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Calarogu Shark Media. Ordinarily, my weekly commentary appears on Sunday
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and is reserved exclusively for our premium subscribers. However, given
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the unprecedented nature of today's developments, I requested permission from
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the Palace intrigue overlords to share these observations with all listeners.
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Some matters simply demand immediate attention, and this latest Sussex
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spectacle certainly qualifies. Prince Harry finds himself in a hell
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entirely of his own making. This is precisely what he
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claimed to have fled Britain to avoid. Yet here we
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are witnessing the most extraordinary act of self sabotage I
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have observed in thirty years of royal watching. The Duchess
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has shared footage of herself twirking in a hospital delivery
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suite whilst heavily pregnant, with Harry gamely bouncing along side
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her like an over excited flamingo doing an elaborate courtship dance,
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as one commentator so memorably described it. The video, ostensibly
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recorded four years ago to induce Princess Lilibet's birth, has
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now been broadcast to three million Instagram followers. The irony
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is so profound it borders on the tragic. This is
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the same man who once sued the Home Office for
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one million, five hundred thousand pounds over security arrangements, claiming
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his family wasn't safe on British soil without taxpayer funded protection.
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Yet here he is exposing his most intimate family moments
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to millions of strangers online. One might ask which poses
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the greater threat to his children's safety and privacy, the
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occasional paparazzi photograph or voluntary broadcast of intimate family footage
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to the entire digital world. The timing, as always with
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the Sussexes, is exquisite in its tone deafness. As news
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breaks of Harry's potentially ruinous legal costs outcomes this particular distraction,
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one cannot help but wonder whether this represents a calculated
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attempt to redirect public attention or merely the latest manifestation
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of the Duchess's apparent inability to resist the limelight. The
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conspiracy theorists have predictably seized upon this footage to revive
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their persistent claims about prosthetic bumps and surrogacy arrangements. Whether
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one dismisses such theories as nonsense, as I most emphatically do.
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The very fact that they gain traction illustrates the corrosive
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effect of such behavior upon public trust. When one's actions
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consistently contradict one's stated principles, when privacy advocates become content creators,
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one invites exactly this sort of fevered speculation. What particularly
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disturbs those of us who remember the institution as it
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once was is the calculated nature of this revelation. Royal
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expert Richard Fitzwilliams captured the general bewilderment perfectly. When he
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first saw the footage, he thought Meghan's account had been hacked.
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Such was the disconnect between this content and any reasonable
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expectation of royal behavior. That this was a deliberate choice,
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held back for four years and released at this particular
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moment makes it infinitely more troubling. Can one imagine for
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even a moment, the Princess of Wales releasing such footage Sophie,
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the Duchess of Edinburgh gyrating in a hospital gown, the
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Princess Royal posting intimate delivery room videos to Instagram. The
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very thought is preposterous. These women understand that royal titles
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come with certain expectations, certain standards of comportment that simply
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cannot be negotiated away for social media engagement or personal
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brand building. Her late majesty understood that royal dignity exists
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not for its own sake, but as a bulwark against
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exactly this kind of degradation. Though I must confess the
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mental image of Queen Elizabeth Twirking in her nineties does
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possess a certain surreal charm, one rather suspects she might
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have found the absurdity of it all quietly amusing, even
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as she would never have contemplated such a public display.
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The Queen's sense of humour was legendary within palace circles,
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but it was always deployed with surgical precision, and never
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at the expense of institutional dignity. The institution she so
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carefully stewarded for seven decades was designed to elevate, not
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to reduce, the royal family to the level of social
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media influencers gyrating for engagement metrics. The Queen's approach was
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elegantly simple. One's private moments remained private. One's public duties
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were conducted with appropriate gravitas, and the two realms never intersected.
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The Duchess, it seems, operates by entirely different principles. Having
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demanded privacy as a human right, having sued newspapers for
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in of that privacy, having extracted millions in settlements based
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on the sanctity of family life, she now voluntarily broadcasts
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her most intimate moments for commercial and social media purposes.
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The contradiction would be laughable were it not so destructive
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to the institution her husband was born to serve. Harry's
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position has become utterly untenable. One cannot credibly claim to
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have fled Britain to protect one's children from media intrusion,
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then proceed to photograph and film them for global consumption.
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The boy who once walked behind his mother's coffin, who
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genuinely understood the corrosive nature of press attention, who bore
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witness to the ultimate price of celebrity, now seems to
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have forgotten his own hard learned lessons Entirely. This isn't
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about privacy, It's about control of the narrative. Harry wants
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to be both the protective father and the content creator,
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a contradiction that strikes those of us who knew him
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in his palace days as deeply troubling. His father finds
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this particular evolution rather heartbreaking. The King remembers a young
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man who understood duty, who grasped the weight of his position,
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who seemed destined for a life of meaningful service. What
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we see now bears little resemblance to that promising prince.
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The damage extends far beyond personal embarrassment or even individual reputation.
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Whilst his Majesty conducts himself with appropriate gravity despite facing
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his own health challenges, Whilst the Prince and Princess of
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Wales maintain the dignity befitting their station whilst managing three
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young children and countless public duties. These California based exhibitions
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continue to diminish what should be the unassailable dignity of
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royal titles. Each Sussex spectacle forces the working royals to
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work harder to maintain public confidence in the institution. Each
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controversy requires the palace machinery to expend energy on damage
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limitation rather than focusing on the serious business of constitutional monarchy.
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The Queen understood this instinctively, that every action reflects upon
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the Crown, that dignity, once lost, is nearly impossible to restore.
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The most tragic element is that this was entirely avoidable.
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Harry possessed everything necessary for a meaningful life of service, intelligence, charm,
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genuine empathy for those in need, and the platform to
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affect real change. Instead, we witness this slow motion destruction
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of a once promising royal future, orchestrated not by external
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forces but by choices made in Montecito. One can only
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conclude that the boy who once charmed a nation has
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become entirely lost to us. The institution will survive this
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latest indignity as it has survived far worse, but the
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cost in reputation, in public trust, in the simple sadness
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of witnessing such waste, continues to mount. If you've found
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value in today's emergency commentary, please consider subscribing to the
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premium version of this podcast feed. The details are in
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the episode notes. You can also read my commentary for
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free at Deep Crown dot co dot uk, where I
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delve more deeply into the machinations behind palace walls.