To feel sad for Prince Harry

[OldManRivers]

Have been looking at the photos today of Harry in the car being driven from the airport in America back to his home. He looks so sad. It must be very difficult for him to attend a huge family occasion like that with his role drastically changed, and to see all of his family but now he's on the sidelines popping in so very sporadically.

Also I can't help but think he must feel sad to think his children won't grow up around their cousins, and extended family. Meghan doesn't have any family except her mother so they don't have any in America either.

Originally he and Meghan wanted to carry on being part of the royal machine and do appearances etc but also have some independence so it's not as though this life was their original plan, where it seems like they're sidelined and alienated. AIBU to think regardless of what's gone on it must be very hard for him to be in another country, away from his ailing grandmother who he is very close to, and feel like a bit of an outcast?

OK let’s leave the racism to one side for a moment - what incidents do you think Harry and Meghan were taking the piss that led people to dislike them?

And what people do you mean - ie inside the RF? Do you think it started there and the RF or the RF machine stirred up the press with negative stories about H&M deliberately?

I can’t see how the RF as individuals and family - siblings / father / grandmother would benefit from doing this? What would their goal have been? I suspect the opposite that relationships became tense within the family but that they would try to keep a neutral public face as this would be in the RF interests.

I'm not surprised nobody wants to talk to them really, they must be terrified of everything they say being repeated, out of context, to the media. All this from people who are desperate for privacy...

The RF leak stuff to the media ten times more than Harry and Meghan ever did. The RF are the ones that leak constantly. The RF are the ones who planted a spy in Harry and Meghan's house - someone who got rewarded with a cushy CEO job when he'd been breaking his NDA by giving stories about his royal bosses to the press for months.

Look at the Daily Mail story about the photographer, who do you think leaked that? Certainly not Harry and Meghan. It's either a lie, or someone on the royal side leaked it in order to attack Harry and Meghan. Again.

No wonder Harry and Meghan don't trust Harry's family when they constantly go running to the press to spill everything Harry does. Poor Harry, not being able to trust his own backstabbing family.

I suspect going to Hollywood to get out of the limelight and live a quiet life isn't all it's cracked up to be.

They don't live anywhere near Hollywood. They don't even live close to LA. At least get the basic facts right.

Lets face it, she's cut off from all her family apart from her mother

The only person she's cut off was her dad, and he's the one who ghosted her, not the other way around! Just lies and hate for no reason.

People came to dislike her because she and Harry seemed to be taking the piss, mainly.

I would also like to know what Meghan did wrong prior to the wedding that caused the extreme and non-stop hate and abuse that existed in the press and online during the engagement.

People claiming that Meghan was greeted warmly and that public opinion changed only after they left are trying to re-write history.

In reality, the hate and abuse was at its height during two periods, the engagement, and her first pregnancy.

The hate towards Meghan here on MN was certainly at its height during the engagement. And many of the Meghan-bashing threads (often half a dozen a day) were deleted for containing overt racism and racial slurs.

“Look at the Daily Mail story about the photographer, who do you think leaked that? Certainly not Harry and Meghan. It's either a lie, or someone on the royal side leaked it in order to attack Harry and Meghan. Again.”

@JemimaPuddlegoose what do you think is the reality here - separately both in terms of what actually happened with photos and then what is the origin of the story - a lie or a leak and what is the purpose of a leak? Why do the RF want to attack H&M? Surely they all want a quiet life and to focus on HMQ? Leaking doesn’t achieve this.

1. HMQ and PC had loads of family snaps taken with their DGGD and DGD at her first birthday party but have asked H&M that they remain personal and private and H&M agree. Mail made it up - so it's a lie.

1. HMQ and PC had loads of family snaps taken asked for them to remain private. H&M reluctantly comply. The Mail are briefed this - why?

1. HMQ and PC insisted that no family snaps were taken.

1. HMQ and PC have not met their grand daughter.

No link offered to the alleged Daily Mail headline I see - I wonder if that was another thing that was made up?

