William’s warning of hasty marriages led to friction...
THE Duke and Duchess of Sussex’s interview with Oprahwinfrey opens the most serious royal breach since the Abdication in 1936.
For Harry, the distance from his family is now wider than the Pacific, which laps near his Santa Barbara home.
Meghan’s attack on “The Firm” is unprecedented. And the crisis over alleged bullying of former staff presents mounting problems for the family left behind.
The end was in the beginning. Harry’s angry attack on the press in the early days of his romance, with its allegations of “racial undertones”, became his default setting for any perceived criticism of Meghan, however justified. His pre-wedding exclamation,
“What Meghan wants, Meghan gets”, underlines his determination to please her at all costs.
At first, the senior royals were delighted that Harry had found his true love. He had floundered since leaving the Army, his uncertainty over his future revealed by his mock insignia on the now defunct networking site Bebo, showing a lion surmounting a crown, over crossed polo mallets with the word ARMY beneath.
The royal answer to all problem princes is a strong woman and that’s exactly what they thought Meghan would be – but strong in the sense of supporting him andthe Firm. Most of the royals were beguiled by Meghan: she was lovely to look at, spoke with a soft Californian lilt and had an actress’s poise and confidence.
Butwilliam, remembering the failures of hasty royal marriages, including his parents’, cautioned Harry about the speed of the romance.william’s appeals led to friction between the brothers and their wives.the Fab Four were split down the middle, their charitable joint foundation dismantled.
Meghan enjoyed certain aspects of royal life: the lavish clothes and jewels, the provision of homes and staff, the stream of finance from the Duchy of Cornwall, being curtseyed to and calledyour Royal Highness. Purple air space had its advantages but the flipside meant a round of royal engagements and few chimed with her personal agenda.
Princess Margaret’s former lady-in-waiting, Lady Anne Glenconner, believed Meghan didn’t understand that she would have to work hard: “She naively went in thinking this role came almost with an instant popularity,” adding, “I think she thought she could drive around in a golden coach.”
While Meghan struggled with her new role, her husband changed, leaving behind the easy-going image of his bachelor days. Old friends were dropped, his sense of humour failed, his views dictated by “woke” ideology.
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The couple shared a hatred of scrutiny, conflating privacy with secrecy.they tried to hide Archie’s birth details, and the book Finding Freedom reveals that Meghan did not want the British media to know the baby’s godparents’ identities: “The same people who have been abusing me want me to serve my child on a silver platter.”
So the bride who had 53 emblems of the Commonwealth embroidered on to her veil did not want 2.4 billion people in the Commonwealth to know this information; her near-pathological hatred of around a handful of media outlets taking precedence over her official role as a Princess of the
United Kingdom, as described on Archie’s birth certificate.
Archie, like his mother, was welcomed into the royal fold. The picture of the Queen, Philip, Harry, Archie and Meghan’s African-american mother, Doria, is as laden with symbolism as a Holbein painting. It is a picture of warm inclusion and has no equal among photos of the Queen with other royal in-laws.
While the Queen and other royals tried to help them, there was jealousy from both Harry and Meghan at playing the lesser light towilliam and Kate’s brighter star.
An inability to accept the hierarchical structure, which places Charles,william, then Harry, after the Queen, led to the final months of turmoil with the couple leaving for Canada prior to California.
And the Queen’s refusal to accept a half-in, half-out approach resulted in open warfare, seemingly now with the Royal Family itself.
Harry maintains that his constant fear is that Meghan will end up like his mother, Diana. However, there is a huge difference: Diana was abandoned within her marriage, Meghan has her adoring husband beside her, ready to sell their stories – if not their souls – to US commercial enterprises.
Meghan’s curated appearance as a contemporary Duchess ofwindsor with centre-parted hair, black dress with floral shoulder detail and matching hard expression, bodes ill for the Royal Family.
And for Harry, like the Duke ofwindsor, a life in exile beckons.
‘Old friends were dropped, his sense of humour failed’
IF ONLY I could say, hand on heart, I’m more interested in the Queen’s Commonwealth address tonight than in Megs and Haz on the CBS Primetime Special.
