Harry and Meghan News thread

[Viviennemary]

I thought we could have a thread for latest news. MN did say they didn't mind one or two threads. And no rules except stick to MN guidelines. It's Meghans birthday today I just read. And the Queen has wished her a very happy birthday on the royal Instagram page according to that popular Oracle the DM.

Well , I think my day is sorted . DH thinks I am sad because this stuff fascinated me. DD rolls her eyes and DS says he worries about me !

To me that means he knew it wouldn't stand up under legal scrutiny if he took libel action

Because it's not libel, despite what other posters may think. You would have next to no chance in proving to a court that the use of the word, which has no clear and obvious pejorative connotations, but rather a demonstrable history of non-defamatory usage in this particular context, has actually caused serious harm to her reputation (which is the legal test for slander, which technically is what this is - spoken words which may amount to defamation in law).

Also, the book claims it to be outrageous that a former actress (and suitcase girl on a glitzy gameshow) was once referred to a showgirl by someone who they then refer to as vipers. Not exactly claiming the moral high ground there.

Windsor Castle. Ok, you lot are more on the ball than me! Balmoral, then. Let’s hope they don’t offer to take him on a friendly stag shoot.

Please your Majesty - a big gesture to show how much you respect, care and appreciate Kate

Doubt it. They only protect the blood relatives of the past is anything to go by. So will work overtime to protect the blood royals, and that will likely include Harry (I mean, he’s not done anything as nasty as Andrew .... )

At William and Kate's wedding I really thought he and Pippa would get together. That would have been fun.

Harry and Pippa that is.

@Viviennemary

At William and Kate's wedding I really thought he and Pippa would get together. That would have been fun.

I don't know if it would be a good fit. Pippa always came across to me as much more serious than Harry.

I don’t think Meghan is exactly a barrel of laughs..

I think Meghan must be exhausting to live with. All the projects she wants to be involved with. I've known folk like that but on a very much smaller scale of course. Driven. I'm the very opposite end of the scale.

The story of the night nurse being dismissed in the middle of the night on her second shift really suggests that they really don't know how to handle staff or people who work for them. I also noticed the catty little digs about the amount of household staff K and W have. There's been plenty of press about K and W's more relaxed household compared to his parents. Also I think K and W didn't employ a nanny for quite a long time. They tried to be hands on for quite a while.

Just went to MailOnline and counted 8 H&M stories on the main news page. Isn't that a tad excessive even on the day the book comes out?

One of them I see notes that one of Archie's godmothers is now identified in the book. The information that Meghan and Harry refused to give to the press, and turned into a battle out of respect for the individual's privacy is now revealed to the world in a book the couple had nothing to do with? How gullible do they think we are?

Has anyone bought the book?

@Bumlooksbig This whole bit is steered heavily towards American readers. Slebs, politicians would all emphasize this in an auto or be keen for it to be emphasized in a bio. They could even be judged on its absence there, to a degree. Completely playing to that market.

This isn't even about H&M specifically but am intrigued by how the whole house lending occurs. Once you reach a certain level of celebrity do you access a celeb AirBnB website to find a home to borrow somewhere in the world...is it a big timeshare thing... do you have to keep your own spreadsheet of who owns what where & tap them up directly, or do you announce a favoured destination in conversation and see who offers up? It is a different world!

If you lend someone your enormous house and pool which you don't really need because you're worth hundreds of millions of $$$ and own loads of others properties, then how exactly do you tell someone that they've overstayed their welcome and you want it back? Asking for a friend.

What sort of man or husband would William be if he acted as though it was fine for Kate to be criticised because at least they didn't criticise him?

I think that would be known as "being a Windsor", and only time will tell if William's capable of stepping far enough away from it to show loyalty to his wife

Also agree with a PP about Kate saying nothing at all, but would add that it's not just a wise option - it's the only option, given that anything at all that's said may result in catty SM posts, calls to media contact "friends" and more

IMO the RF's only real hope is keeping W&K "clean", and in these circumstances that probably means staying the hell away from this whole ghastly mess

I think William has already made his mind up about Meghan and whatever is written in the book against Kate won't make any difference. I still think its a bit odd that when we first heard of the Scobie book it was going to tell H&M's side of the story and Meghan wanted the publishing date brought forward. Now we hear they had absolutely nothing to do with the book.

You could be right, Vivienne, but it still begs the question of whose interests William will put first - the RF as an institution or his wife

And on the subject of "sources", I'd say that Justice Warby's remarks about leaks to the media put an end to any doubt as to where Scobie got his information (and that's coming from someone who was prepared to believe that he'd either scraped together a load of Mail articles or just made the whole thing up)

The Telegraph doesn't treat the book any more kindly (which they might have hoped for?), calling it a massive moanathon – a one-sided, highly biased, self-pitying account of the relationship.

Like so many rich and famous people used to getting their way, they’re astonished when they don’t. Harry tells a friend, “I’m tired of people covering engagements and then going off to write some rubbish about what someone is wearing.”

In their pampered bubble – sashimi is delivered to their cottage at Soho Farmhouse; they sit by an open fire tended by a butler at Babington House, Somerset – they can’t bring themselves to defer to the royal system that delivers those privileges.

At their crucial Sandringham meeting with the Queen, “Harry felt as though he and Meghan had long been sidelined by the institution and were not a fundamental part of its future.” That was reflected, he thought, in the pictures on the Queen’s desk in her Christmas message: the Cambridges and their children, Charles and Camilla, Philip and George VI, but nothing of the Sussexes or their baby son.

They wanted a future as semi-working royals – having their cake, eating it and not accepting the diminishing returns you get the further you get from the throne. The Queen made it clear it wouldn’t work.

archive.ph/Jy8Iw#selection-229.8-229.96

I am a warming to her following the latest excerpt.

Also I think K and W didn't employ a nanny for quite a long time. They tried to be hands on for quite a while

They always had at least one nanny and maybe a night nurse? Wasn’t William’s nanny working for them awhile?

No George didn’t have a nanny for a while. Kate’s mum was helping out a lot when they left Anglesey. Whilst they were in Anglesey Kate didn’t have help.