DFOD we'll probably never know how the RF responded to any complaints Harry may have made from the start. On current form he might well claim nobody cared, and they'd probably revert to the famous "recollections may differ"
So that leaves some to fill the blanks with "facts" of their choice, and fill them in they certainly will

what people do you mean - ie inside the RF? Do you think it started there and the RF or the RF machine stirred up the press with negative stories about H&M deliberately?

Also leaving the racism issue aside. Yes, I do believe this. Reading between the lines it's difficult to come to any other conclusion. Someone very close to the inside of that dynamic was leaking like a basket, at one stage on an almost daily basis. The stories were practically all to Meghan's detriment. Even allowing for the fact that Harry isn't the sharpest, no one in their right senses would efficiently stage-manage media smear campaign against themselves, calculated to show them up in the worst light possible. This just would not happen.

Rebekah Vardy isn't the brightest, either, but her case highlights how these campaigns of leaking operate, and what's involved in these mutually beneficial dynamics set up between individuals and the media, no doubt in return for glowing coverage of themselves. It's not unfeasible that this is what's happened here. The reason Markle is so widely loathed, IMO, is that few stand a chance against such a slick PR machine as the Windsors'. Their advisors, if not themselves, are not as dim as Vardy.

I can’t see how the RF as individuals and family - siblings / father / grandmother would benefit from doing this?

There are several ways. A schism had opened up within the family and someone, for whatever reason, believed Harry and Meghan needed putting back into their box. The reasons are a matter of speculation: all we can see is what was going in the media. Certain family members were receiving a poor press for laziness. Meghan, unlike most Windsors including her husband, is smart and articulate. The DM venerated the Cambridges to such an extent that their readers started sarcastically referring to her as Saint Kate. Rumour was rife in the overseas media that William was in the throes of an affair with his Norfolk neighbour. (Immediately, a counter-rumour went around that someone admitted the story was made-up. They didn't. They merely said they had no real evidence it was going on - a different thing entirely). Then, of course, there was Andrew. His misdemeanors are far graver, but he hasn't been subject to the same censure.

Another day, another article on Horrid Harry and Mean Meghan. What better decoy for preserving the rest of that family's image?

Personally I think it's a lie. No one knows anything that happened during the private birthday party because it was private. It's only Meghan haters who come running to these threads to repeat everything the Daily Mail says as though it's gospel.

The Queen and Harry obviously love each other and get along well. Most likely they had a lovely time at a private birthday party, and either the tabloids were so incensed not to have any gossip from the party they just made up lies, or some
courtier or perhaps someone who wasn't invited leaked a fake story designed to paint Harry and Meghan in a bad light.

The palace smear campaign against Harry and Meghan is exactly the same as the smear campaign against Diana. Married-in royals are always thrown to the wolves and only protected once they've proven their "loyalty" (ie willingness to silently tolerate any amount of abuse and lies from the press, willing to have bad stories released about them when a more important royal needs protecting).

Anyone who steps out of line or is non-compliant gets smeared. Diana was the mother of the future King but she still got a despicable smear campaign intended to portray her as mentally unstable and to gaslight her, for standing up to them and refusing to accept infidelity and emotional abuse. Harry and Meghan were thrown under a bus to protect more important royals and are now being smeared for standing up for themselves and their children by leaving. The Jason Knauf scandal alone shows how corrupt the Firm is. And it's not necessarily the royals themselves, but the courtiers, the famous little grey men, who have so much power.

Maybe a little but he's a multi-millionaire, living in a great house, lovely location, with a wife, kids and can basically go anywhere or do anything that he likes so of all of the people to feel sorry for in this world, I don't really feel it for Harry.

It might be a bit sad for their kids that they only regularly see one of their grandparents but I'm sure they have other people that they are close to as a family.

Personally I think it's a lie

It is not going to be a lie, of that we do know, because Harry and Meghan are very fond of taking all and sundry to court!

It will be the truth, from impeccable sources, checked and double checked.

It was the right call not to have cameras etc, the Queen does want to be soiled with their latest money making fodder. They were there to get as much out of it as they could, and everyone knows it. Pure self interest.

