Harry’s silence over King & Kate’s health must be final nail in coffin of public opinion – we like loyalty from royalty
LITTLE makes Prince Harry happier than a snazzy private jet.
Other things that make our Eton-educated duke happy, in no particular order, are money, PR opportunities and slagging off the monarchy (for the aforementioned money and PR).
So the very fact Britain’s most famous whinging ginge has turned down all of the above, by refusing to visit his ailing father in hospital, shows just how bad relations really are.
Now, it’s very easy to knock the oxymoronic Duke of Sussex, who’s spent as much time in Sussex as I have in Jamaica, from whence he’s just returned home.
He makes it that way.
But this isn’t a knocking column.
(Doubtless there will be scope for that another time.)
It’s a mourning of the loyal, fun-loving, family-orientated young man he once was.
This, surely, is the final nail in the coffin of public opinion.
Because if there’s one thing Britons value above all else, it’s loyalty (be it to queuing, discussing the weather or family.)
And Harry an ex-Army man, once had it in spades.
Not any more.
The Harry of old would have been at his father’s bedside, as the poor chap got his “enlarged prostate” prodded quicker than you can say “two A-levels at Eton”.
But after trading one family for another — Meghan, and the couple’s two beautiful kids — this latest desertion is one too many.
Actually Harry could have secured a BOGOF — and visited both King Charles and his sister-in-law Kate Middleton, who yesterday returned from 14 days at The London Clinic, at the same time.
And what a PR masterclass that would have been. (At the same time, he could have squeezed in meetings with Spotify HQ, Netflix and his UK publishers for the latest instalment of The Racist Memoirs: Poor Me.)
But no. Rather than putting aside any family tensions, Harry and his wife chose Hollywood over Windsor; money over what matters.
Eerily quiet
By nipping on to a private jet (what else?) to Jamaica, cozily posing for red carpet pics alongside anti-monarchist Prime Minister Andrew Holness and schmoozing Hollywood power players at the premiere of a Bob Marley biopic, they proved, once and for all, what truly drives them.
I have no problem with their newfound friendship with the PM.
After all, Prince William and Kate posed alongside PM Holness two years ago.
And international relations are important.
But so, too, are domestic ones.
Harry, for whom money is no object, could surely have dashed from Jamaica to London.
(Sleeping, full-length, the entire way.)
Instead, he couldn’t even be bothered to release a performative statement, wishing Charles and Kate well.
And given how loquacious the couple’s PR mouthpiece, Omid Scobie, usually is, one can hazard a guess that Harry didn’t even bother to pick up the phone to his dad.
Or else we’d all have known about it.
The duke, who spends much of his days slating the Press, has also been strangely quiet following revelations that one of his favoured charities is being investigated over claims of rape and torture.
Weirdly, Harry — who served as president of African Parks for six years — has not been quick to praise the Mail on Sunday for exposing allegations that guards paid by the charity tortured indigenous people in the Republic of Congo rainforests.
For one so chatty when it comes to all things Press, he’s been eerily quiet.
In short, these past few weeks have exposed Harry for the man he has become.
If he wants a future in Britain, he must return to the man he once was.
Selfless hero Grace deserves George Cross
GRACE O’Malley-Kumar died a hero.
The beautiful, brave 19-year-old student gave her life trying to save her friend, Barnaby Webber, from the evil clutches of paranoid schizophrenic Valdo Calocane.
Young people get a lot of bad press.
Grace, absolutely, should be awarded a posthumous George Cross as a reminder, at its core, of the goodness of humanity.
Holly swears it well
OVER the past 18 months, Holly Willoughby’s public image has taken a bit of a battering.
For years she’s played up to her golden-girl-next-door image and, frankly, the act has worn a bit thin.
She threw her best mate under a bus, and Queuegate was an unmitigated PR disaster.
But on Sunday night, caught off-guard by co-host Stephen Mulhern’s high jinks, the real Holly popped out.
She swore. “Oh, you f***er!” slipped out, live on air, to millions of viewers on Dancing On Ice.
It was human, and it was funny.
This is the Holly Willoughby we can all get on board with.
Fun, sweary, off-the-cuff Holly – the real Holly, is the one we want.
Mick's sexy sleep tips
ABSOLUTELY zero prizes for guessing who came up with this cunning plan – Have. More. Sex. – to help men drift off to sleep.
A man.
To the chagrin of busy wives everywhere, health guru Michael Moseley helpfully insists couples should “never turn down the opportunity for intimacy”.
It is, he insists unbiasedly, the key to beating insomnia.
If you’re a bloke.
Cheers, Mike.
Kyle’s gutsy start
WORDS not often uttered, but kudos to Kyle Walker for his genuine-seeming mea culpa.
The Man City star sat down with The Sun this week to publicly apologise to long- suffering wife Annie Kilner.
(I mean, who hasn’t accidentally had two kids with a woman who’s not your wife? Could have happened to anyone.)
But, no, really – to own up to his mistakes, the very ones revealed by this newspaper, took guts.
It may not save his family unit, but it’s a brave first step.
Woke’s broke blokes
SOMETIMES you blokes really can’t win.
Last week, Chris Kamara took to X/Twitter, telling fans he’d been told off by a “mature woman” after offering to give up his seat on the Tube for her.
“Chivalry is dead,” he wrote, presumably sighing heavily at the same time.
Personally, I’d be delighted if someone offered me their seat on the packed Jubilee line of a dark Thursday night.
(Unless they thought I was pregnant, in which case I’d be fuming.)
Manners maketh the man, so the saying goes.
Just not in these woke times.
Hunger strains
NO wonder Rishi Sunak is under-performing – he’s bloody starving.
Friends of the little-boy-bodied PM, have revealed the masochist “doesn’t eat on Mondays”.
Instead, he fasts for an unfathomable 36 hours as part of his intermittent fasting regime.
Not sure about you, but I really don’t want a hungry person making big decisions on my behalf.
Get some porridge down you, man.
Made a meal of it
CELEBRITY chef Thomas Straker faces a driving ban after being caught using his mobile at the wheel.
In order to get off, canny Thomas is pleading “exceptional hardship”.
He was caught when driving a Porsche 911.
Barry’s barmy jumper
SWEET to see Hollywood actors Callum Turner and Austin Butler taking their nan out for afternoon tea.
