What’s even more sickening is when wokes use someone like MLK as if he’s some kind of idol of theirs and is in any way relevant to their ideology. It’s awful, and can’t they see just by looking at that quote that they’re being regressive?! Wokeism is a hateful, reductive, glorified mental illness.Beautiful quote. I cannot understand how Shola ( I refuse to use Dr) gets away with such verbatim. Honestly it makes my blood boil. And there’s no need to be so shouty.
Agree with the comments about Diana being so proud of the monarchy. I imagine she would have been horrified by this week particularly as Philip is still ill in hospital.
#cambridgesquad rocks.
Excellent articleI want to post the whole of the Economist leader - it's so well written, thoughtful and devastating to M&H' . But it also represents a burning of bridges. For the duchess at least, there will be no going back.' (In full here https://archive.ph/Q1PSq
That interview
Prince Harry and Meghan Markle take on the firm
The palace’s nightmare made flesh
The British monarchy’s record of absorbing outsiders is patchy. In recent times, it has had one outstanding success (Kate Middleton, Prince William’s wife), several modest successes (including Sophie Rhys-Jones, Prince Edward’s wife), a few questionable results (among them Sarah Ferguson, Prince Andrew’s ex-wife) and two stunning failures (Diana Spencer, the late Princess of Wales, and Meghan Markle, Prince Harry’s wife). On March 7th the world was treated to dramatic evidence of the latest disaster, in the form of an interview which Prince Harry and Ms Markle—the Duke and Duchess of Sussex—gave to Oprah Winfrey, America’s most famous talk-show host.
The revelations in the interview were in part familiar. The loneliness of which the duchess spoke, and the lack of support from within the “firm”, echoed Princess Diana’s experience. “This was very, very clear,” the duchess responded to a question about whether she was having suicidal thoughts. “Very clear and very scary. I didn’t know who to turn to in that.” A new factor, and a particularly explosive one, was race. The duchess, herself mixed-race, said that when she was pregnant with her son Archie, her husband had told her there were “conversations about how dark his skin might be”, and she implied that the issue was connected to decisions about her son’s title and security for the family. Both declined to say who had raised the issue, though Ms Winfrey later said Prince Harry had told her it was neither the queen nor Prince Philip.
The couple’s evident closeness during the interview underlined another big difference between their situation and Princess Diana’s. They are together, having left the country—rather as Wallis Simpson, the last American to marry a senior member of the royal family, and Edward VIII did, when they went to live in Paris. The painful consequences of Prince Harry’s decision to move to America for his relationship with his family also came out in the interview: for a while, the prince said, his father stopped taking his calls.
These revelations indicate what is presumably part of the purpose of the interview. There has been plenty of criticism in Britain of the couple’s decision to leave the country for California, and of their attempt to retain some of the privileges of royalty while doing so. A prime-time slot with the world’s most famous interviewer—who is also a friend, and attended their wedding—is a good way of putting their side of the story. Such exposure should also enhance their celebrity and popularity, on which their income depends now that they have been financially cut off by the royal family. But it also represents a burning of bridges. For the duchess at least, there will be no going back.
Two days after the interview, the palace issued a neutral, conciliatory response: “the issues raised, particularly of race, are concerning…they will be addressed by the family privately.” But it included a carefully worded phrase casting doubt on the notion that the couple’s account was the objective truth: “some recollections,” it said, “may vary.” And somebody, whether inside or outside the royal household, had launched what looked like a pre-emptive strike. After the interview was recorded, but before it went out, a complaint made against the duchess in 2018 by a senior member of staff was leaked to the Times. Jason Knauf, at the time press secretary to both princes, wrote to Simon Case, then Prince William’s private secretary and now head of the civil service, saying that she had “bullied two pas out of the household”, and was bullying a third. The timing of the leak of a complaint from two and a half years ago suggests that a point was being made: when a relationship breaks down, there tends to be fault on both sides.
Beyond the sniping, the fundamental problem, with which Princess Diana struggled, is clear. Being a royal is about serving an institution. It does not work for those who crave individual attention. The job requires self-effacement, at which the queen, who has not said a single interesting thing in public in her 70 years on the throne, has excelled. That’s not because she is a boring person, but because she understands the demands of the job. The Duchess of Cambridge, aka Ms Middleton, is, similarly, brilliantly bland. The Duchess of Sussex is not; and her complaint in her interview that while she was a royal she was not allowed to talk to Ms Winfrey without other people in the room demonstrated her failure to grasp the need to subsume individual needs in those of the institution. Given the potential impact of such an interview on the monarchy, it would have been bizarre for the household’s communications chiefs to allow her to negotiate with the world’s most powerful interviewer by herself.
