1 week Ago By Aimee Meade
Prince Harry is entitled, self-absorbed, and accident-prone. He undeniably leads great work with veterans, including this week’s trip to Ukraine, but he has repeatedly embarrassed and wounded the Royal family with a string of tell-all TV interviews and endlessly moaned about life in the United Kingdom. Once again, this week’s trip to Europe managed to overshadow his father’s royal tour to Italy.
Yet, this country still owes him proper security when he is on British soil, whatever the cost.Appeal court judges Sir Geoffrey Vos, Lord Justice Bean and Lord Justice Edis have now gone away to consider the Duke of Sussex’s points following a two-day hearing in London this week. It was the latest leg of a wearisome legal battle over Harry and his wife Meghan’s security arrangements.
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addToArray({"pos": "inread-hb-ros-inews"}); }The row stretches back to 2020 when Harry and Meghan were stripped of their right to automatic state security when they stepped back from royal duties and moved to California.The Executive Committee for the Protection of Royalty and Public Figures, known as Ravec, concluded in future there would be a “bespoke process” to decide on Harry’s security.The Duke of Sussex (pictured with Olga Rudneva) visited the Superhumans Centre in Lviv, Ukraine, an orthopaedic clinic and rehabilitation centre for adults and children affected by the war (Photo: Reuters)Harry regarded the decision as “unlawful and unfair” and a scaling down of his security.
But last year, High Court judge Sir Peter Lane ruled that Ravec’s decision was lawful. It was that which Harry appealed this week. A previous bid to pay for his own Met Police security had already been rejected in court.
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addToArray({"pos": "mpu_tablet_l1"}); }During this week’s hearing, Harry’s lawyer, Shaheed Fatima KC, said her client “does not accept that bespoke means better”.She said he had been “singled out for different, unjustified and inferior treatment.” This is pretty much Harry’s memoir, Spare, summed up in a single sentence.
As a result of all this litigation Harry seems to have spent more time in British courtrooms in recent years than he has in his father’s front room. He also travelled to the UK for his case of historic phone hacking against Mirror Group Newspapers in 2023 and was expected back for a similar case against News Group Newspapers earlier this year, before an eleventh hour settlement.Yet despite the 10,000-mile round trips from California, he managed to see King Charles for just 45 minutes last February after his cancer diagnosis.
According to Hello! Magazine, both father and son were in the capital last Sunday but failed to meet ahead of the King and Queen’s tour to Italy.One wonders what the point of this protracted legal battle is when Harry seems so reluctant to step foot in Britain, where his family no longer has a base.Of course, he would argue that his lack of security makes him unwilling to bring over his wife and children, Archie, now five, and three-year-old Lilibet.
Opponents of Harry’s legal bid argue that if a non-working royal gets automatic tax-payer funded security, then where will it end? Before you know it, celebrities like Taylor Swift will be demanding it. It’s an argument that came a cropper last summer when Swift did indeed demand extra police security while on her Eras tour of the UK – and received it in the form of the Met’s Special Escort Group of motorcyclists.if(window.
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adverts) { window.adverts.addToArray({"pos": "mpu_tablet_l2"}); }Prince Harry arrives at the Royal Courts of Justice in London on Tuesday for his court case (Photo: Ilyas Tayfun Salci/Anadolu/Getty)But, still, there is one fundamental difference between Harry, Taylor and any other celebrity.
Birth.Harry has not chosen a life of celebrity or been propelled into it through talent.He was born into a role in which he has spent most of his adult life trying to escape emotionally, mentally, and physically.
But he cannot ever fully escape. Like Hotel California, he can check out but never leave.Add to that is the trauma he carries from the death of his mother, Diana, in part down to failings in her security arrangements.
Much of this legal argument comes down to, not the logistics of what security Harry will receive, but the process by which it will be decided. Harry doesn’t feel protected by that process.#color-context-related-article-3615611 {--inews-color-primary: #3759B7;--inews-color-secondary: #EFF2FA;--inews-color-tertiary: #3759B7;} Read Next square SARAH CARSON Prince Harry is from the world’s oldest PR factory – so why is he so bad at it?Read MoreWhich seems wrong and very avoidable.
We owe him a sense of security. And we could have funded much of it with the £500,000 of taxpayers’ money spent defending this case.if(window.
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adverts) { window.adverts.addToArray({"pos": "mpu_tablet_l3"}); }Even Liz Truss is eligible for automatic protection, and she was only PM for 49 days.
And inflicted more harm on the nation than that Oprah interview.Any kind of attack on Prince Harry would not only be a major global news event but would have enormous political and societal repercussions. Moronically, Harry increased his own likelihood of being a target by describing in Spare how he killed 25 Taliban fighters in Afghanistan like “chess pieces taken off the board”.
But regardless of his idiocy, he is our responsibility.He walked away from royal duties but would never be able to lose the royal blood he inherited.And if, God forbid, something were ever to happen to him it would not be because his wife was once in Suits and now flogs runny jam.
Or because he runs a third-rate podcast company – it would be because his Dad is King Charles III. It seems churlish and unfair for the nation not to recognise that.Alison Phillips was editor of the Daily Mirror from 2018-24; she won Columnist of the Year at the 2018 National Press Awards.
