Harry’s security case

[smilesy]

The judgment is in Harry loses High Court challenge over UK security protection www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-68421992 See here

@SaffronSpice "Harry’s problem is not an inability to earn a living, it is his expectation of what that living should be."

I think there is some truth in that.

I think so much comes down to expectations.

Meghan thought marrying into the family was Hallmark movie territory. Endless wealth. Beautiful homes. Jewellery. Glamourous events. Love from the media which concentrates on the superficial aspects of your hair, make up and clothes.

Reality: allowance. No Palace to live in. The stately homes are army like in nature and supremely dated. Largely run of the mill events with hospitals and charities and schools. Hierarchy. Critical media. Abhorrent social media.

Harry failed to lay the reality down and got caught up in a fantasy of how important they were and how they could do it all their own way.

Now they do little, have an extortionate lifestyle to maintain. Lord on,y knows how they will manage it all.

Realit is that the RF are essentially civil servants. Wealthy and fabulously privileged civil servants but that's what they are. Government says 'go on a tour to Saudi, we need them softened up for this arms/trade deal' and whatever the personal reservations, that's what the monarch or heir to the throne does. And they do the opening of the sewage works/hospital wing because a lot of the British like to see the RF doing that - it conveys an aura of specialness to a mundane building that someone has taken the trouble to travel, talk, shake hands and generally be agreeable.

@MrsDanversGlidesAgain you're right. Royals are sent on the foreign tours to do government work not personal causes. Remember M walking out of a visit to a market on the Australia tour? That was disrespectful not just to the people at the market but the government officials who had decided this was something worth doing. M didn't want to serve the country which is an essential function of the royal family. Didn't the Valentine Low book say M had said she couldn't believe she wasn't getting paid for it? I think some blame does lie with the RF themselves as you can't take for granted that someone not from the UK would really want to serve or even understand that was part of the role.

@MrsDanversGlidesAgain

Good post.

@JSMill

I think some blame does lie with the RF themselves as you can't take for granted that someone not from the UK would really want to serve or even understand that was part of the role.

I’d agree with that to some extent - I guess one possibility is Megan wasn’t briefed on the “job”, or was very badly briefed., and/or wasn’t listening to whatever briefings she was given….

However if that was the case TBH I think the bulk of blame for that might well lie squarely with Harry, rather than the RF as a whole.

I think some blame does lie with the RF themselves ....

Meghan was offered help and advice. She chose not to take it. And it was up to Harry first and foremost to clue her in. Instead, he probably made things worse, with 'what Meghan wants, Meghan gets'.

Harry was advised to take things more slowly. There wasn't much else anyone could do if neither of them was listening.

Reality is that the RF are essentially civil servants. Wealthy and fabulously privileged civil servants but that's what they are. Government says 'go on a tour to Saudi, we need them softened up for this arms/trade deal' and whatever the personal reservations, that's what the monarch or heir to the throne does

Up to a point yes, MrsD, but it doesn't always work when princely pettishness comes into play - as when Charles snubbed the Chinese banquet and insulted them as "appalling old waxworks"

In fairness it was very wrong for his journal to be divulged (unless of course he leaked it himself to make his views "known") but maybe it would have been better not to use such terms and hold such attitudes in the first place

I’ve attended a dinner where Charle (then PoW) and Camilla were present. They sat at separate tables (so more people feel privileged to be on an important table) and had separate food. It might seem pretentious to have your own food but theirs was actually more simple than ours. For nearly everyone there it was a special occasion so a fancy meal was expected, but if it is your fourth such fancy meal that week and you third engagement of the day, is it any wonder you don’t want another ‘rich’ meal?

The reason for the event was quite mundane - fundraising for a charity (I had links with the charity and was at a lowly table) But it made a big difference to the charity, especially locally, in raising the profile of the project and galvanising people behind it.

People mock such events as being ‘work’ but it certainly is when you do that week after week. Endless ‘interested’ small talk with people you will never see again. I can see the novelty wearing off pretty quickly for Meghan

The problem is that in the 21st century, there is no realistic way a monarch can object to the marriage choice of a family member. However if that person isn't suited for the role that comes with the marriage, it can be disastrous and was in the case of Megan.

It might seem pretentious to have your own food but theirs was actually more simple than ours

I believe you, @SaffronSpice, but then if endless accounts are to be believed they'd probably taken the whole lot with them ... and the drinks, and the furnishings, and god knows what else

The late Queen didn't behave like this, and it's hard to think of anything more offensive to the hosts given the amount of advice the palace are prepared to offer on likes and dislikes, what to avoid and so on

I agree that realistically there was no way the Queen could have refused permission for the marriage, even if theoretically she had that right.

However, I think for Meghan to become a senior working royal immediately was a very bad idea, and not only in retrospect. Putting aside what we think of her as a person, she was an American citizen who had barely any experience of life in Britain, let alone life as a royal. She could have still married Harry but taken time to ease into royal life, maybe doing occasional engagements while getting to know what her role entailed. There was no need for her to be a full time royal straight after marriage, especially as it was likely she'd be wanting to start a family soon.

I wonder if it would have helped if Britain had the same convention as other royal familes, whereby 'married ins' are granted citizenship of the new country upon marriage, and are often required to renounce any other nationalities they might have. Queen Mary of Denmark had to give up her Australian and British passports upon marriage, for example. Of course, she was married to the Crown Prince so you could say it's different from Meghan, but the wives of the Danish 'spare' also had to acquire Danish citizenship and renounce their own. The husband of Princess Madeleine of Sweden is also not considered 'royal' because he declined the offer of Swedish nationality and retained his British and American passports.

