Wallowing in self-pity, young royals need a dose of real life

PRINCE Harry certainly tore up the Walter Bagehot rule book in his sensational new interview.

His denial that anyone in the Royal Family wanted to be king or queen, while implying that they would still pay their subjects the favour of doing their job, was a direct flouting of Bagehot’s famous dictum about how shining too much light on the monarchy would destroy its magic.

It showed the young Royals as a pack of spoilt malcontents, resentful of the little people whose lives they seem to envy and inject with a curious mystique. Like Prince William who truculently insists that his children will grow up away from the trappings of royal life, Harry glamorises mundanities like going to the supermarket.

‘I am determined to have a relatively normal life, and if I am lucky enough to have children, they can have one too,’ says Harry, above. ‘Even if I was king, I would do my own shopping.’

In his royal bubble, Harry has no idea how out-of-touch he sounds. Shopping is a novelty when you have a platinum credit card that’s constantly replenished from the privy purse or a butler to do it when you’re feeling out of sorts.

But when your life is time-poor or financially strapped, it’s about as enjoyable as cleaning the loo or doing the laundry – chores about which Harry is markedly silent.

In their self-pitying way, Harry and William seem determined to lift the lid on royal life and destroy the mystique it needs to survive.

Perhaps the only way of stopping them before it’s too late – if that’s what the English desire – is their subjects returning the royal favour and shattering some illusions about normal life. That will send them scurrying like frightened rabbits back to their palaces.