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The Guardian view on Harry and Meghan: the ring
of truth
Editorial
Millions of Britons have worse grievances than the
Sussexes do right now. But their critique of the royal family is damning
Thu 8 Dec 2022 18.30 GMT
Faced with
the Duke and Duchess of Sussex’s six-part Netflix documentary series, many will
dismiss them as a distraction at a difficult time for the nation. In one perspective,
that is a completely fair response. If you weigh the anger and hurt felt by two
exceptionally wealthy and entitled people living in California against the
struggles and deprivation facing millions of underpaid Britons grappling with a
daunting cost of living crisis and unable to afford a Netflix contract, there
can only be one conclusion. It is the underprivileged many who have the deeper
grievances against contemporary Britain, not the super-privileged few like
Harry and Meghan.
The
disjunction between the world of the royals and ex-royals on the one hand and
the world of ordinary people on the other feels particularly glaring and cruel
this week. The documentaries are being launched in a battened-down, battered
country in which 3 million families cannot afford to heat their homes as the
winter weather turns Arctic across a continent blighted by war. It is a country
in which more than 7 million people are waiting for treatment from the National
Health Service. It is one facing prolonged industrial disruption over low
wages. And it is one in which a divided and broken government has given the
go-ahead for a new coalmine forecast to pump out more carbon emissions than
Cardiff, Edinburgh and Belfast combined. In this real Britain, the bread and
circuses of the royal family seem infantile.
And yet it
is not as simple as that. As in the past, the royal family is still a looking
glass in which Britain can see itself. The picture it sees is often distorted.
But it is almost never irrelevant. The picture is also changing after a long
period of predictability. That has been particularly obvious this year,
following the Queen’s death and funeral, and the succession of Charles III. The
monarchy is searching for a new form of stability while absorbing the disgracing
of Prince Andrew and, if the documentaries and Prince Harry’s forthcoming book
are a guide, the worsening relationship between the crown and the Sussexes. The
kaleidoscope has not yet come to rest in a settled pattern.
The
documentaries say a lot about the Sussexes’ views of the royal family and its
failings. At their core is a critique of the monarchy’s reactionary and
conservative attitudes to women, foreigners and minority women in particular,
embodied by its inability to accept Meghan in all three respects. The critique
is sometimes a bit light on direct evidence. Its editing techniques are likely
to be attacked. But the recent scandal triggered by Lady Susan Hussey’s
comments was evidence that the Sussexes’ critique rings true. When Prince Harry
talks about the “pain and suffering of women marrying into this institution”,
he speaks from the heart about both his mother and his wife. The monarchy
should take those words very seriously.
But the
monarchy and the royals are not the only target of the documentaries. Much of
the Sussexes’ anger and indignation is focused on the British media, which they
view with implacable hostility and contempt, often with very good reason. The
royals have to live with constant media intrusion, including phone hacking.
Meghan is surely right to say, at one point, that she was, in effect, left to
be the prey of stalkers, as Diana, Princess of Wales, whose tragedy looms over
this series, was before her. It is not just the royals who need to be compelled
to learn from these films. So do the media, too much of which remains blind to
its own failings as well as to its role in the sad personal stories that these
documentaries ultimately reveal.
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