King Charles treatment of AMW vs PH

[andIsaid]

Does anyone find the contrast really unsettling?

People can say it was wrong of PH to speak about the family etc BUT we cannot say that without also recognizing that KC did exactly the same thing - wrote a book, did the Dimbleby interview etc. In his case though, the late Queen did not cut him off, kick him out of his house etc. Perhaps because he was the heir and perhaps behind the scenes?

No matter what anyone thinks of the rights or wrongs of PH actions, they are not even a shade of grey to AMW.

Revelation after revelation strongly suggests that the family have known all along what they are dealing with.

It is probably why that high profile crisis manager was hired - it suggests they knew what was coming (how did they know?).

For me, this whole debacle highlights that there is real moral paucity in that family and I do wonder why we are stuck with them as our heads of state.

To simpsonthecat's point, Harry is born a prince regardless of his title he will always be a prince. After all only people born into the family can be royal right.

So yes regardless of titles they trade on the fact they are royals regardless.

I still think that's there's a massive difference in how their two cases are handled, but also Prince Harry's "treatment" is BECAUSE of Andrew. Because they know what's gone before with a rogue, titled and aggrieved spare on the loose.

@TheNinkyNonkyIsATardis If they knew what Andrew was like then they should have done much much more and far sooner. They were all in to try and rehabilitate him before the Epstein files were released. Their whole 'defence' is that they had no idea what AMW was like until about 6 months ago, despite the rest of the world, the entire government and everyone who ever had the misfortune to come across him in the Royal household and every single place he went to on Royal duties or as a Trade envoy thinking he has an entitled, boorish, despicable specimen at best and that, at worst he was hugely abusing his position.

Exactly you cant on one hand say well they knew what Andrew was up to hence why they didnt like Harry have it then on the other hand declare the rf didnt know
..bit contradicting

The only person who is able to do anything about that is Charles. He has shown no indication that he will . It needs to be changed for all Royals going forward, but only one person can do that. Its a bit much to complain that spoilt and entitled people are behaving in a spoilt and entitled way. They are doing it because the titles are theirs, according to the rules. Don't like the rules? Then the one person in the world who can change them needs to change them. Charles needs to do it before the Wales 'spares' have children. This is an ideal time. If they don't, its because they don't want to do it. Every other European RF has cut down their size but the Windsors continue with their heads in the sand as always.

Oh, I don't disagree. I just don't think it's clear cut or easy to compare the two.

Wildly different context, but I've managed so many business leadership changes. The concept of "management struggling to handle a change of rules with both new and old personnel" is not unique to the Royal Family.

I'm not even arguing that it's a good strategy to be hands off on the "old guard" and then implement harsh rules on the next generation. Hell, I was the youngest child and I got saddled with rules made up because of my older siblings.

But I can see that there's a probability that they took the approach they did with Harry because of what Andrew taught them whilst simultaneously kicking the Andrew can down the road.

Hmmm I don't think that's true. I do think the culture around them, as it always has been is loyalty to the Firm is paramount. So if you shut up you will be protected but if you say anything that threatens their position they will cut you off. You can see how happy they were to be seen around AMW- horseriding etc, Fergie getting TLQ's corgis etc then as soon as it starts to affect the rest of them they suddenly start to act. The institution is paramount.

Basing it on my personal experience, both can be true.

I've worked for highly toxic organisations before, and there's so often stasis paralysis around how to handle institutional change. So people know that there should be change, but are loath to accept that this change should happen, that person should go.

There's an innate fear that the closer change is, the more likely it is to undermine YOUR security/status. Institutional change is bloody hard work, because people fear loss and change. It is much easier to impose it on other people in the future.

It reminds me of the suicides of Nazi officials in Germany at the end of the war. They knew their crimes would be punished - and feared punishment more than death. But those who didn't commit suicide? Well, they needed people to run the trains still, and they only had people who had been sending trains to death camps to do it. Some of those who commited suicide might well have ended up in the same job, rebranded. So was the institution of Nazism eradicated when so many of the people remained, doing the same jobs?

Institutions and individuals are very hard to separate.

