The 2020 Time magazine 100 event will be remembered for the headlines that came in its wake because a famous royal couple gave a genuinely heartfelt two-minute message. The Duchess of Sussex, Meghan Markle encouraged people to vote in the upcoming US elections, and Prince Harry asked people to reject hate speech, misinformation, and online negativity. Meghan’s and Harry’s participation highlighted what many people are experiencing outside the political ferment of the upcoming US presidential and general elections. Their involvement gave the US based Daily Mail hack the opportunity to lob a planted hate-filled lying question to that ‘baby elephant’ who couldn’t resist the temptation to spew his hatred for the Duchess and childish aside to the Duke. I think the ‘baby elephant’ isn’t a fan of the Duchess either, so the feeling is totally mutual, no?
The fact the couple shied away from making any political party or presidential candidate endorsement is beside the point. The Daily Mail’s part-time newshound conveniently forgot that Meghan is an American citizen and has every right to advise anyone who will listen to register to vote. For his part, Harry didn’t say anything about voting. He only urged people to be aware of the dangers of bile and hate hawked on the internet daily. Nothing treasonous was said.
He didn’t advocate for Americans to take up arms against the ‘baby elephant’ because he’s a disgusting human being. The baby elephant’s advice to Harry was pure Trumpian. Is he hinting that Prince Harry is being led astray by his ‘diehard liberal’ wife, Meghan, which she is not? That man seems to think he can say anything that pops into his tiny brain at any moment of the day. Why some Americans are voting for this conspiracy-monger, I’ll never know.
Of course, what happens in the US drifts across the pond, as the old saying goes. So, lo and behold, the Sussexes’ little contribution to Time’s 100 event coasts to the UK to stir the news media stupidity, especially the conservative type that lurks in the undergrowth. The discussions and calls in the UK to strip the Dukedom from the couple are merely asking Americans to turn out and register to vote. If Harry and Meghan had said something seen as favourable to the ‘baby elephant’, I wonder what his reaction would have been.
With the exception of a few journalists on certain magazines and one newspaper, there’s been deliberate collective amnesia about the fact that the British royal family engages in politics routinely. In 2003, the Queen advised the people of Wales to vote in a forthcoming election because it was especially important they exercise their rights. Prince Charles makes pronouncements on government policies all the time. His wife, as the Patron of a prison charity, makes political statements every time she visits a prison. Prisons are run by the UK Government, so obviously Camilla strays into areas of government policies on prisons. However, as we all know, whenever Meghan and Harry do or say anything, they are held to archaic era rules by the British news media that in 2020 should be consigned to the gutter along with rightwing news media.
The British Monarchy is the only royals who are neutral and don’t vote in elections. Also, Queen Elizabeth’s two immediate heirs don’t vote either. However, the rest of her family, including the Sussexes, will never ascend to the throne and should be allowed to exercise the right to vote as UK citizens.
For the rightwing journalists and television nonentities using Harry and Meghan’s two-minute Time speech to call for the stripping of the Sussexes the Dukedom, you’re really clutching at straws. The UK has two questionable characters like the Duke and Duchess of York, who are divorced and yet maintain their titles and live in a 36-bedroom pile on the Windsor estate. However, nothing is ever said about that. No one in the UK is clamouring to strip Prince Andrew of his HRH and Dukedom even though he’s refusing to answer the US Manhattan Attorney’s Office questions about having sex with underage girls. Andrew is benefiting from all the privileges as a full time senior working royal, even though he is actually doing absolutely zilch.
However, Prince Harry, the Duke of Sussex, was stripped of his military honours, the unpaid Commonwealth Youth Ambassador post. Although Harry retains the HRH, he can’t use his title in his commercial dealings. Though his father, Prince Charles, uses his HRH in commercial business activities, Harry is unable to do the same. The absence of the HRH moniker, however, isn’t impeding Harry’s progress and bright future in the business world.
