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With another podcast set for release this week, The Sunday Times has a piece addressing Harry and Meghan's apparent strategy:

Courtiers are bemused by the Sussexes’ determination to rage against the past. As Davis observed of Meghan in her article: “She has taken a hardship and turned it into content.” A source who knows the Sussexes questions why Meghan “is constantly looking back at how awful it was to briefly be a royal. What does success look like, is it a number in the bank? Is it that they’ve killed off the monarchy?” Another Palace source says: “Ultimately they are bashing the institution that has put them in the position they’re in, the longevity of that strategy is not sustainable.”

www.thetimes.co.uk/article/harry-and-meghan-keep-bashing-the-monarchy-because-its-good-business-royals-believe-nq29p6g7z

I'm curious about their strategy, too. They seem to think that criticizing the royal makes them look better - it really doesn't. Instead, it just makes them look petty and increasingly irrelevant.

Interesting read in The Guardian - some highlights:

As a non-British Black person from a former colony, I’ve basically viewed the duo as overhyped celebrities who have inherited privilege and blood money, so I’ve paid scant attention to their family dramas.

But this week, as Markle launched her podcast with a viral and cringeworthy interview in The Cut, it was impossible to ignore them. By the end of the bafflingly narcissistic interview, I found myself wondering what Markle has done to deserve her spot at the top of the celebrity social justice advocate food chain.

To be sure, Markle has been on the receiving end of much racist vitriol since joining – and then leaving – the British royal family. And this has made it difficult to critique her politics.

Hers is an activism that can be listened to, but doesn’t have to be enacted. Her politics that can be commodified and sold to the highest bidder; can be consumed, but doesn’t have to be lived.

www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/sep/03/do-not-pretend-celebrity-princess-meghan-markle-can-meaningfully-advance-the-cause-of-racial-justice

Whoops for go the link

You and me both, CPL593H - unless a message sent to the user somehow got copied onto here?

I take my hat off to Fliss though, and doubt my message would have been so gentle

Poor poor Meghan, she is just so miss understood!! 😂

That would make sense

Can we not do this kind of thing? However much I might disagree with some on this thread, I don't like cheap shots and that's what that image feels like to me.

Why politely ask? 😵‍💫
that poster deserves to be banned.

This type of thing is just so uncalled for.

It's true that the overall presentation of the RF is positive - they make sure of it Hmm - but while this may pass for the casual enquirer I'd expect a bit more digging from someone planning marriage. After all it's not as if the downside's hard to find, especially as said for someone already skilled in internet use

Ethically as a white woman id have a huge problem marrying into British Aristocracy, never mind the RF. Just looking into the history of some of our great Homes such as Castle Howard and Harewood House you see how they were built on the profit of slavery. It’s horrific. As a Bi-Racial woman I can’t imagine what it might be like living within such an institution.

She didn’t bite Mariah’s head off - really. You can have a read of the previous thread where I’ve put a transcript in of the comment in the conversation and another poster also put in a transcript in of Meghan’s post interview comments. No head biting.

What is this meant to achieve?

What is the EasyJet story ?

I suspect this means the FlyBe story (If there’s an EasyJet story I apologise!).

In August 2019 the Cambridge family travelled from Norfolk to Aberdeen on a FlyBe flight. They sat in the very front rows of the plane, getting on last, and exiting first (i.e. the usual security protocol for VIPs on scheduled flights). As they walked across the tarmac at Aberdeen airport they were filmed by people still on the plane.

It then transpired that FlyBe had realised a few days in advance of the flight (likely when the request was made about seat allocation and boarding) that the Cambridge family and their security detail would be travelling on this scheduled flight. The company made the decision to swap the plane that normally makes this run (an Eastern Airlines-branded plane, which partnered with Flybe) for a Flybe-branded aircraft. This was interpreted as an attempt to maximise press coverage for Flybe. Eastern Airways confirmed that this swap had happened. It involved the Eastern Airways plane that had flown down from Aberdeen earlier in the day being flown away empty to get it out of the way, while and empty FlyBe aircraft was flown to Norwich to pick up the passengers that had booked onto the flight.

The airline also stated that William and Kate were completely unaware of the switch and had not asked for special treatment, aside from their security request to board last/leave first

Anyway, as this happened mere days after Meghan and Harry had been criticised by the press for taking a lot of private jet flights in a short period of time, Cambridge hate-sites posited that this was all a plot by William and Kate to show up their brother and sister in law (and that it made a mockery of their eco-credentials as it involved empty planes being flown around). That is the line that has been taken by posters on these threads also, despite no actual evidence for this interpretation.

(I note Kate and two of her children travelled up to Aberdeen again on a scheduled flight a couple of weeks ago, and against were photographed walking across the tarmac. I await this being the taken up as latest instalment in the alleged smear campaign….)

Thank you . I wondered if it was the Flybe story but thought I would check in case there was something I didn’t know about. I was going to come in and say virtually what you have just said so thank you !
My DD was Cabin Crew for Flybe at the time and said that it was a decision made by Flybe and W and C had no input or knowledge of the switch .

