Fair point..
I get the impression from the book that he doesn't want to be part of the Royal Machine at all. He is very critical of it.
But only because he thinks he’s hard done to by it. It isn’t a principled objection to monarchy.
As soon as we discovered that Harry’s book was called “Spare”, it was clear what his main gripe was. He is bitter not to be the heir. He’s made it clear he still believes in the monarchy, and it’s clear that his problem is that he’ll never be it.
He could easily have had some purpose in life outside of the Firm. He could, for example, have coached injured ex-service people in sports. That’s something he claims to care about. It would have been a worthwhile and honourable occupation. He could have faded into obscurity and done this quietly, which would have earned him my respect, or, if he was determined to maintain a public profile, also use what celebrity he had to advocate for that cause.
The Royal Family missed a trick in not keeping Meghan on-side. As someone with mixed race heritage, an American, a trained actor, a liberal, she could have helped them modernise their image. It’s also very obvious that race played a part in her alienation from the family, and it definitely played a part in the tabloid treatment of her. Anyone arguing otherwise is being wilfully blinkered.
So, they’re right: the press and others were racist and misogynist towards Meghan. But they’re still hugely privileged, hugely wealthy, and with the kind of power, influence and clout very few people have. Their self-pity is unedifying. They could easily have played this with far more dignity. Even letting it drop after the Netflix series would have achieved that. But Harry has now over-shared to a degree that it has lost him many who were basically sympathetic towards him.
There’s little else this thread needs to discuss about his book. We could either discuss the case against monarchy, or use this wide-ranging thread to discuss one or more of the many interesting topics raised from TK Maxx to the way the rest of the world pronounces J wrong.