To think that all this brouhaha about Harry & Meghan is just a handy distraction

[PrincessOfWaiIs]

It's top of the news, front pages of all the newspapers, it's top trending on Twitter, there's a million threads here about it (and yes, here's another one before someone points out the obvious!)...

Meanwhile the CoL crisis is bumped down the headlines, as are all the other genuine crises the country (and indeed the world) is currently facing. People can't afford to heat their homes or feed their children and all everyone's talking about is the tawdry soap opera that is the lives of a bunch of over privileged idiots.

The media's aim seems to be: Get the plebs whipped up about something which doesn't affect them in the slightest, bickering and frothing about a family who will never have to struggle the way the rest of us do, that'll distract them!

Meanwhile there's talk of anti strike legislation and energy bills going up again this month, along with train fares and council tax and the rest of it. But all everyone's talking about is a grubby little family argument. Handy, no?

Totally agree.Brits are suckers.

Everything will still be shit tomorrow, let us have a bit of distraction. Can't wallow in the absolute misery of Everything all the time, I'd lose the plot.

It makes Harry look worst in my eyes. People are choosing if they have more than one meal a day or heat their homes and he is saying “my brother pushed me” so what?! In this climate, when things are so hard - this spoilt moron wants to cry and talk about having his butt slapped in a field .

Hasn't it always been like this? I remember as a kid princess diana or fergie being plastered over the front of The Sun and then a tragedy being on page 5 or something.

So you're saying HAM are throwing themselves on a sword to distrract the public from it all and happily looking petulant and demanding? Now that's devotion if so!

Yep, I’ve given up on my Times subscription which is more like a red top every day. I’m only reading the FT at the minute which is largely drama free.

Bread and circuses. The royals have been providing this role for many years.

The people who grinned themselves to death
Smiled so much they failed to take a breath
And even when their kids were starving
They all thought the queen was charming.

🤷‍♀️

Sometimes people want a distraction.

Otherwise it’s all doom and gloom consistently, who wants to immerse themselves in that constantly. People are always looking for a bit of light relief

I find this pretty miserable too. No one's really being made happy, except for the people at the tabloids and the publisher counting the money. Ultimately you've got the breakdown of a relationship between two brothers who already lost their mother when they were young. It just makes me sad, TBH, because I don't want to take a side.

Someone insisted I needed to watch the documentary to understand how bad M and H have been treated.

Although I agree there was a clear element of racism on how tabloids cover Meghan, seeing this Uber rich family’s new “lovely” life away from work, responsibilities and totally devoted to their own dramas only convinced me they live in their own warped parallel reality.

And that shit about a life of service? How can they claim that when a child sleeping in a tent for a year raised four times as much money as Archwell did in the same time? Archwell is just a smoke screen…

Spot on. Drives me crazy.

Let's look at the squabbling rich people and ignore that the planet is being killed off, people are starving and dying.

Fffs.

It's fucking Orwellian.

Surely the dramas in the lives of privileged aristocrats is miserable, too? If it were good news as a distraction I'd understand, but the constant speculation about people who will never have to worry about paying a bill, not so much.

Yep, I remember that, too.

It's incredible that it still goes on and that people fall for it.

More that the media are hyping up a story which has no bearing whatsoever on the lives of any of us to distract us all from the real issues, such as industrial action potentially being made illegal for example.

I quite like H&M but there are about 2947672990 things going on in the world that are more important than their family dingdongs.

But this is what I don't understand - how is a family disagreement 'light relief'? And a super privileged family at that, while millions use foodbanks.

It's bonkers.

Precisely.

YABU. H&M are throwing so much scandal up for the media to play with of course the media are lapping it up.

They are making mega bucks out of their one talent- playing victim. Don’t pretend there’s anything else to it.

The media are duly reporting it because they know people need a distraction. Constant gloom and doom doesn’t sell papers.

Top trending on twitter is the apprentice according to a website as of 17 minutes ago William is number five Harry is around 8

Nowhere in the first 20 rows is the col crisis mentioned no-one is talking about it

How is this not more gloom and doom, though? The fact that people think that the infighting of a deeply dysfunctional family is 'light relief' from war and poverty is bizarre.

Gloom and doom does sell papers - alarmist headlines are like catnip. This isn't about the rights and wrongs perpetrated by the royal family, it's about the way the media are using it as a smokescreen for the genuinely important issues of the day. And the way that the public are 'lapping it up' and seem happy to be distracted.