Quite. (Plus the pedant in me is fighting not to correct the spelling....)

I have always thought Harry is the one to blame for this whole debacle. I agree with posters who say MM had no real idea of what she was marrying into. It was up to Harry to educate her and make sure she knew what she was getting into.

MM as an American I am sure had not seen what Diana, Sophie, Fergie and Kate had gone through with the press. It is interesting to me that a poster thought she would have snapped William or Harry's hands off to marry into the RF - I personally can imagine nothing worse.

Everything the women do in particular is criticised and god knows how any of them cope with the constant snarking over their appearances. I mean come on, Kate and Meghan are both gorgeous women and yet the mean comments they get, well I couldn't deal with it.

I do think it is incredibly sad that Harry is so separated from his family. Obviously none of us know what goes on behind closed doors but I remember watching an interview with them years ago (I was pregnant with my second son at the time) as I recall thinking - wow, what a great relationship they have - I really hope my sons are as close as that.

Whoever is wrong or right - it really is such a shame that there has been so much upset within a family.

I am no royalist - it is to me a bizarre institution and unlike most I am no fan of the Queen - she in my opinion has caused a lot of problems in recent years. She didn't deal with Andrew and she hasn't dealt with Harry.

As a norfolk resident who flies to scotland to visit family I thought that Flybe replaced the Loganair flight. When I have flown to Aberdeen from Norwich it has been on an old dornier and if Flybe flew a big branded Flybe plane down to take advantage of William and. Kate’s annual flight to Scotland they will have been gutted as everyone getting on a Loganair flight feels very private jet! You have a tartan thing on your pillow and are offered a tunnocks teacake with your tea.

if you were a billionaire and much richer than the royals you would be v irritated by Flybe working your flight commercially. But they were likely alway on that flight and could do nothing about the operator.

Harry was responsible for not telling her beforehand so she didn’t run for the hills but the OW interview was clearly her idea. They’re both responsible for the mess now

Loganair used to have a franchise operation with FlyBe, but that ended in 2017 and it then flew under its own name (so Wikipedia tells me!).

After the termination of that relationship in 2017, Eastern Airways entered a franchise with FlyBe. Given the swapping between the franchise flight and the FlyBe branded flight, and the fact that this definitely all happened in 2019, I think it must have been after Loganair and FlyBe had commercially parted?

I do wonder who is advising them nowadays. Meghan is a smart woman and yet is misreading the room big time. But then lots of celebs did in lockdown.

I wonder if it is because she only is mates with super rich people now. I know there are things I may moan about to certain friends which I wouldn't moan about to others due to different financial situations etc.

However on a totally superficial note i do generally like Meghan's fashion style so looking forward to seeing what she wears tomorrow.

Carryonkate - I think you are right and I think that is quite an American celeb view. Look at how shocked the celebs were at the Golden Globes when Ricky Gervaise hosted it - they aren't used to less than sycophantic interviews etc

So to pick up this. What does the EasyJet or do you mean the Flybe story detailed above prove?

oh, so Harry said in the Oprah interview. The ones they used to tell their “truths” - or as what was stated afterwards, recollections may vary. I certainly would call Harry - “ my father cut me off financially” despite forgetting about a couple of million this year and don’t mention my own few millions in inheritance “ not a reliable or credible witness.

I don’t know what Flybe do now but I do know if want to go to Aberdeen for a long weekend in October, Loganair will be flying. And it genuinely wouldn’t be worth hitching a £10k private jet from tiny Norwich airport for that. I don’t know how Flybe got the publicity for a flight the royals absolutely take on the 3rd Monday of August every year they have ever been at Anmer and gone to see his grannies but they’re like clockwork. So not that hard for anyone to work out. Sorry Kate. Hopefully you’ll go from Heathrow now anyway.

Strange that H&M are seen to have a 'plot' to take down the monarchy, but someone can explain away how Simon Case (known to be dodgy in the parliament enqueries, btw) arranged this trip. Mostly people were trying to point out that Elton J was shut down trying to explain the carbon offsetting - as per travelyst.

That is how it works, rf opened the gates for everyone to have a go at H&M, so they surely should accept that it comes back to them as well. Since no one bothered with going into details about the Sussexes private jet, no one is going into details about Cambridge story either. 'Those them apples' 😅

As I have always said, we need to see a united front, so we think you are going to be united with us too as the UK.

Hers is an activism that can be listened to, but doesn’t have to be enacted. Her politics that can be commodified and sold to the highest bidder; can be consumed, but doesn’t have to be lived.

This is absolutely true. And I too sometimes find myself scratching my head a bit at it especially so as her reckoning with blackness only came about when she became a part of a historically racist institution so it was to some extent a baptism of fire. But then I ask, what celeb at the fore of any activism has done to get there? Absolutely none of them deserve to be the beacons of any such movement. No one would give a damn about the environment say if Janet from down the road was handing out leaflets but alas we have Leo flying in on a private jet to lecture us about the disasters of climate change. Thing is you can't pick and choose. You have to keep the same energy with everyone. In my view Meghan's positioning is no more surprising than that of her peers.