H&M

I'm 1 posts behind now after this, excuses.... busy with work again and busy editing other writing, but I will try and get back on track by the end of 2022. But in reality, I do have time to write, I just spend it doing other things. For example, I had resisted watching the Prince Harry & Megan Markle documentary on Netflix but I broke the weekend just gone and watched it all. 6 hours SIX HOURS. They can make a film about Bible stories in less time.

Anyway, the documentary is done by them. It's fully under their control, so any positive or negative things, lines or editing is their own fault, they can't blame others. So this is what I made of it.

What did they do the program for?

They say to tell their side of the story. And by this they also mean to allow a version of events to be told that gathers sympathy for them rather than hatred.

Did they achieve this with me?

Prior to watching the documentary, I would say I found the whole departure by them for the US a tad irritating. I didn't really care too much for their story or them or the squabbling within the family. After watching the documentary, I did have some moments of sympathy for them. Yes I was irritated by some elements of the documentary, but on balance, I probably felt more positive towards them than before. So I guess you could say that their objective has been met, with me at least.

What is their problem?

So the whole thing seems to boil down to a few issues. The documentary suggests that those issues are as follows:

• The British Press are awful.

• Royal Press Offices are bad.

• The Institution of the Monarchy is historically racist and has missed an opportunity to present as less racist.

• They were picked on for becoming too popular.

Let's take each on in turn so we can see if they have a point.

The British Tabloid Press are awful

Do I agree?

Yes I absolutely do.

We have always had salatious tabloids in this country, but since the advent of social media around 2007 and the monetisation of clicks, which means the monetisation of the extreme headline and "click bait" the tabloid press have lost any sense that they are in fact journalists and supposed to be delivering news.

Journalistic standards are gone and instead news sites have evolved into click bait producers, rather than people who want stories or are interested in stories. Unfortunately, this inlcludes the BBC. Its all about driving eye balls onto advertising content to increase revenue. The more extreme or nasty the story, or not even the story, but the headline, the more people click. There are certain 'names' who make money from the clicks, I can think of Piers Morgan, Amanda Holden, Katie Price and Katie Hopkins to name but a few domestic ones.

Click bait and provocative headlines are akin to the mob turning up to throw rotten fruit before the public execution.

I wrote that line after watching the documentary.

The news the next day was this:

An old wealthy white man with privileged access to tabloids, wanted her to be paraded naked through the streets and pelted with shit.

He has since semi-apologised and 'kind of' withdrawn the comments, but thats irrelevant. Because his role in society is the baiter and his column, in The Sun, has done its job. Its creating more clicks and front pages the following day. His quasi-apology will create more clicks again. His daughter, a professional podcaster, has distanced herself from his comments. More clicks. More revenue for the papers and more followers for them both.

But here is my problem with H&M. I totally agree that our tabloid press is bad but this isn't new. Harry knows this full well given that he blames them for the death of his mum. And even before that they were bad. Diana died in 1997. Since then, off the top of my head, I can think of Millie Dowler, David Kelly, Chris Jeffries, Molly Russell.

Mille, probably the worst victim of the phone hacking scandal. Whist I have sympathy with the celebrities involved the hacking, murdered dead girls phone phones being hacked, leading her parents to believe she may be alive is beyond gutter behaviour, its really unspeakable. What controls were placed on the press following this? Nothing.

David Kelly, one of the countries best chemical weapons experts, ridiculed in the press because Tony Blair and Alastair Campbell had ensured that The Sun had been leaked excerpts of a dossier supposedly compiled by MI6 and others which confirmed that Sadam Hussain DID have weapons of mass destruction and that scientists like Kelly did not know their brief. Humiliated publicly, he hung himself in the woods. Blair has since made £millions from supporting regimes like the homophobic one in Qatar. Nothing done.

Chris Jeffries, his crime, being a bit of an eccentric, and being single. His life threatened and absolutely destroyed as the tabloids accused him of Jo Yates' murder. It wasn't him. Nothing done.

And Molly Russell, not a victim of tabloids, but social media, a teenage girl, fed images of self harm and suicide, why? Because it makes super rich people like Mark Zuckenburg even richer, thats why. Shes now dead. Hes richer. Meta group and Instagram is making even more money. Nothing changes.

So where was Harry then? Clearly something needs to change, but not because Megan is upset, or even because Diana is dead. Harry blames the press for the death of his mother, and the docuentary reveals that he now blames them for the death of his unborn child. Its quite a lot of blame and a lot of issues that I feel he may not yet be over. But do something about it. You were in a position where you could have railed against the system more than anyone. If not then, now. Don't just do a doumentary moaning about your wifes treatment, campaign, use your exerience and position to make a difference. Make the case for reform of the British press to the British public. Say the unspeakable about the changes that need to happen. Fire a missle stright into the super wealthy press barons. Don't just sit in palaces whingeing about people being mean to your wife.

I want a free press. I also want the rich and powerful to be held to account, and if necessary exposed. I do not want laws that silence decent journalism or invetigative journalism. I want real journalism protected. But we are not talking about that here. To confuse the tabloid press and social media with real journalism is part of the problem and part of the smoke screen.

I have yet to write the section on the media on my manifesto, so I have yet to set out what I would do to change it But removing it from foreign ownership of ultra wealthy people would be one thing. I see good journalism in places like, Bristol Cable, Tortoise, The Atlantic to name a few. We can achieve change, I will save my ideas for the manifesto, but yes Harry, I agree with you, the Britsh tabloid press is nasty, social media is nasty. But they have been long before you came along. SO DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT.