As it is, the duchess has done the interview on her own terms, and its consequences are exactly those that the palace dreaded. It has exposed the royal family to criticism to which it cannot properly respond publicly without getting into a shouting match that would damage the monarchy further, and it has sharply divided opinion (see chart), thus undermining the institution’s unifying role. Younger Britons—along with Americans—are more likely to take the view that the monarchy and the British press are institutionally racist, that the duchess should have been given more support and that she is justified in airing her grievances in public. Older Britons are more likely to be of the opinion that she is an adult who should have thought harder about the job before signing up to it, that if she was depressed, her husband, who founded a mental-health charity, could have got help for her, and that the couple have wilfully and selfishly damaged an institution to which Prince Harry’s grandmother and father have devoted their lives. Britain’s reputation as a socially liberal, racially tolerant country has taken a hit, too.
Yet the interview may do the monarchy less damage than the current furore suggests. Earlier, similar troubles did not much dent its popularity. Even during the split with Princess Diana, it barely budged. That may, of course, have a lot to do with the queen. Ironically, given her determination to obscure her personality, she is personally very popular. When she dies, things may look different.
Editor's note: This article has been updated since publication to note the palace's response
This article appeared in the Britain section of the print edition under the headline "Taking on the firm"
She simply lies for attention. I am over it all now. It is simply too exhausting to rip apart each sentence when it is and will be subject to further dubious recollections from this out of control creature. She's already trying to revive one topic that she promised was finished with. All of the others will be revived I guarantee. Thank Crunchy it is Friday - have a drink, enjoy a chocolate bar and love your family. She cannot impact your life and neither can he.Apologies if already posted. A little behind...
Basically, the interview was full of half - truths.
Harry and Meghan: Where Buckingham Palace disagrees with the duke and duchess
March 10 2021, The Times
Buckingham Palace has made clear that it does not accept the truth of everything the Duke and Duchess of Sussex said in their interview with Oprah Winfrey. In a bold assertion by the standards of royal pronouncements, the official statement on behalf of the Queen said that “some recollections may vary”.
They will not be debated in public: the palace is keen to avoid the tit-for-tat of claim and counter-claim. These, however, are the possible areas of contention:
Racism
When she was pregnant with Archie, Meghan said there were “concerns and conversations about how dark his skin might be when he’s born”. There were, she said, “several conversations” about it with Harry, and an unnamed member of his family.
Harry’s account differed slightly from from his wife’s. He only referred to one conversation, and said that it was “right at the beginning”, before they were married.
It is hard to know what the palace position is on this, as they have not commented. But whoever it was may well have their own memory of the conversation.
Oprah Winfrey said that off-camera, Harry ruled out the possibility that it was the Queen or the Duke of Edinburgh.
Mental health
When she was feeling suicidal, Meghan said she went to one of the most senior people in the household “just to get help”. She said: “I said that ‘I’ve never felt this way before, and I need to go somewhere.’ And I was told that I couldn’t, that it wouldn’t be good for the institution.”
This raises several questions. Why did she not go to a doctor, such as one of the doctors working for the medical household? Why would the palace not want to help, especially given that mental health has been one of the most prominent campaigning areas for Prince Harry and the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge? Harry, after all, has spoken on several occasions about his own mental health, and how he has had therapy to cope with feelings about the death of his mother.
And why would an official put the standing of the institution above the mental health of a member of the royal family, given all that Harry — and William and Kate — have said through their Heads Together campaign about the importance of removing the stigma surrounding mental health?
Also, Meghan said she went to human resources to ask for help. Why? Some insiders believe this was odd, given that HR is there to deal with issues concerning staff, not the royal family.
In the interview Harry admitted that he did not tell anyone in his family that Meghan needed help. He said: “I guess I was ashamed of admitting it to them … I didn’t have anyone to turn to.”
Bridesmaids’ dresses
One of the first stories to cast Meghan in a negative light was the claim that before her wedding there was a row over bridesmaids’ dresses in which the Duchess of Cambridge cried. According to Meghan, it was Kate who made her cry.
“She was upset about something, but she owned it, and she apologised. She brought me flowers and a note, apologising.”
Describing Kate as “a good person”, she added: “I’m not sharing that piece about Kate in any way to be disparaging to her. I think it’s really important for people to understand the truth.”
However, insiders tell a different story. One said the row happened when the bridesmaids’ dresses had to be altered a week before the wedding. Meghan told them when to come, but Kate wanted to come at a different time. She was told it would not be possible, and went round at the time that suited Meghan.
“Meghan was incredibly rude. The duchess cried and left.”
After William intervened to try to calm the situation down, the duchess took flowers to Meghan the next day in an attempt to make peace.
The source said: “Meghan slammed the door in her face.”
Charles
Harry told Oprah Winfrey that in the first few months of 2020 his father cut him off financially.
