Prince Harry - AIBU?

[barniee]

Prince Harry saying "we can all do better" has really irked me- aibu?! He has every want and need satisfied while the majority of us and trying to do right by the environment whilst making ends meet. He is becoming very sanctimonious!

Come off it, Samantha; they wouldn't have needed to dig very hard since the alleged issues were all over the internet way before Meghan got involved with the HUB kitchen - and it wasn't said to be "some extremist" (singular) but 19 of them

Absolutely none of that makes it the fault of Meghan or the other ladies of course, but let's not pretend it was some abstruse issue they couldn't possibly have known about

The royal family all use private planes and helicopters. Didn't the Queen give William and Kate a helicopter as a gift?

Whilst I think Harry preaching about the environment and then taking so many private flights in such a short space of time was rather galling, as others have pointed out, Charles has been talking about the environment for decades and nobody gives him a roasting for all the private transport he takes.

If Elton John offered me a break in (what I presume is a rather nice house) and then offered to fly me in his private plane I would have accepted. I can't see that in reality many of us would have told him that we'd rather go EasyJet.

Meanwhile, the spotlight moves away from Prince Andrew and what he has been up to. Chuck Meghan under the bus to keep him off the front pages.

Meanwhile, the spotlight moves away from Prince Andrew and what he has been up to. Chuck Meghan under the bus to keep him off the front pages.

It appears to be working.

I hope the Queen is heartfelt in her thanks to Meghan.

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7424269/Epstein-scandal-cancels-Prince-Andrews-engagements-Northern-Ireland.html
www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7448079/Jeffrey-Epstein-staff-poses-Bill-Clinton-Prince-Andrew-Fergie-Hilary-Swank-Chris-Tucker.html
There are almost daily articles about PA and the comments are almost always negative

@CatherineOfAragonsPrayerBook
Agree with what you say about Meghan ‘hating’. I thought she was great to start with. Really enthusiastic about her. I now feel completely differently.

Charles has been talking about the environment for decades and nobody gives him a roasting for all the private transport he takes

Not so; I'm hardly alone in having slated his dreadful hypocrisy for as long as I can remember, and it's even worse since he may be the next monarch and have at least some real influence

Just as with Andrew's appalling behaviour, the fact someone else is "the thing of the moment" doesn't alter the basic truth (though I do agree some of the RF may regard Meghan as a useful smokescreen)

“. I now feel completely differently.”

Why? What has she done?

Why? What has she done?

Why does it matter at all what she has actually done? That's irrelevant. What matters here is her PR.

The Royals are not people that we "know" in any way. What matters is how they're perceived. We "know" that Philip is a racist, that the Queen is the nation's grandmother, that Charles is a wet, that Anne is a hardworking dedicated Royal, that Kate is lazy, and Harry is a normal lad, just like us.

This might all be false, but it's how they're perceived. What Meghan needs is better PR, not to be a better person.

We used to know that Kate is lazy. Now she's a combination of supermum, Mother Theresa and Alan Titchmarsh!

Agree!

But people are always talking about the things she has got wrong- a previous poster said, when asked “so many- where to start?” So it should be perfectly possible to list them! And even on this thread, you can see people turning against a thoroughly excellent charity because of her involvement.....

We need to separate MM the person and what she's done from what MM the image has done. Ignore the former. The latter spanked money on flights to NY for a baby shower, told the man at Wimbledon to stop taking photos of her, has put Harry on a weird diet and is a bossy sharp-elbowed social climber.

(Note, I'm not saying MM the person has done any of this things)

So you’re accepting it’s all lies?

@zonkin

If Elton John offered me a break in (what I presume is a rather nice house) and then offered to fly me in his private plane I would have accepted. I can't see that in reality many of us would have told him that we'd rather go EasyJet.

Quite possibly, but I doubt you would have then stood up at a high profile conference and told everyone to be more mindful of the environmental impact of their vacation transport choices....

Prince Charles has made some very poor choices regarding friends over the years as well. I mean everyone knew JS was some type of pervert so why was Charles friends with him for years? Surely he must have known he was on the dodgy side?

