Enda Brady: Harry’s travelling circus seems tone deaf in time of national crises
Prince Harry leaving the Rolls Buildings in central London after giving evidence in the phone hacking trial against Mirror Group Newspapers (MGN). Picture: Jonathan Brady/PA
Prince Harry’s relentless invasion of his own privacy ended up in London’s High Court this week with global media attention, more front-page headlines, and yet more personal information plastered across the very newspapers he despises.
Harry may have been born into a travelling circus, but he seems hellbent on creating a new one. And he’s not even getting paid for this one. If anything, it’s costing him money. And time.
My main question after everything this week is why? Why bring all this stress on yourself when you could be in your mansion in California with your beautiful wife and children?
Instead of enjoying the 28C sunshine in Montecito with his family and their rescue chickens, Harry found himself in the rather drab surroundings of the High Court in London.
His father, King Charles, opted to bail out of Britain completely for a few days and head for Transylvania. So much for any family reunion or building of bridges.
Harry made it clear during eight hours in the witness box that he is pursuing a claim for phone hacking to end the “abuse, intrusion, and hate” towards him and Meghan.
Some breaking news for you, Hazza — the papers aren’t suddenly going to start writing plámás about you and your wife because you’ve challenged them in court. They’ll be even more vitriolic in their coverage, just watch.
The couple has indeed had a rough ride from certain sections of the press, but instead of ignoring the wasp’s nest, Harry has poked it hard and you can almost predict the outcome.
This is one of six legal actions that Harry has ongoing against three major newspaper groups and the UK government, so if you’re bored now, think how you’ll feel by Christmas.
I have no doubt he has suffered terrible intrusion into his life from elements of the tabloid press in the UK and beyond, just like his mother did. But whether he has done enough to prove illegality remains to be seen.
Mr Justice Fancourt will make his decision later this year.
We heard lots of circumstantial evidence and speculation this week, but in my 30 years of covering court cases in Britain, I’ve always found judges like facts. Cold, hard facts. Tangible evidence. Proof.
I didn’t see any smoking gun this week and Harry has one of the best lawyers in Britain in his corner.
We learned that friendships were ended, relationships broke down, paranoia abounded.
Harry blames the press and their alleged illegal activity for this. Tracking devices were found on vehicles belonging to his former girlfriend, Chelsea Davy, in Africa and a friend in London.
This is indeed scurrilous behaviour and those responsible should be ashamed of themselves, but if Harry thinks a win here is going to change anything, he is sorely mistaken.
The ‘game’ and its rules have already changed.
THE Leveson Inquiry of 2011 rocked the UK press to its core and such shady practices vanished because they all dreaded going the same way as the , which closed in 2011 following revelations of illegal phone hacking including the mobile phone of the murdered schoolgirl, Milly Dowler.
I have no doubt Harry could have settled this case months in advance for a significant amount of cash, just like he claims Prince William did years ago. But for Harry, this is about having his say and his day in court.
The unexpected big winner in all of this coverage has been Rishi Sunak and his hapless government. While the prince has been dominating news bulletins every hour, few pundits have been talking about the Conservatives’ performance.
The never-ending strikes, record inflation, mortgages spiralling every month, or the opinion poll that shows Keir Starmer is on track for a landslide election win that could be bigger than Tony Blair’s in 1997.
All of these topics played second fiddle to Harry v Mirror Group Newspapers (MGN) this week. The prince has been a useful distraction for a government that seems to lurch from one crisis to another, without ever coming up with any solutions, aided and abetted by a fawning conservative press.
Of course, royals aren’t supposed to stray into politics, but Harry did just that in his witness statement (all 25,000 words of it) when he opined that “our country is judged globally by the state of our press and our government, both of which I believe are at rock bottom”. Ouch.
My old channel Sky News prides itself on its sharp political coverage, so I did laugh this week when it hired its own actor to deliver Harry’s lines, deadpan to camera for a special reconstruction show each evening. If the brief was for a wooden delivery, devoid of any charisma, the bearded actor certainly succeeded.
There is sympathy for Prince Harry and others who have been hounded by the press, but ask most people in Britain this week what they’re worried about and they’ll tell you how much their mortgage has gone up by. Again. It’s happening every month now.
I don’t know if there’s a food bank in Montecito, I’m guessing there isn’t. There are currently 2,200 across Britain, and counting.
There was a time when Harry was one of the most popular personalities in British life, up there with Elton John and David Beckham, Mary Berry and Dame Judi Dench. A national treasure that people admired and respected. He had even fought in Afghanistan twice.
Yet somehow Harry has managed to torch all of that and despite what he thinks, he has done it all by himself.