I agree with you there. I think that was why Harry has been ostracised though, because he has thrown tantrums. It was easy to ostracise him because he has gone against what was always the 'done thing'- never explain, never complain' and has blamed courtiers for things that his family have done to him. AMW never did any of that. He was loyal to the Monarchy to the end. He didn't want them to change. He wanted to have the privilege that has always protected him and was happy for everything he did to be dealt with as it always had been- swept under the carpet. FWIW I think Harry only wants it to change to give him more protection. He doesn;t want a more modern monarchy. He wants the equivalent to ;The great Silence' of the 1930's when the press kept their secrets for them out of pure deference. He will lose out if more scrutiny leads to reform, because the obvious reform will be to reduce titles to the heir and their children only and reduce the number of Royals on the payroll.

I understand what you are saying in principle but have to disagree that Andrews behaviour had any bearing on Harry .
Harry didn’t want to leave he wanted a new bespoke arrangement that would enable him to both keep his position and privileges but also enable him to not do the actual work and make money freely in other countries.
this was obviously a non starter, he was told that he was in or out , and given a year to think about it ( in Canada) .
he wasn’t happy so he left, I have no idea quite why he thought that leaving so publicly would be a good idea or why he was surprised that after leaving his “job” he wasn’t going to get all the perks that those who were doing it did! 🤷‍♀️

You have nailed it ! Harry desperately wanted IN and he still does, but he didn’t want the accountability or restrictions that come with being IN.

Ahh, see 8 was thinking more from the perspective of KC and the monarchy's actions, as opposed to Harry's behaviour.

Harry's behaviour was driven in part by a hatred of the press, of course. His break up with Chelsy, his reaction to any negative press about Meghan, his reaction to the idea that the Sun was going to "leak" Megxit leading to that pre-emptive statement. I mean, why couldn't they just wait without comment to hammer out the details?

I imagine that even the PR in his favour irritated him - that level of control would make it hard to develop a sense of self.

OR Harry wanted to do HIHO more transparently and the RF didn’t want that in case it drew attention to what the rest of them were and are all doing?

(I think I said that in previous post that was blocked but it also contained links so maybe they were the issue?)

But there is no half in half out for senior working royals , transparency or not it was never on the table.

I think Harry must be worrying about his titles, as being a prince is all he is. His wife otoh, was an actress, before. Personally, I have thought for a while, that Meghan should ditch the duchess title and be known as Meghan Markle. She’s so famous now, she doesn’t need to be known as a duchess.

But Harry's kids don't need to be Prince/Princess of a country they don't live in.

Charles could do the Danish solution and remove the Prince/Princess titles from the kids of the spares

There isn’t official HIHO no.

But I hesitate to elaborate in case I get blocked again.

Hmm.

Lots of squabbling here over meaningless monikers and who should or shouldn't have 'em.

Getting rid of the lot and installing an elected president would solve such dissent in an instant 😎

Absolutely agree! 👍

If this week has shown anything it's that the ones that are ' in ' are accountable to no one. That's what's got them here. They do what they like then put out some PR puff or get some lackey to threaten someone. Harry has found out to his cost that without the extreme secrecy of the RF machine surrounding him he actually has to be accountable. It seems it was news to him unsurprisingly, as he's had his messes cleaned up all his life.

I keep thinking that maybe the Royal family could be allowed to become normal people with lives, and instead, everybody in the country could take turn being the monarch. It would be like jury duty. There would always be one person who it is the head of state but it would be a different person each day.

Once in every 60 million days it would be King Charles' turn, and the rest of the time he could have a normal life, without us all talking about him. He might prefer it.

The only problem would be when we have a state visit from another head of state and one of us Mumsnetters would have to host Trump. That would be hard.

Well you could say the same for Andrew in that case! But anyway it will be down to William who does and doesn’t keep titles, I bet unlike Andrew, Harry is sweating.

Doesn't Harry have protection provided when he visits the UK, so long as he provides 30 days notice? That doesn't seem to be very onerous.

Or am I missing something here? I am willing to admit that my information may well be out of date.

Yes I believe you are correct @Tezza1

But that is not good enough for petulant Harry.