Twice in the past week, I’ve heard controversial figures say the words ‘It’s good to be back’, or some close variant thereof. The first was Johnny Depp, in character as literature’s most famous grouch Scrooge, in the dreadful-looking trailer for the latest cinematic ‘reimagining’ of A Christmas Carol. The other was Meghan Markle, arriving along with her husband Prince Harry in Nottingham, where they were going on a royal tour which we’re not allowed to call a royal tour for the simple reason that they are no longer working royals.
Not, of course, that this has stopped Meghan and Harry from rocking up in the Midlands city, where they went to various worthy initiatives such as Himmah Hub, a food poverty action group, and a community recording station. And it is fair to say, judging by the coverage of their visit, that they were received with a level of adulation that suggests that, for their fans, they remain the King and Queen of hearts. One woman said, ‘It’s been too long,’ to which Our Meg replied, ‘At least five years’ – closer to seven, but who’s counting – and another woman said to Harry, ‘We’ve missed you so much.’
Meghan and Harry have not come back to Britain to live quietly as private citizens
It is hard not to feel that amidst these outpourings of praise and the more straightforward cries of adulation, this represents exactly what the Sussexes were hoping for when they returned to Britain. Still, even in their wildest dreams, they know that a quasi-royal tour is not the same thing as a real royal tour, and expectations must be managed accordingly. One student who was present told the Times that, ‘There was a crowd of big Harry and Meghan fans shouting “I love you” but fewer people than I thought there would be.’
It is nice to know that the so-called Sussex Squad can still manage a good turnout – albeit not quite on the scale of former gatherings, but Harry and Meghan remain box office, even in their new, informal capacity. And this has led to an existential headache for the Royal Family, who are now faced with something that last happened three decades ago with Princess Diana. A popular, much-loved former royal who is no longer part of ‘The Firm’ but has their own agenda and attendant publicity is, frankly, a nightmare for ‘The Grid’, the carefully managed schedule of royal appearances that is designed to make sure that everyone gets enough attention in their public ventures. Harry and Meghan – who, lest we forget, ceased to be working members of the royal family years ago – can and will do what they like, as long as they receive attention and can further their own initiatives.
To be sure, nobody would or should object to their acting as benevolent representatives of whatever charitable endeavours they can draw attention to. And there might be those at Buckingham Palace who are quietly whispering that there must be some way of bringing them back into the fold, on the grounds that, as the vulgar saying has it, it’s better to have them inside the tent pissing out than outside the tent pissing in.
Yet whatever the state of their (taking the) piss, there are numerous structural problems with this. Not least is the knowledge that Prince William remains estranged from his younger brother and it is uncertain as to what, if anything, would bring about a reconciliation. The continued presence of Meghan is unlikely to be conducive to this in any case, given that she and the Princess of Wales loathe one another and have no contact.
It is not clear what the Duke and Duchess of Sussex have planned. Their modern-day Robin Hood acts may not have actually involved robbing the rich, but certainly their publicity-grabbing antics suggest, as we all expected, that they have not come back to Britain to live quietly as private citizens of enormous wealth. They clearly have unfinished business when it comes to propagating Brand Sussex, which in turn could well lead to reviving public careers that appeared to have been becalmed after the end of the much-ballyhooed Netflix deal. To which all one can say, even allowing for the idea that they could achieve some genuine good along the way, is that old festive invocation: ‘Bah, humbug’.
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