However the Prince of Wales appears to differ in his recollection of what happened. Charles, who previously bankrolled Harry’s office to the tune of something approaching £2.5 million a year, was said by a source to feel “let down” by Harry’s claim.
A source told the London Evening Standard: “The Prince of Wales went out of his way to make sure his son and daughter-in-law were financially supported.”
Prince Archie
The Duchess of Sussex has claimed that members of the royal family did not want Archie to become a prince.
This is a complicated area because Archie was never due to be a prince when he was born. Rules introduced by George V in 1917 mean that great-grandchildren of the monarch, other than the elder son of the eldest son of the Prince of Wales, are not styled HRH and do not get the title of prince or princess.
However when the Queen dies Archie would then be a grandchild of the monarch, and would therefore get his HRH and become a prince.
However, Meghan suggested to Winfrey that there were plans to change this rule. She said: “While I was pregnant they said they wanted to change the convention for Archie.”
No royal sources have confirmed this. One said they were unaware of such conversations.
The Sussex camp believes that it is Prince Charles who intends to introduce this change, rather than the Queen. It is understood that they believe he would introduce it on his accession, as part of his plans for a slimmed-down monarchy.
Charles believes that having fewer working members of the royal family would reduce the burden on the taxpayer and help justify the existence of the institution.
The question of Archie’s title was further complicated by the way the duchess linked the issue with the question of his security.
Several sources have said that his title had nothing to do with security, which was a matter for Scotland Yard and, ultimately, the home secretary.
Oh wow! So they are reading the thread.... Sunshine Sachs we see you..Interestingly this article has now been removed.
I'll probably get told off for this as it's off topic, but if you were looking for the Daily Star article and in need of some light relief... It is about difficult relationships and how hard it is to adapt to a new way of life.Interestingly this article has now been removed.
Looks like it, doesn't it?Maybe people now have identities instead of personalities
It will come to the point where people will become deaf to ALL injustice because there’s just so much moralising being pelted about.It's getting to the point where you can't criticise someone's personality or you're a racist, sexist, homophobic, transphobic.
Okay - my final salvo - Sunshine Sachs you are the saddest bunch of useless cunts ever. You will soon be replaced by your hideous clients. Your name will be tainted. Good. I wish you nothing but the worst.Oh wow! So they are reading the thread.... Sunshine Sachs we see you..
They have not because I imagine Cringe and Ginge would sue (again).Have surrogate rumours actually appeared in the press?
I can quite believe that Charles wanted to do a line by line response. That would have been an awful idea, even by now it looks like the 3 sentence reply was for the best.The Palace handled this correctly. The Montecito traitors were itching for a BP point by point response to keep the headlines rolling.
ETA. Just realised, This is clever BP PR. Suggest that the Palace could have issued a detailed rebuttal (i.e. they have the evidence) but decided not to. The 'for now' is silent... Subtle stuff - I nearly missed it!
Archbishop be like:A spokesperson for Lambeth Palace declined to comment on the interview, saying on Monday that the Archbishop did not comment on “personal or pastoral matters”.
The people who think they know that full story of Charles and Diana, forget that sometimes she had a habit of.....plain making stuff up, especially in that Panorama interview where she wanted to make Charles look as bad as possible.Precisely. She wasn’t against the monarchy, she just wanted her sons to do better for the country in the future. She also didn’t even trash Charles, she said he’ll always be their father and that’s important.
MM fans have now graduated from comparing Diana and meghans situation to saying they’re ‘the exact same’. These people don’t even know the Diana situation do they? Could not be more different. All Diana wanted was Charles’ love and she knew she was fighting a losing battle. Meghan’s grievances are that she wasn’t top dog and some vague unsubstantiated (and in my opinion, fabricated) comment about her baby’s race. Meghan has all that Diana wanted- a devoted husband. For whatever reasons, brainwashing i’d argue is one, Harry clearly is absolutely besotted with Meghan.
Except he'd be unlikely to agree to a split with a new baby on the sceneI agree. I actually kind of want to see Harry over here on his own. They might be able to deprogram him #freeharry
I think its more a case of " A little knowledge is a dangerous thing"!!Looks like it, doesn't it?
My husband always said to our kids that knowledge is power, but recently started wondering whether it's ignorance, in fact, that seems to be more powerful at the moment...
I'll probably get told off for this as it's off topic
Well said @liar liarOkay - my final salvo - Sunshine Sachs you are the saddest bunch of useless cunts ever. You will soon be replaced by your hideous clients. Your name will be tainted. Good. I wish you nothing but the worst.
We use cookies and similar technologies for the following purposes:
Do you accept cookies and these technologies?
We use cookies and similar technologies for the following purposes:
Do you accept cookies and these technologies?