Harry's Book (Again)

Finally finished Harry's new book, Spare, and a very good read it is too. His ghost writer is excellent and I can see why he was chosen. 

I started writing this analysis on the basis of he said, she said but, under the bonnet, there's so much more going on that's not immediately visible by merely reading the narrative.

The gutter press was incandescent that Harry had barred it from the intimacies of his wedding in St George's Chapel. The Family has a name for these 'Royal commentators', which escapes me at present, but while they were allowed to see everything going on outside after the wedding ceremony, they couldn't mix with the nobs within the Chapel. These so-called experts are no more expert on the Royal Family than I am an expert in nuclear physics from simply looking at the sun.

Harry had multiple issues with this gaggle of gossip-mongers, dating back to his mother's death, which traumatised him; it was that the paparazzi who were chasing his mother on the eve of her death did nothing to help her and simply kept clicking away as she died. Yes, they were self-employed paparazzi, but their paymasters are the gutter press, who can hand them £100k for the right photo. Not only that, but the press had outed Harry when in Iraq and Afghanistan, despite promises to keep a lid on it until the end of his tour. General Dannatt was livid about this broken promise.

Is the press racist? Probably not when they're with their middleclass friends at dinner parties, but they know how to weaponize the racists among their readership to generate clicks and sales from a constituency decent media organisations would steer well clear of.

There additionally happens to be a group of courtiers who, for reasons best known to themselves, believe it's their responsibility to protect the monarch, and no-one else's. They take it upon themselves to act without even asking the monarch or any of the Royal Family - they're a very powerful, controlling cabal of eminences grises, According to Harry, the links between these courtiers and the press are what drives the Royal agenda, and it's an unhealthy relationship, as Harry has discovered.

Harry, among others, has an impending law suit against certain media organisations and these organisations wish to cast as much dirt in front of Harry as possible before the case comes to court. Their tactic is to minutely dissect his memoirs, looking for any discrepancy, no matter how small. This is the old lawyer's trick of focusing on a trivial, but minor detail, pointing out it's inaccuracy and then portraying the entire testimony as worthless on that basis. The fallacy of the thin end of the wedge.

I have a habit of delving into the turdscape of the Express and Daily Mail when a suitable story happens to cross my path in the news aggregator I use - FlipBoard. One of my recent excursions into the mind of an Express reader (if you can call it that) resulted in a battle with an idiot in the comments section over Harry's book and some of this minutiae.

It was obvious that my adversary had never read the book, nor the context surrounding the Taliban controversy (not that it's a controversy if you read Harry's words). He maintained he'd read the Taliban comments in context, but was singularly unable to precis that context and resolutely refused to even look the context up. Manna from heaven for the gutter press and an another unwitting halfwit to add to its army.

Between October 2001 and August 30, 2021 there were 454 British military and civilian deaths in Afghanistan. I am certain the Taliban carefully considered the families of each of those they killed and did not treat them as chess pieces, especially when they used indiscriminate suicide bombs or maimed children in order to use them to get near to British forces.

My opponent then went into the intricacies of the difference between an Xbox and a PlayStation, as if the veracity of the entire book can be predicated on exactly which game console Harry received for his 13th birthday (Harry thought it was an Xbox, but the XBox hadn't been released when he was 13).

Here are Harry's words:

Birthdays were always a huge deal at Ludgrove, because every boy, and most teachers, had a ravenous sweet tooth. There was often a violent struggle for the seat next to the birthday boy: that’s where you'd be assured of the first and biggest slice. I don’t remember who managed to win the seat beside me.

"Make a wish, Harry!" 

You want a wish? All right, I wish my mother was... 

Then, out of nowhere - Aunt Sarah? Holding a box. 

"Open it, Harry." 

I tore at the wrapping paper, the ribbon. I peered inside. What...? 

"Mummy bought it for you. Shortly before . . . 

"You mean in Paris?"  

"Yes. Paris."

It was an Xbox. I was pleased. I loved video games. That’s the story, anyway. It’s appeared in many accounts of my life, as gospel, and I have no idea if it’s true.

Note the disclaimer at the end.

Then there was whether Harry was at Eton or Klosters when the Queen Mum died. Harry believed he was at Eton, whereas he, William and Charles were all on holiday at Klosters. Now before calling Harry a liar, it has to be remembered that there were two Royal deaths in 2002 - Princess Margaret on the 9th Feb and the Queen Mum shortly afterwards on the 30th March. On the 9th Feb, Harry would have been at Eton and it's not inconceivable he confused the two events. Why would be intentionally lie about that, as many have accused him? What is there to gain?

