London Daily

Focus on the big picture.
Sunday, Aug 24, 2025

Everyone knows the Queen hates a fuss – except, strangely, her most loyal defenders

Everyone knows the Queen hates a fuss – except, strangely, her most loyal defenders

Prince Harry’s comments about visiting his grandmother have provoked uncontrollable fury among Elizabeth II superfans
Like all truly patriotic Britons, I hugely enjoy how mad Prince Harry makes some people. Mad in both the British and American senses of the word. More than two years after he stepped back from royal duties to become yet another boring Californian, seemingly every utterance of Harry’s induces proper steam-out-of-the-ears stuff in a whole demographic of British people who insist they never want to hear another word from him – yet absolutely refuse to simply stop reading about him.

Is HRH doing it on purpose, like some clever, extremely high-status troll? That’s a nice idea, but feels unlikely. The Windsors have never exactly been fabled for their intellects. It’s possible the situation is actually extremely uncomplicated: Prince Harry just wibbles out some stuff every now and then, at which point millions of grownups are completely unable to handle it.

Either way, the Duke of Sussex’s latest act of treason seems to have been calling in on the Queen on the way to his Invictus Games for disabled former soldiers, held this week in the Netherlands. Not only did Harry later reveal that he and his grandmother had had a good-humoured tea – decried as oversharing by the sort of former aides who lucratively betrayed all his mother’s secrets – but he explained he’d been “making sure that she’s protected and got the right people around her”. Can’t be sure what he’s on about. Perhaps he saw the Queen being walked to her Westminster Abbey seat at Prince Philip’s memorial by the Duke of York, about 10 minutes after she’d forked out for some of his multimillion-dollar sex assault case settlement, and wondered if she was being advised by some kind of paedo Oliver Cromwell.

Whatever the import of Harry’s comment, though, it has caused a huge number of pants to be wet, and whole fleets of prams to be emptied of toys. You cannot move for corpulent royal experts hissing about it all as they bank another appearance fee, while Britain’s leading body language authority wheels herself out to explain that Kate and William look “subdued” because of the “emotional exhaustion” she reckons was caused either by Harry, or by the fact they were visiting a Ukraine charity. (What a huge amount the rigorous science of body language can tell us.)

However, in a country where millions act as if they know the Queen socially, people were always going to claim their chief concern was for the monarch, who celebrated her 96th birthday this week. “How CAN he do this to the Queen?” they always demand, apparently unwilling to realise that anyone who really cared about the Queen’s supposed feelings would simply avoid making it worse by ranting about the situation on every available airwave. That would surely be the most civilised course of action. After all, if a real-life friend of ours has an irksome relative we regard as potentially upsetting to them, we don’t spend their birthday wanging on about him.

So the logic escapes me. If newspapers and TV pundits were simply trying to sell clickbaity content to be consumed by messy bitches who live for the drama, that would be one thing. But nothing – nothing! – could be further from the noble truth. As they never tire of telling us, they utterly REVERE the Queen. In which case, surely they should conduct themselves with a baseline level of social tact? The true, committed royalist would ignore Harry’s pronouncements completely. We ignore most of the other Californians; it can’t be beyond our famous British reserve. As close personal strangers to the Queen, we know the one thing of which we can be absolutely sure is that she wouldn’t want a fuss about it all.

Yet a fuss is endlessly made. No snowflake in an avalanche ever feels responsible, as the saying goes, but maybe the provisional wing of the Elizabeth II fandom ought to suppress the urge to call in furiously to a phone-in, or post furiously online, in order to spare this 96-year-old woman the endless drama? If not, I’m not sure how much longer we can keep taking lectures in duty and service from people too emotionally incontinent to prevent themselves being exercised by a Dan Wootton article.

If they can’t commit to ignoring Prince Harry’s supposedly incendiary pronouncements, it’s past time for every single one of them to admit to themselves the truth: that they love the drama of the royal soap opera, and relish every new half-baked opportunity to re-enter the outrage cycle. As I say, I myself adore it. I am completely with the Bloomsbury group diarist Frances Partridge, who characterised people’s reaction to the death of George VI as “richly revelled-in emotional unbuttoning”. “What the public is feeling is a sense of great drama,” she noted, “not at all unpleasant.”