Maybe it would have encouraged Meghan to take her future role more seriously if something similar had been asked of her? Then again, given how sensitive immigration matters are, it would have caused a lot of controversy if a member of the royal family could 'skip the queue' for citizenship. I do think the royals were in a 'no win' situation, and I agree with the person above who said they bent over backwards trying to accommodate Meghan, but nothing was ever enough for her and her husband. I remember the person quoted in the Valentine Low book who said something along the lines of 'The mistake we made was thinking they wanted to be happy, when in reality, they had a whole other agenda'.

It was never going to work.

They wanted to 'hit the ground running' and be working royals. That was their choice, and can you imagine what would have been said if that had been refused? A woman of colour not being allowed to be a senior working royal?

I think some blame does lie with the RF themselves as you can't take for granted that someone not from the UK would really want to serve or even understand that was part of the role.

I don't blame the RF one bit - they didn't ask Meghan to marry Harry! In fact, William urged Harry not to rush things and to take his time (obviously knowing Harry's impetuous personality very well), and Harry took huge offence and went right ahead and rushed things. So Meghan went from being a TV actress with a cheesy lifestyle blog to The Duchess of Sussex in less than two years.

The RF did everything they reasonably could to help and prepare her for the role including giving her and Harry a hand-picked and experienced private secretary (Samantha Cohen), an American communications secretary (Jason Knauf), and the expertise and assistance of Sophie and Lady Hussey to help with adjusting to her royal role, but she wasn't interested because she 'had Harry'. Fat lot of use he was! The Queen also encouraged her to take her time easing into a public-facing royal role and told her she could continue acting, if she wanted to. She did neither and was eager to 'hit the ground running'. I'm not sure what else the RF could've done tbh.

Yes, that's what I mean by it being a 'no win' situation for the royals.

However, I do wonder what might have happened if the British royals had the custom of requiring new working royals to take up British citizenship and renounce their own? Would Meghan have agreed to it? It would surely have made her give the matter more thought than she appears to have given it.

I think for Meghan to become a senior working royal immediately was a very bad idea, and not only in retrospect. Putting aside what we think of her as a person, she was an American citizen who had barely any experience of life in Britain, let alone life as a royal. She could have still married Harry but taken time to ease into royal life, maybe doing occasional engagements while getting to know what her role entailed. There was no need for her to be a full time royal straight after marriage, especially as it was likely she'd be wanting to start a family soon

I agree completely with the principle, IcedPurple, but as said before my own personal view is that she never had the least intention of staying in the UK - and if that's true there'd have been little point in taking time to learn the job and so on

For someone more focused on Hollywood than Holyrood it may have been thought better to secure the ring, title and family, and get back to LA asap, before the wheels started to drop off and her character was thrown into sharper relief

They were the hosts on that occasion. I don’t know what it is like elsewhere.

To return to the security issue, Harry is due to come over for the event on May 8th and there were strong rumours he was going to visit his father. If he feels he can’t come because of security concerns (not sure why he didn’t think this was an issue when, even if he had won his case, there was no guarantee that RAVEC would reach a different decision), is he not going to bother to see his father?

Musing on the reports of a new U.K. appointment for PR - I’m wondering if Harry and Meghan are anticipating a more favourable U.K. welcome with a labour government
I recall Harry saying unsavoury remarks about the current government and Meghan also received a level of support from a letter signed by female labour MPs

Just speculating if they might feel that they have more support on the way
Hence a look at a P.R. executive to look at the U.K. market 🤔

It was never going to work.

And sadly, that's what it boils down to. Harry was cautioned to proceed slowly, and didn't. His supposedly marvellously intelligent partner (not sure where this reputation comes from, as she seems to have the intellectual capacity of a garden snail) turned out to actually have zero intellectual curiosity and therefore no interest whatsoever in the fascinating history and culture she was marrying into.

Harry can see his father any time he wants - the press never reported on where his own damn honeymoon was! He can hop on a private jet, land at Norwich / Bristol, be at Sandringham / Highgrove in an hour or so and no one would ever know.

except we always know because he leaks (they leak?) like a sieve. But he COULD visit privately any time the Charles’ heavily reduced schedule allows. If I can chat to my granny in the sitting room from the garden (told not to stand in the flower bed thank you) when she was more vulnerable to infection, so can he. He just can’t tell a pap or a Netflix crew. So why bother?

Ain't that the truth @DuchessOfPort? Harry never sets foot in the UK, particularly when he's seeing any member of the RF, without leaking the fact to the press. When he was secretly dating Meghan though, remember how he slipped in and out of the country with no publicity at all? He went back and forth to Toronto multiple times and it never made it into the news. Much safer from a security POV too, to visit secretly and privately.

The Telegraph is now running an article saying that Harry will, in fact, be attending and giving a reading at the service on May 8th. No Meghan though. So perhaps he is going to subtly amend his claims about security to imply that it is only his family he is concerned for and not himself 🤷‍♀️

There’s also a very interesting article there talking about Harry’s time flying Apaches. I’ll link it but it’s behind a paywall. If anyone cleverer than me can archive it that would be great

From the article (whose author has a book out "Apache at War: Flying the World's Deadliest Attack Helicopter in Combat" - Harry is only a small part of it)

A couple of quotes:
"I've had people say he only passed because of who he is. Nothing could be further from the truth. He definitely played hard, but he would work hard as well. He was a good student, but he tried to be a bit of a joker a few times and you'd have to slap him back down"

"Jones wouldn't be drawn in to detail on the party-loving prince's extracurricular activities. except to say he was always professional when the time came to knuckle down"

On the "kill count" - "It's not what we're about"..... "We're not here to say I did this, I did that. It's not a game. These are real people. They've got families. I wouldn't have made any comment"

Here you go

https://archive.ph/O2lSm