To be a bit gleeful about Harry's court case

[Viviennemary]

Serves him right. He's made millions from Netflix, book deals and accusing them of being racist. Bit odd he's now coming back.

Will the King pay his debts.I hope not. Now the long suffering public will be fleeced for his security costs which will be around £5m a yea r. And they wonder why they are unpopular.

First we are talking on this thread about glee felt by random people who say they loathe or merely dislike H and M having never met or spoken to them, and not being directly affected by their actions.

Sp I reiterate, no I don’t tend to feel glee personally when it comes at the expense of someone else, whether I know them or not.

And I dislike media pile-ons on principle.

Second, if you do know H&M personally then your scenario of persons one and two could hold more weight but why assume that everything the RF says and does is above board, and everything H& M does and says is not?

Ime of the world to date, situations are rarely as cut and dried as that. Which means that hurt was probably caused on both sides. Otherwise why bite the hands that feeds you?

The monarchy is a hugely powerful and secretive institution and anyone who is naive and foolish enough to speak out against them publicly is obviously going to be subject to efforts to discredit them.

We know this from Andrew Lownie’s investigations about AMW and how the palace operates to cover up things they don’t want revealed.

BP pays lawyers to write letters to silence people, they remind employees about the terms of their pensions to encourage them to stay silent, they issue NDAs and they put pressure on civil servants so that journalists or historians trying to uncover things they would rather not have revealed, are repeatedly refused FOI requests.

We know now that AMW’s nefarious activities were covered up for fifteen years,

We know that Virginia Giuffre RIP was paid off by the RF.

We know from Patrick Jephson and indeed Marc Bolland himself, that in order to keep the reputation of the monarch and heir intact, other members of the RF may be briefed against. We know that strategic briefings are released to “safe” journalists.

We know in fact from any serious investigation in to the RF that has occurred, or any scandal that seeps out, that dubious practices are uncovered eg all of the Michael Fawcett debacles and the cash for honours, bags of cash incidents that were apparently investigated independently and no wrong-doing was ever found.

We know the Paul Burrell case was stopped by the intervention of the late QE2 at the last minute in very exceptional and frankly dubious circumstances.

We know that silence is rewarded.

Sorry but I think given that context, why on earth would you trust the official word of the RF?

I’m not saying that everything H&M says is right either but at the very least, equal scepticism should be applied to both sides.

And ruin the surprise for any upcoming documentary?

The documentary that is currently a figment of your imagination?

Or being flat out ashamed at her husband spaffing a load of family money on an ill-advised court case?

Again complete supposition on your part that she is ashamed of her husband! For all you know she decided not to speak or appear to prevent a million nasty responses in the media and on threads such as this.

Or having to face the people she and that fox accused of being racist?

Another reason that has been made up and presented as fact. Or do you have any proof?

It’s ok I suppose if people don’t care for her from the little they have seen of her on television, or on the news, although it is rather strange to form a strong opinion about anyone you haven’t actually met.

But imho to dislike Meghan on the basis of fabricated reasons is quite worrying.

I didn’t ask for a lecture or whataboutery.

I merely responded to your statement.

I reiterate - I don’t feel glee about H’s predicament (with regard to his court case) but I don’t feel sorry for him either.

As for Meghan? I was merely pondering - I didn’t state anything as fact.

I’m sorry you chose to read it as such.

I’m surmising of course, just to make that abundantly clear this time, but I think most would lament the loss of family money - especially if it amounted to millions. Perhaps ashamed was the wrong word. Perhaps it should be fuming.

We aren’t promised an easy ride in life but millions in the bank would make most things easier. Especially when you have children to consider.

Perhaps as a family they have been wildly financially successful during their time in America. Maybe they won’t miss those millions at all.

I also don’t believe I said I disliked her on that post.

Still, I’m sure they’ll be just fine.

I look forward to what they’ll do next. I may be able to revisit my ponderings.

Until then I bid you adieu.

Hang on. Are you saying you don’t feel pleased when someone who has behaved in a way you find harmful and unfair to others is thwarted? Because that’s what I took the thread title to mean.

You might debate whether this lawsuit qualifies, but people who feel pleased aka “gleeful” about it will tell you that’s their assessment of the situation. I don’t have noteworthy feelings about the whole thing myself so this is just an observation.

It is not even remotely strange to form opinions of people in the public eye. I would say it’s more unusual to be exposed to coverage of people and not form an opinion.

That is not what the judge said. They had no evidence so it’s not that hard to believe they lost the case for that one simple fact.