Royal Press Offices are bad

This was the documentary saying that his brother and father each had a press office at their palaces, as did H&M, and these offices would compete with each other.

This seems to me to be a weak argument and all you're saying is that your grandmother, and now your dad, weren't in control of the firm and the culture was toxic. In this event, I think your grandmother and dad need to carry responsibility.

Harry said that negative stories about his wife would be planted in the press by his brothers press office in return for surpression of negative stories about his brother. He also claimed that private discussions with his father got leaked to the press. I suspect both stories are true.

It seems to me therefore that there is a problem within the palaces. One of integrity within the staff. It seems to me that this comes down to culture and protocol. Protocol because clearly the wrong people are seeing private correspondence and leaking it. So shrink the group of people who can see things. Take advice from MI5 on how to make communications more secure. Encrypt more things. Password protect things. Have things for the Kings eyes only. When plans get discussed within specific groups, investigate if there is a leak. If a single personn cannot be found as responsible for the leak, punish the group. First time written warning. Second time, dismissal, this problem is of how your family is mismanaging the firm. Sort it out.

He also talks about a Faustian pact the family has with the press for access. One which clearly doesn't work. So change it.

Do I agree?

No, I don't care how badly your family runs it's business. But if you think it's run badly. It's your own fault, other badly run family businesses go out of business, think yourself lucky.

The Institution of the Monarchy is historically racist and has missed an opportunity to present as less racist

Do I agree?

To a point yes.

The British royal family is white and has been for the past 1000 years with any exceptions for illegitimate children of non-white origin white washed from its histry to maintain its ethnic purity and the story of Anglo Saxon Britian. Historically it was the main institutional sponsor behind the slave trade.

Megan did make the family look more like the Commonwealth. And she did have a more down to earth and common touch with the public. it was more Dianaesque than Kate. It did provide a mixed race lineage within the family. All these things make me feel she was a positive asset for the firm.

So for that branch to break off and leave is sad and I do feel it's a loss to the royal family and to the country.

They were picked on for being too popular

The family is a strict hierarchy, no one else matters if they are below Harry. Which means that the only people he could potentially complain about were; his grandmother, his dad, or his brother.

His grandmother never received one criticism from H&M, although the woman portrayed for the last 70 years as sharp as a button and responsible for all decisions, was portrayed by Harry as a quiet, passive bystander taking bad advice from courtiers.

His father, the new boss, escaped any real critisim.

Which left one person and one person alone who could potentially be responsible for attacking H&M. And in the documentary there were a few clear accusations laid at the feet of William, and by association, Kate. The accusations were:

• William screamed at him during a meeting

• William sanctioned his office to provide a legal statement which was unhelpful to Megans legal action against the Daily Mail.

• William and Kate felt like they were being out shone and they therefore colluded in providing negative stories about Megan to the press.

• William lied about Harry publicly to protect himself, but wasn't even willing to tell the truth about Megan to protect her.

These are pretty savage accusations and its difficult to see how two brothers can make up if this is what you think your brother has been doing.

So essentially Harry has fallen out with the person who, within the next 20 years, will become King. When he is King, Harry will remain 4th in line to the throne, behind Louis assuming William and Kate have stopped breeding.

From the issues raised in the documentary it seems like there is a huge gap to any reconciliation. Essentially William and his office leaked press stories negative to Megan. He would have been the one responsible for the "babies skin colour" story which can only be negative and racist in this context. Although I disagree that this kind of discussion is automatically racist, I had many conversations about what my mixed race children might be like.

Here are two brothers who lead an ultra privelidged life. Both had the best education money can buy. Despite that both achieved below average grades. These two below average intelligence lads would be distinctly average if they were in normal society Brothers falling out and not speaking is hardly the most ground breaking thing for a family.

The Cringe Factors

Megan correcting Harry when he said they moved into Kensington Place by saying it was Nottingham Cottage and describing it as a small cottage with low ceilings. Even more cringe was saying that "even Oprah" exclaimed:

"people would not believe it"

in respect of how modest surroundings were.

This is an aerial shot of Nottingham Cottage.

Nottingham Cottage is connected to Kensington palace in prime London real estate with Hyde Park as your back garden and Chelsea as your high street.

Following the Oprah comment, the documentary then cut to Grenfell Tower, which was at best, clumsy editing. An ultra privileged attempt at saying "we're quite modest" whilst living in the grounds of a palace cutting to people of colour and immigrants being burnt to death, not the best editing.

There were shots of H&M doing "guided meditation" together. Harry and his little pot belly, Megan crying because it's so deep. Utterly unnecessary and deeply cringe.

And also, they clearly documented everything from 2015, 7 years before the Netflix special, in a really nice manner so that a future Netflix documentary could be made, even more the apparent breakdown in their relationship with the family. Which is interesting and almost seems pre-planned.

In Summary

I still can't shake the feeling that this guy is making a mistake. I hope his relationship lasts otherwise he will find himself with American kids in a country where he is distinctly average at best.

His biography "The Heir and the Spare" is out soon. Not sure what else he can give up but something would surely be kept for the book. But I can't help but feel he remains a spare, only now to his American soap actress wife. The whole documentary was about her, her as a victim, her as an activist, her as a person of colour, her and her various contradictions that I guess she doesn't spot herself with him looking on in awe.

So now he has said his piece. Presented his side. Made the money he can make. I hope now that we don't hear from them again on this subject. If they want to make a documentary about some cause, fine, but please, for gods sake, can we not mention Princess Diana again.