It wouldn’t be true alas. In the same way you can’t stop eating popcorn, I can’t get enough of them.
And though Harry and Meghan insist they want their privacy, they are as complicit in this ugly celebrity game as any who are horribly fascinated by this poisonous family saga. If you want a quiet life, don’t go on Oprah.
We did sympathise with Meghan over her embarrassing relatives. Only her elegant mother Doria Ragland was at the wedding.
But we’re now beginning to see a pattern. Meghan has alienated herself from one side of her family and has now alienated herself from her husband’s side too.
Does she ever wonder if she’s the problem rather than everyone else? Her self-belief is extraordinary, admirable in some ways – but faintly chilling nonetheless.
The Sussexes dismissed recent claims they bullied their staff.to them it’s simply further evidence Meghan has been subject to racism and snobbery from the “men in grey suits”. Yet here is a couple who have lucked out in life’s lottery in the most dazzling manner. Of course Harry lost his mother but he’s not unique in this. Among many telling statements about Meghan from Palace officials was this: “The mistake they made was thinking she wanted to be happy. She wanted to be rejected because she was obsessed with that narrative from day one.”
In her heart-to-heart with Oprah, Meghan will look sad and beautiful in her Armani dress costing north of £3,000. Suffering is now her business.
BORIS JOHNSON is under new pressure to boost NHS pay after the mother of the nurse he thanked for saving his life dismissed a proposed one per cent pay rise as “pretty poor”.
Portuguese nurse Luis Pitarma and ward sister Jenny Mcgee were singled out for praise by the PM last year after caring for him as he battled Covid-19 in the intensive care unit at London’s Stthomas’ Hospital.
Now Luis’s mother, Edite, has described the financial pressures on her son and predicts he will return to Portugal.
Criticising the Government’s pay proposal, she said: “It seems pretty poor to me for public servants who are putting their own health at risk to help others.
“Luis’s life revolves around working all the hours he can to pay the bills.
“I’m convinced he’ll come back to Portugal if he can find something he likes nearer home.”
Her comments come as opposition to the Government’s
proposed one per cent pay rise builds and the threat of strike action looms.
Former Conservative health minister Dan Poulter said it was the “wrong time” to restrain the pay of NHS workers who have gone “above and beyond” during the pandemic.
Dr Poulter, who has been assisting on the NHS front line, told the BBC: “A lot of health professionals in the early part of the pandemic were working without the right equipment to protect themselves, and many
have gone above and beyond the hours they are already paid.
“This is the wrong time to be applying pay restraint.”
However, the influential Centre for Policy Studies backed the Government’s pay proposal.
A spokeswoman said: “Considering the impact of the pandemic on the public finances, the Chancellor is right to show restraint when it comes to pay.
“Millions in the private sector won’t have any pay rise at all, or have lost their jobs, and public sector workers still benefit from a pay premium over the private sector once pensions and other benefits are taken into account.”
But NHS Providers, the organisation which represents NHS trusts in England, said it is “absolutely wrong” for ministers to renege on a pay rise it claims has already been budgeted for.
Saffron Cordery, deputy chief executive of NHS Providers, told the BBC: “The Government had already budgeted for a pay rise of 2.1 per cent, so – given what frontline staff have been through – it seems absolutely wrong to take from their pocket right now a pay rise that was due to them.”
The Royal College of Nursing has set up a £35million industrial action fund to support members wanting to strike and warns that a large number of nurses could leave the profession.
A Government spokesman said: “Over one million NHS staff continue to benefit from multi-year pay deals agreed with trade unions, which have delivered a pay rise of over 12 per cent for newly qualified nurses and will increase junior doctors’ pay scales by 8.2 per cent.”
second stage of Step 1, on March 29, will allow six people or two households to meet outdoors or in their gardens.
The “stay at home” rule also ends then but restrictions will still apply, including the foreign holiday ban.
Outdoor sports venues will also reopen on March 29 and people will be allowed to take part in formally organised outdoor sports.