We are all hypocritical in our own, less than alluring, ways. I often bleat on here about nasty comments made by simpletons online as they bully their way to infamy of sorts, yet, when the boot is on t’other foot, I am happy to give a bit back to those I deem to be deserving of damnation.

If, like me, you publicly pronounced you would not ‘waste the time’ watching the Hazmeg interview recently on ITV, and then, like I, settled down at five to nine just to make sure you didn’t miss any of it, then you are as hypocritical as yours truly.

The proposition of watching a couple of multi-millionaires as they sit with the billionaire Oprah in the Californian sunshine, was not on my bucket list at the start of that week as Royals always have the reputation as being spoiled and generally come across as a bit ‘foppish’ with not too much going on between the ears.

Yet that cannot be said of Ginger and the whinger. They are bright, articulate, calculated (if crushingly dull) and knew exactly what they were playing at. By pulling at the heartstrings when Meghan mentioned the suicidal thoughts, she then went in for the kill with the sure-fire argument winner: implication that the family is ‘racist’ and of course that is what dominated the next week’s front pages.

Targets such as her father and others were not given right to reply, in a well-rehearsed and Bafta-worthy performance. The soundbites were, over the course of the two-hour interaction, of course going to grab the headlines and they did not disappoint. Harry’s under the surface wrath bubbled up for all to see. By framing a conversation that may or may not have happened around ‘race’ that seems to be a go to for the couple there is no comeback for the accused.

The fact that Harry's grandfather was still in hospital and the Queen had spent £32 million quid on their wedding (not to mention the Frogmore mansion) means you can see why many of us didn’t have the world's smallest violin playing a sad song as we watched them feed the chickens and lounge in the sun on a friend’s ‘estate’. If all else fails, no doubt they could reinvent themselves as the 2020s version of Briers and Kendall in the good life.

Even more sickening to the layman is the complete disregard for Joe and Josephine Public. The pandemic has been hard, with kids cooped up at home for months on end and many households losing their incomes, hope, jobs and futures. Swathes have fallen into unmanageable, desperate debt, where the only options left are to commit crime or find another, more extreme, way out. Domestic abuse has risen exponentially as we scrabble around to make it through to the next payday or giro. There is nowhere truly to turn for help as the money lenders come demanding payment and you go without, yet again, in order to give the kids a basic level of subsistence.

To not comprehend this is unforgivable, beyond a few fake platitudes that many of ‘us’ have suffered, as they spill their guts on TV, in a one-sided diatribe where they denigrated everything and everyone who made them what they are.

My bleat of choice was Harry, aghast that at the age of 36, his family had ‘literally’ cut him off financially. Thankfully, Netflix were waiting in the wings to sign them up on a $100 million Brucie bonus with which to soften the blow as was some billionaire type who not only threw in free bed and board, in a mansion, but security to boot. One might surmise that Harry should use the example of his uncle Andy before he gets to chummy with secretive rich Americans, as it rarely ends well.

We live and die by our legacy. Harry, after his prior sterling work in serving his country and setting up the Invictus games, as well as overcoming prior indiscretions such as dressing as a Nazi at a fancy-dress ball, has now unravelled before our very eyes. He has lost the respect of many and has turned from a brawler on the battlefield to the King of Woke. Unless he changes, and soon, he will be appearing on a Channel 5 reality series in a few years’ time as his star wanes like the love of the British public already has.

  • Brett Ellis is a teacher