Regarding Harry claiming Henry VI, the founder of Eton, was his ancestor (Henry VI had one child who died childless aged 17 at the Battle of Tewkesbury)? So Harry is not very good at history and probably thinks his line goes back to Alfred the Great. He admits in the book that he was no scholar, which is why he declined university in favour of the Army. One Eton teacher even gave him a ruler with images of all the English monarchs on it (a ruler ruler, so to speak).

I was told that I simply didn't like the opinions of the bloke I was arguing with, to which I responded that it was not his opinion, but the opinion of the gutter press, which has a history of manipulating people like him. 

Ever since 2016, when someone at Kensington Palace (the eminences grises) leaked the liaison between Harry and Meghan, the tabloids and the Conservative newspapers have waged a relentless war of attrition against her. Why is that very difficult to understand? The lies they printed are well documented. Even his previous girlfriends were scared off by the gutter press. 

Harry was not permitted to bring a legal case against the media, despite various members (including Charles) having brought successful cases in the past. The fact Prince Andrew is now claiming he was bounced into not fighting the Giuffre case, to avoid embarrassing the monarchy, appears to add weight to Harry's claim. Harry maintains that because he has now dropped so far in the line of succession, he can no longer rely of the Palace legal machine to support him, nor avail himself of Royal security.

It is strange that the most hate toward Harry and Meghan comes from those who have not read the book and steadfastly refuse to do so, getting their opinions through the skewed prism of the gutter press, which has an agenda. Actually, it's not strange at all - it's sad and predictable. We should have learned this from Brexit (the negative press and TV commentators seem to be the same ones that extoll Brexit, the virtues of our current government and that stoke up the Culture War).

The male haters all seem to have an obsession with the flag, but not in an healthy way. They claim to be Royalists, but would not hesitate to attack Charles whenever he ventures into climate change or anything Green.

Much is being made of Harry saying Camilla was dangerous. What's carefully left out of this is that William felt exactly the same and they had talked about Camilla extensively, but that was early on in their public relationship. The boys were in no doubt though that Camilla was laser focussed on rehabilitating herself in the eyes of the public, who saw her as 'the other woman'. By and large it has worked, but not without the support of the gutter press and Palace flunkies.

At most, Harry can be accused of not checking certain dates or facts as he saw them, which shows poor proof reading. He comes across as totally human and determined to rebel against the never complain, never explain mantra, which lets the gutter press call the shots where the Royal Family is concerned. “To sin by silence, when we should protest, makes cowards out of men."

He's certainly got a battle on his hands and is relishing it - the press is annoyed that it can't control him and, since the revelations in the book, have nothing on him with which to blackmail him. 

That said, he wishes he'd known Princess Margaret better, given that she, as the Spare, ran the same gauntlet as him in so many ways, and resented it.

As for Clarkson (a superannuated juvenile chasing a juvenile audience); if he dreams of seeing the Duchess of Sussex paraded naked through the streets, pelted with excrement, doesn't that make him, using the same Game of Thrones analogy, the bigoted and hypocritical High Sparrow? Taken in isolation this may seem innocuous to some, but when combined with the verified death threats Meghan has received, it's tantamount to incitement. Would the advocates of Free Speech try to persuade us that death threats against them are nothing more than a manifestation of Free Speech? No, they'd call it Hate Speech and demand action.

It's rather funny watching the Anti-Cancel Culture, Anti-Woke warriors climbing the Cancel Culture tractor in support of Clarkson by cancelling Amazon in protest. The hypocrites!

Meghan bullying Palace staff? That seems totally out of character with reports from people who have worked with her or known her from all walks of life. There seems to be a narrative that the machine which surrounds the Royal Family want to promulgate, despite the contrary evidence. Whether this is with, or without Royal Family knowledge is moot, but the impression is that the Royal Family is aware of it but can't (or won't) do anything about it.

Not once did Harry attack the Royal Family, except to express exasperation at its supine attitude to the tabloids and the manner in which the Palace machine, comprised of courtiers, continually sought to undermine him. His attacks are focussed on the press and his fervent desire is to free the Royal Family from its stranglehold. 

Are there errors? Almost certainly - It's a memoirs and memories are notoriously fickle. Is it mainly truthful? Given the despicable history of the British press and the lies it peddles, almost certainly. Is it worth reading? Definitely, I highly recommend it.

I was tempted to get the audiobook, where Harry does the narration, so I could listen in the car. I did hear he wasn't the first choice....