As with everything to do with the Sussexes, there is always someone in the Royal household seeking to damage or cause unnecessary brouhaha with Harry’s and Meghan’s plans. So, the guy in charge of the sovereign grant who issued last years’ annual report that included Frogmore Cottage costs, decided to headline the cost of the Sussexes’ 2019 ten-day Southern Africa Royal Tour. As everyone can remember, the Royal Tour at the request of the British Government included visiting four Southern Africa countries. It wasn’t a romantic family holiday or an opportunistic free jaunt, but a diplomatic, educational, cultural, and business-centric Royal Tour that justified its top billing. From all indications, it was deemed a remarkably successful tour.
That ‘Buck House’ official in his wisdom, decided to highlight the Royal Tour as the most expensive tour in 2019, which wasn’t true. For example, the Prince William and Kate Middleton went to Dublin for three days and it cost five times more than the Sussexes ten-day Southern Africa Royal Tour. Another example is when Prince Charles went on a two-day tour somewhere, and the cost was awfully close to the Sussexes. There were other frivolous trips and expenses by other royals including the Monarch’s favourite, Prince Andrew. But guess which couple made the big news cycle about their expenses; you guessed right, the Sussexes. You can always count on the senior officials at ‘Buck House’ and the ‘Hamburgers’ to feed lies to the trashy newspapers and to make Harry and Meghan the ‘fall guys’. And to further point out how the Sussexes are treated unfairly, the Cambridge’s expenses cost the most with £1.3 million spent on security costs alone. But it is Harry and Meghan that the baying mob of idiots is calling for to be ‘lynched’.
As I have often said, whatever influence the Queen had on Prince Harry evaporated the minute she agreed to that diabolical plan and the 12-month Review ruse. As of now, that review is kaput! I am sure the Sussexes have had ample time to review and assess their future and decide where it is taking them. For Harry and Meghan to return as senior working royals to Frogmore Cottage for the same tawdry or even worst life isn’t an option.
The only thing that Duke and Duchess of Sussex would miss about their life as senior working Royals is the foreign tours on behalf of the Queen or the British Government. In terms of charitable endeavours, Harry and Meghan still have an unorthodox link with the Queen as the President and Vice President of the Commonwealth Trust, with the Queen as the Patron. It’s very tricky, but for now it’s working. The Trust is very dynamic, and whenever the Sussexes appear on zoom calls with Commonwealth youths, it makes headline news. The Sussexes continued work with the Commonwealth Trust is invaluable. Meghan and Harry philanthropy generates news in terms of public relations that any powerful organisation would pay to get.
The clamour by the conservatives to strip the Sussexes of their Dukedom won’t work though. Harry and Meghan haven’t brought the Monarchy into disrepute; they haven’t been involved in any seedy business since they moved to California. They stopped receiving an allowance from Prince Charles’ Duchy of Cornwall Fund at the end of March 31, 2020. What then is the treasonable offence?
Is it treasonous to ask people to be more aware of nasty things on the internet and hate speech? That ‘hate speech’ we all know is the standard language of the ‘baby elephant’ they support. Asking people to register to vote in November isn’t politics, but a call to their civil duty. The ‘baby elephant’ and his Ambassador in the UK have interfered in our affairs several times, including two General Elections since he became President. The same media twits have never complained.
There has to be an abominable offence to make the Queen go through all the motions and ramifications, to strip her grandson, the sixth in line, and the father of the seventh in line of his Dukedom. I haven’t even touched on the reaction from Prince Charles to such a drastic action by his mother. To do so, would be another article.
Meghan and Harry are now in this enviable position where they can call on any corporation’s Chief Executive and vice versa to discuss any viable project. Apart from the ‘baby elephant’, they can speak to any US politician, if they choose to, but they probably won’t. The Sussexes life now is a more exciting than what they had in the UK. More importantly they control their own destiny, whether bad or good, without anyone standing in judgement and leaking made up lies to their favourite journalists. For Harry and Meghan, there isn’t any undeclared competition between them and anyone else in the Royal family. They can plan and build their own dynasty at their own pace. The Sussexes are experiencing satisfaction overload and some idiots on both sides of the pond are sorely jealous.