@JemimaPuddlegoose, that's the crux. There is a constant repetition in the media that the Windsors have no power. (They do. They've always had far too much power over what appears about them in the media, and the media has a huge degree of power over public opinion). There seems to be an unwritten rule that if a member of the public speaks to a Windsor, the content of that conversation must not be divulged on any pretext. The Queen has a meeting with our elected PM weekly, the contents of which we are not allowed to know. Their PR machine is about the most powerful there is.

The second PR drive is that the British public universally loves them and thinks themselves lucky to have them, all bar a minority of flaky republicans. True? Just ask around a few people you know (MN isn't a representative sample). Hell, even the establishment-living Mail readers, when there isn't a Jubilee celebration ongoing, are exasperated with their antics.

I'd be against the hereditary system of this constitution (that includes the Lords) on political grounds were the Windsors the most benign, caring, wonderful bunch of people ever to walk these green and pleasant lands. But this lot are particularly poor custodians of their very great, unelected privilege.

This makes some sense - that it’s the firm/grey suits that are pulling the strings (to keep the institution intact and themselves in a job) - although it would require approval (even if it’s a blind eye) by the RF leadership - do we believe that HMQ sanctioned the Diana stuff in the past and is now responsible for sanctioning the smear/lies/leaks around her grandson Harry and his wife? I find it hard to compute!

Another day, another article on Horrid Harry and Mean Meghan. What better decoy for preserving the rest of that family's image?

Yes, well said.

To add to that, the Royals and the tabloid press and the government all engage in quid pro quos. You scratch my back and I'll scratch yours.

The tabloids press demand scandal and coverage. One tabloid paparazzo is on record as saying the reason he hates Meghan is that her leaving the UK has cost him hundreds of thousands of pounds in predicted earnings and that he'd expected to put his children through school and retire early off the back of selling photos of Meghan and her children.

The tabloid press is a machine that needs to be constantly fed, and they demand scandal. Sweet photos of Kate baking cupcakes with her kids doesn't feed that demand. That's why for all of modern royal history at least one royal has been the scandalous 'bad' one who's always in the press. Diana, Fergie, the York sisters, Kate, someone has to play that role and they either tolerate it or they get out and thus get smeared. Even before that, Princess Margaret was the tabloid 'wild child' who created scandal. It's pretty clear the press are preparing for Charlotte and Louis to be the next generation sacrificial scandalambs, and no doubt a lot of the anger at Harry and Meghan at leaving is because they and their children aren't around to be put in that role anymore.

The RF's willingness to make their own sacrificial lambs gives them a certain amount of power to protect the royals whose images need to be protected at all costs, which basically means the monarch and direct heirs. Look how Diana was completely trashed and smeared to protect Charles' reputation. And how aggressively they've protected William over the unsavoury rumours (and the alleged deals made with the press that the press won't cover anything bad about William in exchange for being given stories about Harry). Compare the coverage of Queen's favourite Andrew with the coverage of Harry. The tabloids went far easier on Andrew for hanging out with convicted pedos and paying off a sex trafficking survivor who accused him of rape, than Harry who's only crime was protecting his beloved wife and doing a moany interview.

The tabloid press are right wing and in the pocket of the Tory government. How often has the RF benefited from government influence (the RF being given an exemption from laws banning racial hiring discrimination, all the dodgy financial stuff, William's secret meetings with politicians in Scotland which resulted in C4 overtly accusing Kensington Palace of lies and harassment). And how many times has some negative Tory story like Matt Hancock being found to have acted unlawfully been bumped off the front page because the RF conveniently released a negative story about Meghan?

It will be the truth, from impeccable sources, checked and double checked.

LOL I did not have "the Daily Mail is the impeccable gospel truth" on my Meghan hater bingo card for today.

Obviously you've never worked in the press, like I have. Or been featured in the Daily Mail (again, like I have).

So if the Mail is this renowned vessel of verisimilitude, who is the trusted high-up person inside the RF who's ringing up the Daily Mail to tell them all about private royal children's parties.

Either it's all lies and the Palace isn't acting on lies; OR the RF is actively authorising leaks and violating the Queen's privacy in order to deliberately smear the Queen's grandchild; OR someone high-up in the Palace is betraying the RF by leaking private conversations and things that happened during royal children's private birthday parties to the tabloids.

None of those three options exactly leave the Palace looking good, do they?

