The royal family are so dysfunctional Harry might actually be in the right

Well, it doesn’t get any better for our beleaguered “first family” does it? What with the Queen’s declining health, Prince Andrew taking a typically self-effacing approach to driving a very expensive, personalised Bentley to his granddaughter’s christening, the Duchess of Sussex finding herself cancelled by Netflix and Scotland and Wales saying “Thanks but no thanks” to full-scale free distribution of a children’s book marking the platinum jubilee.

“Lovely jubbly!”, as Del Boy Trotter used to say, doesn’t quite cover it.

Then there’s the Earl and Countess of Wessex in the thick of it in St Lucia, finding themselves in exactly the same position as the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge only a few short weeks ago.

It’s the definition of madness, isn’t it – do the same thing over and over again and expect a different outcome.

Much of the coverage across the Caribbean in particular inevitably emphasised the thoroughly uncomfortable subjects of slavery, reparations and the removal of the Queen as head of state while here in good old out-of-touch Blighty, there was a curious and endless harping on the finer points of the royal wives’ frocks.

You would think that someone, somewhere, with the monarchy’s best interests at heart, could have seen this coming, at least in the case of the hapless Wessexes.

Princess Anne, in the meantime, spent a relatively low-key period in Australia last month and her outfits seemed to elicit little response, partly because, being notoriously frugal, she probably recycled rig-outs seen many times before.

And although her old man was a viceadmiral to trade, he didn’t feel it necessary to trot out the dress uniform, although I was much taken by the battered straw hat he sported which made the headgear of Worzel Gummidge look like the last word in glamour.

The Princess Royal seemed to make a good impression all round in Australia and Papua New Guinea, whose colonial experience is, admittedly, very different from that of the Caribbean.

And whoever planned her trip – I suspect she did it herself because, let’s face it, who’s going to argue with her? – seemed to recognise her genuine interests and authentic concerns.

She was also pictured carrying her own bags in the airport, albeit to board a private jet. But she has been credited with a greater grip, not only on her own luggage but on reality, than many other members of her family. Prince Charles, on the other hand, is another kettle of princely poissons.

A newly published book about the royal family has produced many nuggets of juicy goss, many of which, if they aren’t true, really ought to be.

In the wake of the long-public information that the Queen has someone to wear in her shoes for her, we are now burdened with the knowledge that Prince Charles has his shoelaces ironed and likes to turn up to “friends’ ” homes accompanied by his own bed and his own ready mixed martini in his own glass.

He’d obviously be welcomed with open arms at one of Boris Johnson’s “bring your own bottle” shindigs. Along with a supply of Kleenex Velvet (hereafter surely to be rebranded as Kleenex Ermine), he also takes a selection of his own paintings – that is, paintings he painted – to be hung in his rooms.

I once knew a chap whose doting parents had his “painting by numbers” efforts framed on their living room wall but you’d think with the Royal Collection being what it is, he might condescend to rent out the odd Rembrandt for a long weekend or two.

And of course, the Andrew-Still-Known-As-Prince has been told in no uncertain terms by the city whose proud title he bears that he should get his mitts off what remains of its good name.

York, it was, to those of us who once studied history and came out of it with a mind full of mince, that stood up for Richard III. It says something about their current namesake if he can’t even stand comparison with a man with possibly the worst reputation in monarchical history who is supposed to have murdered his own nephews.

Maybe, after all, that is what one of the contemporary nephews was getting at when he talked of “protecting“his grandmother and making sure “she has the right people round her”.

One could say to the Duke of Sussex that if he was that worried, he should have turned up at his grandfather’s memorial service and made sure that his grandmother had alternative male relatives’ arms to lean

Prince Charles is another kettle of princely poissons

on rather than that of an uncle with an axe to grind.

But it’s also not beyond the bounds of possibility that Harry, so protective of his mother’s legacy and said to be about to “dish” his stepmother in yet another forthcoming royal tell-all tome, feels that a tired elderly lady may just have been leant on somewhat to express her “sincere wish” that the Duchess of Cornwall become Queen Consort when her husband becomes King.

Harry in the right? Now that would be a right royal turn-up for any new book…

CROWNING GLORY: Harry and Meghan have caused rifts in the family but the Duke of Sussex says he wants to “protect” the Queen.