@BertrandRussell

I have no idea, and quite frankly, I'm not a Royal Watcher, so I'm just making a general point that the Royal Family has always been about PR and not what they actually do.

Whilst Andrew's horrible and possibly illegal activities have had some press coverage, it's hardly been screaming from the headlines with in depth opinion pieces every day. The Harry private jet issue got more coverage.

The media has not called out Charles for his environmental hypocrisy with such vitriol as they have Harry and Meghan.

@Stixkystick I agree that I wouldn't have stood up and lectured people to be more mindful of the environment after my luxury flight and holiday. But then I'm not a hypocrite, unlike most of the royal family.

I don't believe we should have a royal family at all, but to constantly berate Harry and Meghan much more than any of the others and their hangers on (eg Fergie) is ridiculous. The Queen in the car with Andrew at Balmoral was disgraceful. Like nothing ever happened.

Very a good point re the PR and of course tabloids also have it in for her and twist everything she says or does to make her look bad eg:

Story: Extravagant Meghan wore designer clothes to meet the women at SmartWorks
Reality: Meghan wore a £100 maternity dress to meet the service users. Granted she arrived at the charity in an expensive coat (that she'd worn several times before) but she took it off as soon as she got in the door

Story: Patronising Meghan wrote on bananas for sex workers
Reality: The banana writing resulted in the charity (One25?) getting more donations that ever before

Story: Hypocrite Meghan used a blanket for Archie that was made in a sweatshop
Reality: the blanket wasn't made in a sweatshop at all, but people didn't read beyond the misleading headline.

@AtmosClock You forgot to mention just how "frugal" the queen is. That line gets trotted out all the time about how much better than all the other royals she is.

Agree Harry and Meghan just need to get their PR sorted and then they'll fit right in with the royal family.

For those banging on about Meghan picking fashionable charities/causes, I'm glad that she is doing the SmartWorks thing and did the Grenfell cook book project. Neither of those choices are trendy or fashionable.

I actually bought the cookbook (I like cooking) and wouldn't have know about it if not for her. I bet they sold lots more copies than they ever would have done without her and that was working with the community. I can't actually see that any other member of the royal family would show such initiative in the causes that they choose. Look at all the lavish praise Kate got for "designing" a garden for the Chelsea show. I mean, wow, what an achievement....

@Zonkin, absolutely agree, frugal is a good one.

The way I see it, all this arguing about the characters of Meghan Markle or the Queen is like spending hours arguing about the true nature of Pauline Fowler.

While I don't know that it could be classed as 'wrong' she didn't do herself any favours with that nonsense at Wimbledon, when she arrogantly presumed people were taking pictures of her.

@atmosclock

^I'm just making a general point that the Royal Family has always been about PR and not what they actually do.^

This is a very interesting thread. I think most of the RF would probably quite like it to be all about PR (so you can delegate all the hard graft to staff) but alas even PR isn’t that shallow. There’s a reason that Princess Anne’s PR says she is hardworking - as the stats show, she does more engagements than anyone else. She’s seen as being straight talking and thrifty because she IS.

The RF members who struggle with PR are generally the ones trying to be something they are not, who think that words are a substitute for deeds.

when she arrogantly presumed people were taking pictures of her.

Was it her who presumed that though? Or her security team?

You can understand why they’d err on the side of caution.

Why is she so special that her security team would need to set on the side of caution?
Loads of royals go to Wimbledon, they just get on with it.
Even Diana said she knew it was a 2 hour photo shoot.
Public event, cameras beaming it around the world..
There's an air of 'look at me, look at me' or 'how dare you look at me' depending on which way the wind is blowing on any given day. (Imo)

@Stixkystick Princess Anne might attend more engagements but we don't see those charities in the media. Which charities raise the most money and profile from their royal supporter?

Perhaps the "working royal" question should be more focussed on not how many "cutting ribbons and shaking a few hands for 30 minutes" sessions you can do in a year but rather on how much impact you have and how much your charity benefits from the patronage.

And to think that Princess Anne is thrifty belongs up there with the Queen being frugal.