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Was the timing deliberate? It did seem so as Prince Harry backed into the limelight once again last Friday evening with his extended lament to the BBC about the fact that he and his wife and children had been denied taxpayer-funded security protection by a wicked establishment if ever they choose to visit Britain again.
In the great scale of world events, or even of the royal family, Harry’s private security needs are probably not near the top of anybody’s priorities, but they were enough to knock the local election results and even the picture of a grinning Nigel Farage off Saturday’s front pages.
But if he thought his latest intervention was going to change minds at Buckingham Palace or effect the reconciliation he claims to want with his father, though not apparently with others like the queen or his brother, he has surely got another think coming.
The interview – the latest in a string of complaints emerging at regular intervals from Harry and Meghan’s home in Montecito – is likely to be filed alongside previous interviews, documentaries and his book Spare. We have heard such complaints before, several times over. His trouble is that the family firm, the UK media and most of the public – insofar as they think of his plight at all – have given up on Harry. If he wants reconciliation, he needs better PR and less megaphone diplomacy.
The spark for his latest grievance comes as the rest of the royal family and the nation prepare to celebrate that moment in UK history which gave the country something to be proud about: its role 80 years ago in the defeat of Nazi Germany. It will be a commemoration of service, duty and unity, with parades, fly-pasts and civic celebrations, which Harry will miss despite his own military service.
At the interview in a private house (not his own) in California, the prince, who gave up royal duties five years ago and moved to America’s West Coast, complained, as if it were the most important thing, that he was a victim. That he was being discriminated against by the UK establishment for being, well, a prince: “My status hasn’t changed. It can’t change. I am who I am.” And he implied that the shadowy forces that had had it in for his mother were out to get him too. The old discredited conspiracy theory lives on in his brain.
Harry said he wants to reconcile with his father, who might be dying of cancer for all he knew, but could not get hold of him “because of the security stuff”. He would not bring his family to Britain because of their vulnerability to attack in a country which is somewhat safer than the West Coast, or indeed Ukraine, which he has recently visited. He said: “If anything were to happen to me, my wife or my father’s grandchildren…look where the responsibility lies,” and last night, possibly coincidentally, Meghan published a photograph of her husband holding their son Archie’s hand and carrying daughter Lilibet on his shoulders.
The prince thought King Charles might have intervened, or at least stepped aside, to allow a proper review of his safety needs from a body other than Ravec – the Royal and VIP Executive Committee – which reviews the security of vulnerable public figures and contains a staff member from Buckingham Palace. As the judges in Harry’s latest court case about the decision to remove protection pointed out on Friday, his complaint has been examined several times and found groundless.
More to the point, despite whatever constitutional training he ever received, the fifth in line to the throne does not seem to realise that his dad cannot intervene even in what are technically his own courts to get a favourable outcome for his younger son. That’s the sort of thing Donald Trump might try.
Pragmatically, instead of revelling in victimhood, Harry and Meghan might reflect that if they turn up for official events they will get protection. If they turn up privately to stay with friends, the British public will remain blissfully unaware of their presence or even location.
For now, all the palace can do is keep calm and carry on, albeit with exasperation. If Harry really wants reconciliation, he could always write a private letter. He knows where his father lives.
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Stephen Bates is a former Guardian royal correspondent