Well quite. What a sadness, then, that the great British public remains too repressed to acknowledge this as far as Prince Harry is concerned. Instead, many feel more comfortable using the feelings of the Queen as a figleaf, at the same time as taking none of those feelings into account. So as she enters her 97th year, one of the greatest public services Her Majesty performs is serving as the proxy for all sorts of desires and impulses that her people lack the honesty and self-awareness to admit. What an exhausting job that must be at her age – but of course her heartless “fans” will never permit her to retire.
Newsletter

Related Articles

0:00
0:00
Close
Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner Purchases Third Property Amid Housing Tax Reforms Debate
HSBC Switzerland Ends Relationships with Over 1,000 Clients from Saudi Arabia, Lebanon, Qatar, and Egypt
Sharia Law Made Legally Binding in Austria Despite Warnings Over 'Incompatible' Values
Italian Facebook Group Sharing Intimate Images Without Consent Shut Down Amid Police Investigation
Dutch Foreign Minister Resigns Amid Deadlock Over Israel Sanctions
Trump and Allies Send Messages of Support to Ukraine on Independence Day Amid Ongoing Conflict
China Reels as Telegram Chat Group Shares Hidden-Camera Footage of Women and Children
Sam Nicoresti becomes first transgender comedian to win Edinburgh Comedy Award
Builders uncover historic human remains in Lancashire house renovation
Australia Wants to Tax Your Empty Bedrooms
MotoGP Cameraman Narrowly Avoids Pedro Acosta Crash at Hungarian Grand Prix
FBI Investigates John Bolton Over Classified Documents in High-Profile Raids
Report reveals OpenAI pitched national ChatGPT Plus subscription to UK ministers
Labour set to freeze income tax thresholds in long-term 'stealth' tax raid
Coca‑Cola explores sale of Costa coffee chain
Trial hears dog walker was chased and fatally stabbed by trio
Restaurateur resigns from government hospitality council over tax criticism
Spanish City funfair shut after serious ride injury
Suspected arson at Ilford restaurant leaves three in critical condition
Tottenham beat Manchester City to go top of Premier League
Bank holiday heatwave to hit 30°C before remnants of Hurricane Erin arrive
UK to deploy immigration advisers to West Africa to block fake visas
Nurse who raped woman continued working for a year despite police alert
Drought forces closures of England’s canal routes, canceling boat holidays
Sweet tooth scents: food-inspired perfumes surge as weight-loss drugs suppress appetites
Experts warn Britain dangerously reliant on imported food
Family of Notting Hill Carnival murder victim call event unmanageable
Bunkers, Billions and Apocalypse: The Secret Compounds of Zuckerberg and the Tech Giants
Ukraine Declares De Facto War on Hungary and Slovakia with Terror Drone Strikes on Their Gas Lifeline
Animated K-pop Musical ‘KPop Demon Hunters’ Becomes Netflix’s Most-Watched Original Animated Film
New York Appeals Court Voids Nearly $500 Million Civil Fraud Penalty Against Trump While Upholding Fraud Liability
Elon Musk tweeted, “Europe is dying”
Far-Right Activist Convicted of Incitement Changes Gender and Demands: "Send Me to a Women’s Prison" | The Storm in Germany
Hungary Criticizes Ukraine: "Violating Our Sovereignty"
Will this be the first country to return to negative interest rates?
Child-free hotels spark controversy
North Korea is where this 95-year-old wants to die. South Korea won’t let him go. Is this our ally or a human rights enemy?
Hong Kong Launches Regulatory Regime and Trials for HKD-Backed Stablecoins
China rehearses September 3 Victory Day parade as imagery points to ‘loyal wingman’ FH-97 family presence
Trump Called Viktor Orbán: "Why Are You Using the Veto"
Horror in the Skies: Plane Engine Exploded, Passengers Sent Farewell Messages
MSNBC Rebrands as MS NOW Amid Comcast’s Cable Spin-Off
AI in Policing: Draft One Helps Speed Up Reports but Raises Legal and Ethical Concerns
Shame in Norway: Crown Princess’s Son Accused of Four Rapes
Apple Begins Simultaneous iPhone 17 Production in India and China
A Robot to Give Birth: The Chinese Announcement That Shakes the World
Finnish MP Dies by Suicide in Parliament Building
Outrage in the Tennis World After Jannik Sinner’s Withdrawal Storm
William and Kate Are Moving House – and the New Neighbors Were Evicted
Class Action Lawsuit Against Volkswagen: Steering Wheel Switches Cause Accidents
×