Xig
Occam's razor doesn't work here sadly.
I was very much with you on this but as the legals on Reddit and the ANL threads here pointed out to me, gently and patiently I'll add, the complainants needed concrete evidence (receipts, invoices, confessions, emails) to tie the paper directly to illegal means of getting the info for each and every article they were complaining about.
They didn't have this. Their main witness turned on them/claimed his statement was not just false but the esignature forged. They weren't allowed to use previous private eye billing from Leveson iirc (have to be honest, still not sure why they couldn't forensically go through and marry them up but suspect it was like a fishing expedition - you can't make the evidence fit retrospectively, you need to have it in the first place iyswim).
Paul Dacre never ever admitted to wrongdoing in Leveson part 1. This was key. Had they got evidence against him, they'd have used it. He'd have perjured himself. They didn't. All the journalists claim they had info from leaks from the complainants' inner circle or journalistic sources or directly e.g. even from registrar's office themselves (EJ's son's birth).
Hard to believe with a modern lens re GDPR but not from a legal standpoint. Burden of proof was on the complainants to prove they did use illegal methods and not on the mail to prove they didn't. Afaik, they only really had to show they could have had the info from different and legal means.
If you read Leveson I linked upthread, Piers Morgan does not come out of it well saying it was rumoured that hacking was common knowledge. Dacre denied Mail did anything illegal and he'd stopped using private investigators from 2007 (convenient date given a PI had stated on record mail had been a good client until this time).
None of it is about what you suspect. It's only about what you can prove.
And even when you win, you lose e.g. Coogan was validated but still ended up £30K down (NOTW settlement) as not all costs covered.
I take no Schadenfreude from this case. For me, there should have been deeper scrutiny, Leveson 2 and all papers signing up to the same external regulator but papers lobbies hard against it and the government caved.
The Mail weren't going to settle out of court. This might have led to further settlement claims and cast aspersions on their integrity. But once Burrows was out the picture/denied ever being a witness, the complainants had nothing.
I can understand why they feel hard done by - I have read Leveson part 1 - but the case should not have been brought and they were advised poorly ( throwing everything at the mail in the hope something stuck does feel frivolous and like ambulance-chasing).
I'd always try to avoid cases in court - only the lawyers ever win - and this was going to be an unwinnable crusade, much like trying to prove defamation.

There are one or two rather virtuous posts on here.

My tuppence worth, I’m regularly seeing the actions of an entitled, arrogant, selfish, greedy individual who has no self-awareness. Who has shown a complete disregard for anyone else’s feelings but his own, a man-child who has been having a tantrum since 2020 because he doesn’t like to hear the word ‘no’ the british taxpayer isn’t going to cough for your security (tantrum still ongoing).

This person has now lost a very, very expensive court case because he and the other claimants had no evidence, just hurty feelz (see above)

I haven’t got much sympathy I’m afraid.

I do believe in comeuppance
I do believe in what goes around comes around.
I do believe in Karma.

I don’t believe you have to know someone personally to form an opinion of them when they regularly put themselves in the public domain and show us who they are.

As it stands now, I’m gleeful happy that my opinion of PH is fairly accurate.

No I’m on your side. He has treated his family appallingly and made money off it. Now the family shut him out he and meghan had nothing to use to grift and people quickly lost interest and realised that what all they had. And now here he is, tail between legs slinking back to the uk. He’s an embarrassment.

Maybe not. But it is strange to pretend to know their motivation for doing things and pretend to be inside their heads when a hundred other possibilities may also be true.

I don’t think people are pretending to know stuff. They are just speculating on what the reasons might be. It’s pretty harmless.

Nobody's siding with the Daily Mail.
Harry saw it as an opportunity to make big money, that's the only reason, well it backfired.
Good.

These conversations have been going on since time immemorial. It’s in writing rather than in person, that’s all.

Do you think no one talked this way about Wallis and Edward?

How do you know that H wasn’t treated appallingly within the family relatively speaking? Behind the scenes of the big family wedding, they appeared to be quite hostile to his choice of bride.

He certainly wasn’t enjoying the perks that his Uncle Andrew had handed to him on a plate. Nor Edward for that matter. Did anyone take the trouble to explain to him why?

Prince Charles gave the nod to a biography of him by Jonathan Dimbleby and agreed to a tv interview about it, watched by 13.5 million viewers, in which he said things very publicly that must have been very hurtful to his family, and his sons, so what’s the difference?

If anything what he said was far more personally hurtful than what H chose to reveal. He admitted adultery and complained about his upbringing

Charles described the late QE2 as an physically and emotionally distant mother during his early years.

He described his family life as formal and lonely with his parents, whom he barely saw, both distant and demanding.

He characterised Prince Philip as a harsh and hectoring figure whose "banter" and style of criticism frequently reduced him to tears,

Charles blamed his father for insisting he attended Gordonstoun, where he suffered severe bullying and isolation.