It will be the truth, from impeccable sources, checked and double checked

In the Mail? Hmmm ...

In fairness to them - though it chokes me - what they are skilled at is wrapping their editorial in "quotes from sources" to enable just enough to insinuate something without coming out and saying it directly

And of course they can't be forced to reveal their "sources" except for a court order very rarely granted - something their platoons of lawyers will know perfectly well

Well your first option leaves the RF with clean hands?

Also how does it square that HMQ loves her grandson Harry so much but personally as the head of the organisation sanctions 24/7 blitz of negative press that wrecks his MH? Or facilitates and sanctions it indirectly via grey suits leaking and smearing? It’s not adding up for me.

I am sure Meghan and Harry can easily take the Mail and any other rag to court if the claim is UNTRUE puzzled they have had no problem at all spraying court orders all over the place, so I can't see them letting it go. Of course it is true, and is in many other papers this morning as well.

The Queen won't be sanctioning anything, the decision to tell others about the photographers (or not) will have been a decision for royal aides, and will have been done to let people know in subtle ways that the RF although happy to be cordial will not be tarnished with H&M money making schemes, and the Queen will not be used as ratings bait and back room deals.

I think it is fair enough. The Sussexes have behaved in such an underhand and dishonest way using family misery and difficulties as currency to flog their nasty interviews and slurs, everyone is right to be very cautious around such people.

That’s the same thing.

HMQ is the head of the organisation - of course she didn’t pick up the phone to the press but she will have her PR team devising the strategy (which she will have to sign off) who then implement.

So there are essentially two things possible:

• Photos with Lilibet and HMQ were banned.

• It was decided this needed to be communicated to the press and the public by the RF.

I don’t believe there are “leaks” - there are likely well orchestrated and precision timed briefings which are strategically implemented to benefit the RF. The idea that huge swaths of rogue employees are simultaneously 24/7 whispering random stuff with the same agenda to the press is not realistic IMHO.

The photographer story proves the HMQ has met her DGGD (not sure about Charles) and may also be an attempt to indicate the RF have the upper hand?

It’s a real sadness for siblings, cousins, parents, children, aunts, uncles and grandparents to be at such a state of tension around someone who is 96.

I agree DFOD the weekend must have created huge layers of strain for everyone, and it was so unnecessary in my view, there are ways to go about being independent and choosing a new life elsewhere without creating such an insidious fall out. Bowing out gracefully was always an option...

I am sure the aides would have pre planned everything to the last detail, and plan B, C, D etc just in case something out of the ordinary happened. It would have been their job to think through every last possibility - with the central wish for the celebrations to proceed in a way that was not damaging to anyone, Harry and Meghan included.
The photographer leak would have had an important function as you say, to inform others about the meeting but also a reminder that the RF and particularly the Queen are not there to create money making opportunities to be sold further down the line, the Queen has made it clear she sees their visits as private family occasions so this fits in nicely with her decision.

In the middle of this crisis management is a very sick elderly person that does not appear to have very long left, so for her sake I am glad there were no hitches, and I hope Harry remains respectful of his Grandmother and we don't see any further damaging attacks.

I too am glad it went as well as could be expected given the evident hurt (real or imagined) on all sides and that there are clear indications that the start of a thaw towards a reconciliation or “new normal” is taking place - baby steps in fragile family.

I guess the fear is that the thaw is not real, and any reconciliation that is happening at the moment is for ulterior motives, and not because there is any genuine feeling/love and wish to reunite but because it is financially beneficial to do so. It will take a very long time for trust to rebuilt. I guess the formality was at least helpful to hide behind at least!

The thing about the photographer is how the press have spun it though surely? Call to the palace press office to ask if a photographer was present, answer no it was a private meeting. DM reports that they were banned from taking a private photographer. No one actually knows if they even asked. Or have I missed something?

I imagine they most definitely asked!
It might be the only shot they will have of Lilibet and her Great Grandmother.

But we do know that there was a photographer present as H&M released a photo of their DD that he had taken as well as a photo of his partner and DCs with Meghan and Lilibet.

I suppose that we don’t know if HMQ was actually at the birthday party (on Sat?) with that photographer or if she met her DGGD on another day?