SUSSEXES’ BIG WITHDRAWAL AT BANK OF PUBLIC GOODWILL
WHAT is it about Canada? In late 1969 John Lennon made a whistlestop visit to Toronto with his wife Yoko Ono and decided on the way home he was done with the Beatles.
Now 50 years later Prince Harry has returned from six weeks over there with his Yokoish bride Meghan Markle and decided he wants out of “The Firm” as the royal family calls itself.
Since the news broke the pair were stepping down as “senior” members of the royal family to “work to become financially independent”, I can’t help thinking of Paul McCartney’s later put-down of his former partner: “You took your lucky break and broke it in two.”
The speed with which the Sussexes have been running through their goodwill at the bank of public opinion has been something to behold. Lecturing the public about the threat of climate change to the planet while flying around on private planes, refusing to name their son’s godparents, timing the announcement of his birth for the American media, hanging out with Beyoncé and Jay Z, guest editing Vogue, spending 2.4 million quid because the place they had been given wasn’t up to snuff – it’s been a wild ride and it isn’t even two years since the couple were married.
What the next two have in store for us is anyone’s guess. At this point it is traditional for the British columnist of mature years to start quoting the Victorian journalist Walter Bagehot on the difference between “efficient” – that is to say working – parts of the British constitution and its ornamental or “dignified” parts, such as the Crown. But “dignified” doesn’t really do the job here does it?
Dignified would be standing up the back of the royal box where your position in the pecking order puts you, without later letting it be known you’d rather be up the front.
The whole point of the royal family showbiz package is your position is set by where you’re born. This isn’t like Family Ties was for Michael J. Fox – you’re not going to get more lines because you’re a hit with the audience.
That this has only just hit home to the Duchess has been suggested by reports the move was triggered by the release of a snap of the
Queen in the throne room of Buckingham Palace with the next three in-line for her job, Prince Charles, William and George, who was dressed in a pair of tartan trousers that wouldn’t have looked out of place on a member of the Bay City Rollers.
To any actor, that photograph would have hit home like a network promo that featured every member of the cast but you. It isn’t fair. But then fairness is hardly the point of a monarchy, is it? Indeed, if in 2020 it has any point at all, perhaps it is to hammer home that life isn’t fair. Which, given the decline of social mobility in western countries in recent years, might actually be a useful function.
Most of us are going to spend our lives pretty much where we began them. What matters is how we conduct ourselves towards other people. That’s a Tory pointof-view of course, but again, despite the effort to sugarcoat it, a monarchy is by its very nature a Tory institution. Which is why it has always puzzled me that Australia’s republicans bang on about the Crown’s foreignness. They’d have been much better arguing against its fundamental unfairness. A king is still a king, whether he lives in London of Yarralumla.
There’s been a lot of talk in the past 48 hours about whether this is a proper royal crisis which has “damaged the monarchy”. Maybe it has in the short term but, when you think about it, this isn’t even the biggest crisis it’s had to face this year. The prize for the biggest troublemaker in The Firm goes hands down to the Duke of York for his relationship with the late and unlamented Jeffrey Epstein.
For me, what’s most offensive is the Sussexes’ choice of bolthole.
Canada? Seriously? That sanctimonious ice-box? Wouldn’t it be much better fun for them to head down here?
If Tony was still in the Lodge I’m sure he’d have encouraged General What’sis-name who got the job as G-G after General Cosgrove to make way for a genuine member of The Firm looking to get away to a spot with some nicer weather.
Perhaps Morrison could do the same. It would take our minds off the bushfires.