean up.
Anne, according to the court circular, completed 474 engagements in 2024 and 457 in 2023. Andrew didn’t clock on at all, mainly due to his demotion to “non-working royal” since revelations of his relationship with convicted sex criminal Jeffrey Epstein came to light.
It’s important to recognise Anne was the hardest working royal of last year in spite of being hospitalised and suffering concussion after a horse-related incident on her estate in June.
She’s completed more than 20,000 jobs since her 18th birthday, many of them in Australia.
She’s back in town this week for her role as Colonel-in Chief to the Royal Australian Corps of Signals, a role she has held since 1997. Anne is back down under marking the department’s centenary.
On Sunday in Sydney, in full regalia, she inspected the troops of technical soldiers who provide communications, electronic and cyber surveillance during military operations.
She was in Melbourne on Monday, laying a wreath in honour of Detective Leading Senior Constable Neal Thompson and Senior Constable Vadim de Waart-Hottart of the Victoria Police who were shot dead allegedly by Dezi Freeman in Porepunkah in August.
With this tour, which wraps up later this week, the Princess Royal is sending some signals of her own, that this is the type of good the monarchy can do.
Her low-maintenance yet historic visit also reassures the Australian public that it’s “not all royals”. Not every member of The Firm is as bad as her deadbeat brother and star-crossed nephew Prince Harry.
While Anne, at 75, is the epitome of the family’s business motto of “never complain, never explain”, Hollywood Harry seems to be making a new career of doing the opposite, first with his tell-all memoir and last week with a series of public appearances and stunts that gave royal watchers whiplash.
Was he homesick after all?
It sure seemed like it when he appeared mournful on social media as his wife, Meghan, danced around celebrating the LA Dodgers beating the Toronto Blue Jays. That’s despite wearing a Dodgers cap near the dugout during game 4 of the baseball World Series.
He then did something we haven’t seen in a while, or ever – he apologised. “I would like to apologise to Canada for wearing it. Secondly, I was under duress. When you’re missing a lot of hair on top, and you’re sitting under flood lights, you’ll take any hat that is available,” he told a Canadian news channel.
At least he’s blaming his follicles, or lack thereof, instead of his family this time.
He also penned a beautiful essay about his love of being British and the importance of Remembrance Day. In the think-piece titled “The Bond, The Banter, The Bravery: What it means to be British – By Prince Harry”, he recalled his time in the armed forces in the lead-up to Remembrance Day.
“Though currently, I may live in the US, Britain is, and always will be, the country I proudly served and fought for. The banter of the mess, the clubhouse, the pub … these are the things that make us British. I make no apology for it. I love it,” he wrote.
Could this literary white flag, published across the pond by celebrity bible People magazine and back in the UK in The Telegraph, suggest a return to the fold of The Firm?
Readers barely had a day to process it as it was overshadowed by news that his wife, the former Suits actor, will be returning to acting sometime soon. Clumsy communications perhaps? Hardly. These two eat strategy like it’s a salad garnished with Markle’s homegrown edible flowers.
Then came the images on Monday of he and Ms Markle/Mrs Sussex arriving at Amazon billionaire Jeff Bezos’s Beverly Hills mansion, to celebrate the 70th birthday of Kris Jenner, the Kardashian family matriarch, dressed in fancy black tie and making their way through the throng of photographers and fans, which some guests like singer Adele shunned.
It was a stark contrast to the solemn mood of his father, brother and sister-in-law and nephew, Prince George, who appeared at Remembrance ceremonies across the weekend in London.
The same with Anne in Australia. There was no circus, no carry on, just cracking on with the job they were born, and are paid handsomely, to do.
While Andrew would be busy packing up his infamous collection of teddy bears as his eviction from the Royal Lodge looms, who knows what the future holds for Harry.
Who cares really. Until he stops with these mixed signals, let’s focus on real leaders, like Anne, who want to support the Commonwealth rather than entitled rats in her ranks who treat it like a celebrity cash cow.
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The New York Times recently opined that women may have ruined the workplace; clearly it didn’t get its hot take from Buckingham Palace … a workplace where Princess Anne – the undisputed queen of hard work for the monarchy – holds court.