CROWN WRITER IS ROYALLY HYPOCRITICAL

LAST week we learned, courtesy of an analysis by the Guardian, that the number of people turning down an honour from the Queen — most on grounds of political principle or republicanism — has more than doubled over the past nine years.

But someone who, in 2015, had no hesitation in accepting the honour of Commander of the Order of the British Empire was Peter Morgan.

Yes, Peter Morgan: the creator and writer of The Crown, which has broadcast, most profitably, untruths and calumnies about the Queen and her family.

Allegedly these were just ‘dramatic licence’, required to make the story more riveting to a global audience via Netflix. In fact, Morgan had an agenda beyond a mere desire to boost ratings.

In an interview with the Sunday Times three years ago, he said that the Queen was ‘a woman of limited intelligence’ (actually, none of us has unlimited intelligence, not even Mr Morgan); he added that she and her family were like ‘a mutating virus’ and that the monarchy as an institution is ‘insane’.

And in 2019 he referred to the monarchy as ‘indefensible . . . so bloody ridiculous’.

Morgan’s views are not outlandish: republicanism is a perfectly respectable position. But these remarks not only make me wonder if his portrayal of the Royal Family in The Crown was insidiously political as well as personally cruel, but also why he wanted to roll up to Buckingham Palace to collect a bauble whose kudos stems in large part from its connection to an institution that he despises.

My tentative conclusion is that he is a stinking hypocrite, whose vanity is greater than his principles.