AMID the avalanche of spiteful, salacious and undeniably sensational re- velations there is one burning question that screams for an answer – just how misguided is Prince Harry?
Spare, Harry’s bitch-and-tell memoir, reveals he is a man almost totally lacking in self-awareness.
Thank God the Duke of Diddums was only ever the spare!
With Harry nothing is ever his fault
This is a man who has frequently said how important the safety and security of his family is to him.
And yet in his book, and in the multiple interviews to promote it, Harry talks — boasts? — about killing 25 Taliban fighters when he was serving in Afghanistan.
How does bragging about the notches on his Apache helicopter make his family safer and more secure in this world? Beats me.
And this is a man who blathers on about the world respecting his privacy — and yet does not give a flying fig about the privacy of Charles, William, Kate, Camilla or his late grandparents.
And this is a man who has rabbited on endlessly about mental health issues — and yet has no hesitation about treating his father, his brother and their wives with an unspeakable cruelty that will do little for their own mental health and happiness.
Damage is done
And — oh yes — this is a man who has blurted that he “wants his father and brother back”.
“The door is open and the ball is in their court,” says Harry, never slow to reach for the nearest cliche.
But it is simply not true.
The damage is done. The deep wounds Harry has inflicted — and continues to inflict as he pimps his ghost-written memoir around the media — will endure to the grave.
I have no doubt that Mr and Mrs Markle will be invited to the King’s Coronation in May.
The decency of King Charles III and the demands of royal protocol will combine to ensure that the royal runaways get an RSVP to Westminster Abbey.
But will Harry and Meghan dare to show their grumpy faces?
Imagine the pews!
Imagine them all lined up like the cast in some second-rate soap opera — the brother who threw him to the ground!
The “wicked stepmother” who he (and his brother, a vicious betrayal of trust sharing that, Harry) begged their father not to marry! The wife who dared to ask for an apology.
Again, how misguided is the Duke of Diddums?
No, the door is not open, Harry, even if your father sticks an invite to his Coronation in the post.
The ball is not in their court.
The ball has burst. The bridges have been burned.
The door has been bricked up for ever. There is no way back for you now, Harry.
Whatever your 74-year-old dad does, your brother will never forgive you.
Your country will never forgive you.
And it looks like the men and women who served with you in Afghanistan will never forgive you.
“Love you, Harry!” said ex-Royal Marine Ben McBean, who lost an arm and a leg in Afghanistan. “But you need to shut up!”
“He has shot himself in the foot,” said Colonel Richard Kemp, former infantry battalion commander in Afghanistan.
“That claim (that Harry killed 25 Taliban) is likely to incite people. There will be a desire for revenge. He will not be looked on in quite the same light by people who thought highly of him before . . . including me.”
Spare? Thank God the Duke of Diddums was only ever the spare!
Thank God he was never the heir!
The monarchy is secure today.
It would not be if Harry and Meghan had a throne with their names on it.
Since they first introduced Oprah Winfrey to their organic chickens there has been speculation that the self-pitying pair would do lasting damage to the Royal Family.
And in their selfish, spiteful way, they have done what they set out to do.
The Royal Family are now as bitterly estranged from Harry as Meghan is from her own family — with the exception of her mother, Doria, her only relation who got an invite to her £30million wedding.
All families have their rifts, estrangements and bust-ups, and sometimes they are healed with the passing of time.
But some rifts last for ever.
Wantonly betrayed
It seems highly unlikely that Meghan’s poor old dad will ever get to meet his grandchildren (how cruel they are, this couple who bleat endlessly about kindness and compassion) just as it seems unlikely that Harry and Meghan’s kids will grow up knowing their British cousins George, Charlotte and Louis.
It seems unlikely that Camilla and Kate will ever forgive and forget the sheer level of spite that has been directed their way.
The man who has frequently said how important the safety and security of his family is to him has boasted about his kills
Let’s hope the couple find security and stop talking
And even if Charles spends the rest of his days reaching out to his wayward, witless younger son, you strongly suspect that William will never forgive his brother for all he has done, and all the trust that he has so wantonly betrayed, and all the humiliation that he has heaped upon those who loved him.
Was there no one with an IQ higher than their shoe size to warn Harry that his complaints are totally tone deaf?
This is a man who first took cocaine when he was a 17-year-old Etonian on a shooting party at a friend’s country pile — it’s a hard life!
And Harry wants the world, where people are suffering and struggling, to feel sorry for him.
Harry has lived a life of unimaginable privilege and luxury.
He had an unspeakable tragedy at a young age when his mother died but he has also had blessings beyond belief.
And he talks as if he was Diana’s only child.
But we are in a fantasy world where nothing — NOTHING! — is ever the fault of the Duke of Diddums.
Dressing up as a Nazi for that jolly costume party jape?
Oh, that was encouraged by wicked William and cackling Kate, who “howled with laughter” at the idea of Harry in a Nazi uniform.
Calling a fellow serviceman a P-word?
Oh, in all his cloistered innocence, Harry believed “P***” to be a slang term of endearment, like “Aussie”.
And when William told his brother straight that Meghan was “rude, abrasive and difficult?”
Oh, William was just repeating the “Press narrative” about Saint Meghan, as if William had no experience of the B-list actress.
As if William could not talk with extensive personal experience of his sister-in-law!
And it boggles the mind that Harry, high priest of privacy, has no reluctance to share every laughable detail of his unfortunate bust-up with his brother.
The broken necklace! The smashed dog bowl! Harry’s sore back!
Crucial revelation
And here’s me thinking that the Duke of Sussex was a bit of an unreconstructed macho man.
Here’s me thinking that the polo-playing former soldier was made of sterner stuff.Diddums.
But there he is whining because big brother broke his bling! Diddums.
We all know the people of this country once loved Prince Harry.
But I am not sure we ever really knew the real Harry.
We do now.
The most crucial revelation about the brothers getting physical is that Harry admits William came back, “regretful and apologetic”.
If Harry loved his brother — if Harry cared about his family — if Harry was remotely interested in reconciliation then surely it should have ended there.
Frankly, my dear, there was no need to mention this fraternal spat even to their wives.
Harry has ‘the self-awareness of comatose hamster’
Now Harry has told the entire world.
And now Harry and the missus must live with the consequences.
After the publication of Spare, I suspect that we have reached peak Duke and Duchess of Diddums.
Will Meghan eventually publish her own “bombshell book”?
Well, duh! Of course she will! What else does she have to sell.
But let’s hope they find all the privacy, security and happiness they seek.
And — much more than this — let’s hope they finally stop talking. Time to grow a pair, Harry.
Big brother only broke your necklace.
Not your neck.
