Allison Pearson in the DTel just now:
The King may forgive Prince Harry, but the British people never will
The Sussexes like to claim it’s the horrid media that’s against them, but their conduct means the public have made up their own mind
ALLISON PEARSON4 January 2023 • 10:00am
View attachment 1853445
View attachment 1853446
“For God’s sake, please make it stop!” That heartfelt cry overheard at a New Year’s Eve party could only mean one thing. Yes, Harry is back with another instalment of, “How can I stretch out this increasingly thin and tedious material about a grudge I hold against my family to justify the millions of dollars I’m getting paid?” Why, it feels like only weeks since the Duke and Duchess of Sussex reheated their right royal grievances, scraping the crusty burnt bits off the bottom, to keep the wolf from the door in Montecito. Perhaps that’s because it is only weeks. It’s unfortunate, to say the least, that so swiftly after their six-part Netflix series, here come two interviews Harry has given – one to ITV’s
Tom Bradby, the other with the US’s Anderson Cooper – to publicise his autobiography, Spare, which is published on Tuesday. Any hopes of adding lustre to their reputation in the States are already tarnished. Even the reliably woke New York Times has started describing the Sussexes’ remorseless lament as a “whingefest”.
So far, we have only glimpsed snippets from the two interviews, but I think it’s safe to say the Prince of Wales will not be rushing to send any congratulatory orchids to his little brother. Harry’s lack of self-knowledge is breathtaking. He complains that “it never needed to be like this”, having accused his relatives of racism and of briefing against him. “If they feel it’s better to keep us somehow as the villain...” he adds graciously from his lofty vantage point on the moral high ground. Not for a moment does it seem to occur to Harry that a villain – or bad egg – is exactly how he must appear to royals who sought no quarrel with him or his wife.
Perhaps the most astonishing revelation to emerge is that
Harry is minded to seek a reconciliation. “I would like to get my father back, I would like to have my brother back,” he says after lobbing successive missiles at the Palace. A bit like Vladimir Putin suggesting to President Zelensky that they should let bygones be bygones.
What hasn’t occurred to Harry and Meghan is that it is not reconciliation with the new King and his heir that they need to worry about. The British public is pretty much done with the pair of them. Halfway through their docuseries, a YouGov poll showed that the Sussexes’ popularity had plummeted. Some 34 per cent continued to hold a negative view of the couple, with only 11 per cent feeling positive.
Never has so much public goodwill been burnt through so quickly. Regularly the most loved royal around the time of his wedding, Harry’s popularity score among Britons had dropped to -26 in December; his joint lowest score ever.
In another recent poll, 65 per cent of those questioned said that Harry and Meghan had chosen to give up their roles as working members of the Royal family, with only 11 per cent saying they had been forced out. Meanwhile, Meghan’s net favourability has fallen down a mineshaft to -39.
The Sussexes like to claim it is the horrid media that is against them, but having observed their conduct over the past year, the public appears to have made up its own mind. Even if the pair receive an invitation to the Coronation, I suspect attendance would be unwise.
The King may be reconciled with his turbulent, troubled son; his subjects never will be.