And he said that he felt pressured by his father into his marriage to Diana. Bear in mind that he was thirty-two at the time.

And remember that Camilla has Charles’ ear and Harry is the superfluous step son. Don’t forget that dynamic. And Harry had to live in an environment where his mother’s name wasn’t spoken or acknowledged. These things cause resentment and have consequences later on.

Honestly they are all as bad as one another. They have all inflicted hurt on one another.

Does the fact that it is in writing and not spoken make the speculation any more factually accurate?

Is the speculation, or what amounts to unsubstantiated gossip, in fact more damaging because it is written down and can be read and shared by many?

The answer to that is definitely yes.

I do not understand the point of this question.

It is neither more nor less accurate and the nature of speculation is that it has not been proven true nor false yet.

Why on earth do you care about someone you don’t know? Live your own life.

If it was not written down do you think people who are interested would not come to their own conclusions anyway?

People think what they think. I doubt my opinion or yours are swaying anyone.

You are here, carrying about what other people are thinking and writing. Why do you feel others will stop caring while you carry on feeling strongly?

@Filoparcels017
”How do you know that H wasn’t treated appallingly within the family relatively speaking? Behind the scenes of the big family wedding, they appeared to be quite hostile to his choice of bride.”

Here you see what I mean. You are speculating without regard to how you may be causing harm. Also, in conflict with the facts in evidence. Charles walked Meghan down the aisle. Many things were done to pay homage to Meghan’s background. I don’t know of any evidence that anyone was “quite hostile” toward Harry’s choice of bride.

Well you seem to be also trying to guess what’s going on in people’s heads

Maybe not but the total volume of noise created collectively about this couple, could be damaging , if it encourages some nutter to act with ill intent.

And media pile ons are unpleasant per se. They are the modern equivalent of the village stocks.

Also, sorry to harp on, but I find it quite strange and baffling when a hugely powerful, rich, influential institution like the monarchy feels it’s necessary to close its doors on individuals like Harry or Diana and freeze them out for speaking publicly when they still protect Andrew despite his very dubious, perhaps even criminal, behaviour.

He is being investigated by police for allegedly abusing vulnerable women, making dodgy side deals and giving away state secrets, but it’s ok, he just made a complete bog of things on Newsnight. he didn’t criticise The Firm or The Family! How very loyal and good! 😏

It gives the impression that silence and loyalty is valued by BP above merit and above right and wrong.

It smacks of an organisation that is unprofessional and toxic. Why do they need to be so secretive? What in reality are they really protecting?

I can understand them getting antsy about the racism charge because there have been solid grounds for that accusation in the past. But why not admit that some of them may have been unconsciously racist towards Meghan if that was her experience? It might have been positive in PR terms to be less reactive and defensive and at least give the impression of engaging in the debate?

Seriously, why is there such need for extreme privacy and lack of openness within the family and the institution if everything is above board within them?

It does seem strange to have to make an appointment with your own father, especially when Charles complained about the formality and distance between him and his own parents!

Even if The Firm felt they had behaved well towards Harry, wouldn’t it have been better to issue a statement saying “yes we took our eye off the ball with Meghan and Harry because these issues arose at a time when the late Queen and Prince Philip were ill, everyone was dealing with Covid and it was a fraught time.We are now working together to make amends”

A statement like that would have taken the wind out of everyone’s sales.

The Palace would have come out of it as sympathetic, human and flexible - something I suspect they are not.

The whole shebang would have died away.

And the media wouldn’t have been able to blow up and make tons of profit from the family feud.

And H&M would have saved face, wouldn’t have been pushed in to a corner, and their response would possibly not have been so impulsive and extreme.

It’s all got very much out of hand.

For BP with highly trained PR personnel, it’s very odd, which leads me to speculate whether the H&M noise was encouraged while the worst of AMW’s disgrace was in the papers.

I wonder if BP have heard on the grapevine that AMW will now not be charged so it’s ok for H&M to return to the fold? 😉

Now that is wild* *speculation on my part and as such is hypocritical, so I’ll leave it there.

Although I think speculation about a powerful rich influential institution supported by tax payers is possibly a tad more legitimate than speculation about spurned individuals within it who seem to exist outside of the protective PR wagon circle.

Yes the bit about Harry’s experience with his family. None of us know precisely what went on. That’s true. I suppose I naturally side with the underdog.

The bit about Charles approving Jonathan Dimbleby writing down his experience of his parents and his upbringing? That didn’t come out of my imagination. It’s there in black and white and was televised and watched by 13.5 million.

Racists exists in every country. We have had decades of institutional racism in the Met police for example. We have politicians who don't hide their racism.

I know people who have faced racist remarks in the street.

Noone has said the UK is racist. But we can say that there are plenty of racists living in this country.