Hazza and Megs "surprised" by King's letter.

[AuntieBiotics]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cp30kv53qvdo

Surprised. They're the only ones.

What’s in it for anyone to chuck £3m at this pair poncing around pretend royalling in Columbia?
No such thing as a free lunch, and all that. Wouldn’t like to be them when they’re finally called to account.

They have their own team of elite bodyguards protecting them 24/7, they just don’t’ want to pay anymore, they want the UK taxpayer to pay by claiming they need armed security.

I am sure they will get it if their risk determines they need it, rather than want it.

What sort of organisations would be confused about this/ what public money might be spent on them if clarification weren't given?

are we thinking M+ H are trying to organise school + hospital tours etc?

When anyone refers to H and M, my first thought is the high street clothes brand. I wonder if they would be interested in a collab? (In the absence of any Royal duties)

I'm not incorrect and explained above why I don't believe what Tom Bowers writes in any way proves that Soros personally paid for them - and them specifically - to go to Colombia. Bowers got his "information" from a Spanish-language article by an opposition politician in Colombia, who has a personal interest in finding things to criticise the Colombian government about. Bowers himself has seen no evidence or acounts himself or done any research into the matter (he has not "followed the money"). But, he can get away with spouting pretty much whatever he wants as long as he sticks a footnote in to show he has used a "source", even if the source is complete rubbish.

Tom Bowers and certain others get away with exaggerations, misrepresentations and sometimes deliberate inaccuracies so that they can weave together a more scandalous narrative and thus sell more books and make a name for themselves.

There is a discussion upthread about what constitutes a public figure as opposed to a private citizen. While in terms of their relationship to the state Harry and Meghan are private citizens (not working royals, not eligible for automatic state-provided security), they are also people who are in the public eye. They are (d-list) celebrities, let's say. As such, the bar has to be much higher for people like them to sue someone for defamation - which is another reason why people like Tom Bowers and all the influencers and "royal experts" and wotnot can get away with publishing whatever they want, however lacking in credibility it is.

www.london-law.co.uk/public-figures-and-defamation-understanding-the-burden-of-proof/

HAM clap back when they get a letter.

They sue the DM on a schedule.

But Tom, putting out all this damaging information about who pays for their faux-royal visits, and hhey having nothing to say.

Hmmmmmm....

They called Bower's book a "deranged conspiracy".

Suing the DM required a whole gang of them, it wasn't just him.

"A spokesperson for Prince Harry and Meghan said Bower had "long crossed the line from criticism into fixation".
They said in a statement on Saturday: "This is someone who has publicly stated, 'the monarchy in fact depends on actually obliterating the Sussexes from our state of life,' language that speaks for itself.
"He has made a career out of constructing ever more elaborate theories about people he does not know and has never met.
"Those interested in facts will look elsewhere; those seeking deranged conspiracy and melodrama know exactly where to find him."

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c3v7qpnx73yo

They called Bower's book a "deranged conspiracy".

I can feel a Mandy Rice-Davies moment coming on.

They should have sued him instead of chasing the DM for historical wrongs for which they could produce no evidence. His allegations seriously damage their reputation.

That they didn't confirms for me that Bower got it right.

I guess this means that everything that Harry and Meghan have said or published about Charles, Camilla, William, Catherine, etc. is true, then, because they have never sued. Everything in the Oprah interview, for example, is 100% facts.

Bower has written many biographies of far more powerful people than the Sussexes. I think he's been threatened a fair amount with libel suits, been sued a few times and won/defended most of them. There was one passage about an organisation he had to remove from one book following a successful libel claim, but the suit was brought against the newspaper the book was serialised in rather than Bower - an ANL publication, ironically enough. He's a former barrister and Newsnight investigative journalist and has taken on some seriously scary and litigious people - Robert Maxwell, Richard Branson, Conrad Black, Richard Desmond, not to mention people like the Beckhams. I can never understand why people think he'd just put any old shit into a book targeting some of the most powerful (and scary) people out there and hope for the best.

Comparing investigative journalism of a third party subject with one's own memoir, one's "my truth" version of events such as a family argument, is false equivalency. But all of Harry and Meghan's output has been thoroughly examined in the press, much of it debunked by simple fact checking, much of it countered by other points of view (recollections that vary, if you will); so the royals don't have to do anything really, do they, but sit back and let the truth come out. You sue if your reputation has been damaged. The only reputations Harry and Meghan have damaged in all their output is their own.

