Careful what you wish for, Meghan and Harry
That was me at first, although I am a longtime Harry cheerleader and liked the look of Meghan. When the FGM campaigner Nimco Ali tweeted “I have a super-African reaction . . . Basically I would never choose anyone over my granny”, I hummed the old “Ye cannae shove yer granny aff a bus!” and was matriarchally pleased when HM Granny shoved back: symbolically behind the wheel at Sandringham in a headscarf patterned with dogs’ heads. Not quite mafia, but not bad. A flippant shove-your-granny tweet from me brought rebukes for not “supporting a sister”, and squeaks about racism, though I never mentioned the duchess. Oh yes, it got Brexity.
Yet there were puzzlements that all generations shared. Giggles at Harry’s dismissal of the weary-eyed Witchells of the royal press, and his idea that “young, up-and-coming journalists” would be kinder (they’re not, just hungrier. Trust me). More seriously, there’s the money. Not just the eye-watering cost of protecting part-time royals in two countries, but their commercial ambitions.
To be brutal, however grandly Oprah-Obama they wish to seem, and however they cling to their HRH titles, anything done for profit will be basically no different from ghastly Instagram “influencers” paid to praise brands, or out-of-work actors doing a stint on the Shopping Channel. If the Duke and Duchess of York teach us anything, it is that this mix erodes respect. Maybe trademarked SussexRoyal hoodies are no worse than Duchy Originals, but once Disney and Givenchy and the big boys get their pound of flesh, you’re sold.
As for their charities, existing ones must be worried: they’ve seen others lose sleazy Andrew. Royal patronage pays. Third, note those ominous words “our cause-driven activities”. One school of thought, well posited here on Saturday by Janice Turner, is that they’ll be global: “bigger than the Queen”, rocking Ted talks, Davos and Hollywood fundraisers like jet-fuelled hyper-Gretas peddling history and heritage, mindfulness and money, feminism and fancy frocks. They’ll tell the world how to think, be universally adored, even land trade deals.
Maybe. But honestly, how far does lustrous celebrity-activism really go? How many “UN ambassadors for Whatever” ever changed more than did a roomful of tactful functionaries on a hundredth of their money? And how many moments of real consolation have come not from a brush with glamour and soft words, but from the long-term, plodding, workaday royal dutifulness the pair now reject? The sort that sends the elderly Queen to bombed children’s bedsides to nod that Ariana Grande is “a very good singer”, drives Princess Anne up bleak gangways to meet exploited seafarers, and Prince Charles to knit his brow over another batch of Prince’s Trust kids (I’ve been there: they love him, think he may be a weird toff but he’s their weird toff).
Glitzier celebrity has its place. All honour to real talents who earn their shine by sweating on movie lots or music arenas, yet give time that costs them money. Honour also to celeb-reformers who laboriously put stuff together - Bob Geldof, Richard Curtis, the Gateses. But the sheer glamour implied by the Sussexes’ patent lifestyle choices (private jets, gated mansions, six-week breaks, minimally arduous handshakes and cuddles) could pall. And outside the staid royal corral it is easy to dent your halo: one wrongly judged tweet, dodgy friend, error over misgendering or public slap on a bad day like poor Pope Francis . . . it happens.
And we know how thin the couple’s skins are, how amid a sea of praise they wince at a quite small number of stinging trolls and tabloid snarks. Do they think the globe will stay benign? The accusation that Britain was uniquely and hatefully racist to Meghan is vastly exaggerated: crowds gathered at Windsor and the wedding was relayed to thousands of village halls in the despised white shires of England. People cheered, made special hats, adored the wild-hearted joyful preacher, mum Doria and cellist Sheku’s melting Schubert without a worry about anyone’s skin colour. Was that not real?
This “racists-did-it” calumny is repeated in the credulous New York Times by the affluent Oxford-educated lawyer Afua Hirsch (the one who wants Nelson’s Column removed) and here by Philip Pullman, who between writing fantasy novels once implied that the prime minister be lynched. His latest tweet? “Of course Meghan Markle is attacked by the British press because she’s black. What a foul country this is.” If this guff feeds the pair’s anxieties, it does no favours.
So as Sandringham convenes, pray for sane resolution, but never pretend that there’s some inevitable royal curse. There isn’t. Yes, poor Diana suffered a wrong marriage, poisonous co-dependence with the media and an accident with no seatbelt. That neither dooms nor excuses her sons for life. Yes, insults hurt: but Kate Middleton was insulted far longer than Meghan ("Waity Katie”, “doors to manual” etc) and had her pregnancy sickness mocked.
She shut up, took her time, smiled, burnt off resentments on rollerskates and regattas, uses Easyjet and cheerfully talks up midwifery, sport, baking and toddlers romping on tree trunks. Doesn’t set the world on fire. Won’t make the Cambridges “bigger than the Queen” or excite Oprah. But it’s durable and British, and it works. There’s no curse.
The Times
More Coverage
The ‘living library’ of diseases could prevent the next Covid
Porton Down, the government’s top-secret science and technology campus, is home to what may be the world’s deadliest freezer.
Bomb disposal veterans ‘five times as likely to get bladder cancer’
A ‘significant link’ between exposure to explosives and the often fatal disease has been found in research led by a former British Army chief.
It felt like an unwelcome echo, a Brexit burp of intergenerational alienation. On one side the young (and those wishing to be mistaken for them) cried: “Good move! Break free! Royalty is rubbish, Britain is racist!” The middle-aged muttered: “Poor Queen! Rude! Presuming on Frogmore, oozing about ‘collaborating’, as if the monarch were a corporate sponsor!”