For the fourth day of the Biteback Book Festival, we're turning our attention to the royal family, and here to offer his insights on Harry and Meghan's recent flight to LA is ...And What Do You Do? author Norman Baker.
It was less than two years ago that the wedding of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle took place. It was the wedding of the decade. All royal weddings attract a level of interest, but this one was in a class of its own.
Harry was seen as a likeable ordinary bloke, the sort you have a laugh with over a pint, and someone who had undoubtedly shown courage and commitment to his fellow soldiers while on active duty, and indeed after.
He was in fact the first royal since, well, his mother who was from a different mould than the narrow rarefied one that typifies other members of the royal family. He had even been seen boarding an Easy Jet flight to return to Britain from a holiday abroad.
And if Harry was different, multiply that many times for Meghan Markle. Here was an independent woman with an independent mind who had by her own efforts become a successful actor worth millions in her own right. Moreover she was of mixed race parentage, a welcome contrast to the starchy whiteness of the Windsors.
It seemed the royal family was beginning to reinvent itself for the 21st century, and not before time. The Queen, bless her, was already past 90 and clearly could not go on for ever. Charles was regarded as petulant, out of touch, and a bit weird, and William as dull and boring. Of Charles’s siblings, Anne was invisible, Edward the family nerd, and as for Andrew...
Harry and Meghan were the spice that was needed. Yet it did not take long for the magic to wear off. The couple decided that the sprawling apartments allocated for them at Kensington Palace (and upgraded and considerable cost to the taxpayer) were too near to William and Kate, so they opted to move to Frogmore Cottage, another sprawling property, and hardly a cottage (to be upgraded with £2.4 million more from the taxpayer). But that too was unsatisfactory as a solution and they decided to move to the friendly Commonwealth country that is Canada before taking what must surely be the final leg of their journey, to Los Angeles.
Here Meghan at least may feel at home, living in a salubrious and exclusive district among the world’s luvvies. Close by is Elton John, who has stoutly defended Harry and Meghan’s increasing tendency to use private planes – no more Easy Jet for them.
Elton of course famously refashioned Candle In The Wind, originally written about Marilyn Monroe, to refer to Harry’s mother, Princess Diana, at the funeral service held in Westminster Abbey in September 1997. Perhaps Bernie and the Jets could now become Harry and the Jets.
If we are to believe the narrative from the couple, they have escaped across the Atlantic at least partly to escape the intrusions of the tabloid press. They clearly detest the so-called popular press and only this week have announced that henceforth they will adopt a policy of zero co-operation with the Sun, the Mirror, the Mail and the Express, and their Sunday and online offshoots. It is also this week that Meghan Markle’s legal action against the Mail on Sunday comes to court.
But here’s a curious thing. For a couple who want to avoid the press, they seem to be putting in a great deal of effort to attract media attention. There has been the far from anonymous delivering of food parcels to the poor of LA, the podcast praising volunteers for helping those in need, and of course the announcement of their new charity, the curiously named Archewell.
The couple say they are open to criticism by the media, but all the indications are that they want the adulation, the good headlines, but not the less flattering material that they so dislike. But the press is not a public relations machine for them, or for anyone else. It is there to report the news. No more, no less.
While we can empathise with the embarrassment Meghan must have felt when her highly personal letter to her father ended up in the Mail On Sunday, the simple fact is that it was released to the paper by its recipient, namely her father. Most people would regard it as his to keep or release as he wished, and even if Meghan persuades the court that she technically retains copyright over the letter, it will be a hollow victory.
At the moment the Sussexes give the impression that they are more interested in waging war against the British tabloids than recognising that the world is engulfed in a viral crisis that threatens everyone’s way of life. It is not a good look.
In the end, the pair are entitled to renounce their royal lives and settle instead for the world of superficial stardom and garish glitter that is Hollywood. That is their choice. What they are not entitled to do is to hang on to bits of their royal connections while offering nothing in return.
Most pertinently, we need an absolute assurance that they are in no way benefiting from largesse from the British taxpayer. One flashpoint has been the cost of security, already very high when the couple were in England, but much more so if the Metropolitan Police are expected to provide cover abroad. The couple now say they are arranging this privately, but who is delivering this, and who is paying?
There was also a suggestion that Prince Charles, at least for a year, would meet a large proportion of their costs. Based on precedent, this will come from the resources of the Duchy of Cornwall and be classified as a legitimate expense, thereby reducing the tax bill and so representing a loss to the exchequer. If Charles wants to support them financially, then fine, but that must not lead to a loss for the taxpayer.
I wish Harry and Meghan well. I can easily sympathise that the suffocating stuffiness of the British royal family was not for them. But they would now be wise to disappear from the headlines for a while as they bed down in their new lives.
Interest piqued? Buy ...And What Do You Do? for only £15.00 until 26th April!