There are two groups of people.

Group 1 has never sued anyone.

Group 2 has sued many people.

Why would we assume their behaviour would change?

Except that there is enough in the public domain - common knowledge and common sense - for people to spot the many lies they told in the OW interview.

Why would they go to,the bother of suing, it just plays into their narratives, the rest of the RF have got better things to do than sue HaM, it's a waste of time and money and just keeps the estrangement in the news, it's best just to ignore and let them dig an even bigger hole for themselves. The only people getting wound up are HaM, the others don't care enough any more.

Well, that's the point. Famous people don't bother to sue for every false or inaccurate statement made about them.

Prince William has actually successfully sued media outlets for violation of privacy on several occasions - including the Murdoch enterprises for phone hacking - but he did it quietly and without any grandstanding or fanfare.

Didn't William donate the money to Invictus?

That’s because he actually had a case. Catherine had her privacy violated hundreds of times through hacking. She was a private citizen at the time. That’s a matter of record. His action against the News of the World was one of the major factors (along with what happened with Milly Dowler’s phone) that led to the Leveson Inquiry. He also had a valid privacy case against whichever rag took long lens photos of Catherine on holiday. These are quite different actions to libel, which was the subject of the Bower book discussion.

William is smart, practical and listens to advice. Thank goodness he’s the heir

😂😂😂

That was exactly my reaction! They would, wouldn't they...

As such, the bar has to be much higher for people like them to sue someone for defamation - which is another reason why people like Tom Bowers and all the influencers and "royal experts" and wotnot can get away with publishing whatever they want, however lacking in credibility it is.

Well when you consider the Oprah interview, Spare etc, wouldn't that be the pot calling the kettle black?

I was responding to a point about who had sued anyone. The claim was about suing people in general, not for specific cases.

But, you are simply underlining my point. William sues for violation of privacy but he doesn't bother to sue for the endless lies and often defamatory stuff spouted about him every day. Because it isn't worth it and it's far more complicated for people in the public eye to sue for defamation, with a much higher bar than for otherwise anonymous citizens. But he will sue for violation of privacy because that has a direct impact on his life and the life of his family.

Even Harry has primarily sued the media for violation of privacy and not for defamation. (I think he embarked in a defamation case against Associated Newspapers but eventually dropped it because defamation cases are too complicated.) In that sense the two groups that @marcopront suggested are actually very similar: both William and Harry have sued for violation of privacy.

Ummmmm - yes, we are !

Charles is thinking of the RF’s future and William’s. He can’t let H&M cause havoc, not knowing what they will do or say next. He’s had to make his position clear a lot in recent times with AMW, H&M and that speech directed at Trump in the US this year. Busy busy!

William doesn’t make grandiose and borderline hysterical clap backs, unlike the Sussexes who, frankly, protest too much. The most that has come from the RF is the rather withering “recollections may vary”. And really William is not going to lose his reputation off the back of Sussex tittle tattle. Whereas the Sussexes’ reputations are in tatters, mostly through their own actions and provable falsehoods, so they need to try to discredit the source. And as far as privacy cases go, Harry’s credibility in that sphere is in the gutter, not only off the back of his foolish and frankly defamatory pursuit of ANL journalists, but because the single most heinous violator of his privacy is himself. Again, I would say you are drawing a false equivalence, because the legal actions taken by one brother are grounded in genuine and serious factual incidents and the protection of his family, whereas those of the other are formed in his own paranoia and grandiose need to big himself up, play the victim and find a scapegoat for a life of foolishness.

@BunnyBunbunbun your own comment ….. “those trips were funded by the Colombian and Ukrainian governments?’

You are totally incorrect about that (unless you have inside Colombian Government info about the VP lying). Because the Colombian government stated they did not fund the several millions the trip cost.

The Daily Telegraph reports that according to the vice president's office, the cost of the royals' security and internal travel during their stay, as well as four days of advance visits from staff, topped Col$244,245,305 ($58,397.81).

Someone paid the millions it cost, but the Colombian government claim they did not, the speculation is it was paid by Soros, neither the Sussex’s, the Open Society organisation, nor the Colombian government have called that speculation into question, so Tom Bower et al may not be incorrect about where the funding came from.