There aren’t that many reasons to be cheerful right now. Abroad, the malevolent mullahs of Tehran look like hanging on. At home, the demented Green Party - complete with plans to abolish prisons - is surging in the polls.
But there has been at least one silver lining in recent times. The sense of relief stems from the belief that Prince Harry had opted for a quiet life of well-deserved obscurity.
With his ‘tell-all’ book and assorted TV confessions, the Duke of Sussex had apparently emptied his arsenal of publicity-seeking missiles.
He and ‘Call Me Meg!' seemed to have exhausted every opportunity to pester a jaded public with vacuous and politically correct lectures.
The couple’s five-year contract with Netflix, for instance, was not renewed. Surely, we could now expect them to pursue the “privacy” they so publicly crave.
After all, having stepped down as working royals in 2020 (giving up their HRH titles in the process), the Sussexes seemed - finally, reluctantly - to be discovering that the status of celebrity is not a constant, but one which degrades, as radioactivity does, over time.
And yet, like old rockers who once played stadiums, now reduced to the pub circuit, the Duke and Duchess of Sussex can’t quite let go of the last available limelight - at least not just yet.
There is, after all, that 16-bathroom mansion in Montecito, Santa Barbara, to keep stocked with scented candles.
So to Australia, for a faux royal tour, complete with walkabouts, photo-opportunities and visits to hospital wards. The locals, apparently, are not all fans of Harry and Meghan.
His nickname among Aussies - “the ginger whinger” - does not suggest an abiding affection.
But needs must, when the couple were last there, in 2018, they were still very much enjoying their honeymoon period of popular adulation.
They were recently married. And they appeared to many to be the face of a modernising multi-ethnic monarchy. Within hours of touching down, the Duchess even announced she was pregnant.
Sceptics, including former royal correspondents like me, suspected Meghan was potentially more opportunist than a fairytale princess. A talentless chancer following a shallow path to prominence that went through Buckingham Palace.
We feared the worst, but hoped for the best. Maybe it would be a happy-ever-after in spite of our doubts. Perhaps Harry, obviously not the sharpest tool in the royal box, might not have to repent at leisure.
Listening to Harry pronounce on what constitutes good parenting is a lecture we could do without - Colin Brazier
|Getty Images
Well, there is nothing so private as a marriage. And, for all that people assume that Harry is henpecked; that Meghan wears the strategic trousers; that one day he will return to Blighty with his tail between his legs and begging for forgiveness, the truth is we do not really know.
But what we can say with conviction is that they seem to be growing more desperate for attention. Australia represents the high-water mark of their short-lived career as working royals.
And so it was to be expected that, as their global afterglow diminishes, they should return there.
But the timing? A fortnight before King Charles III goes to the United States on an actual official royal tour. A visit with real-world consequences and historical significance.
A trip to underline the importance of the soft power the Sovereign can wield (you don’t have to be a monarchist to appreciate that having Charles, as head of state, is preferable to President Starmer).
So unhelpful scheduling from the Sussexes. But what of the trip itself? Harry and Meghan apparently insist they are paying for all their own security.
But tens of thousands of Aussies don’t see it that way and have signed a petition to that effect. They claim taxpayers’ money is being squandered on providing police protection. Justifiable were this an official state visit. Unjustifiable since it’s not.
Instead, for all the window dressing of drop-ins to charities dealing with mental health and oppressed Aboriginal communities, this is a tour which seeks to monetise the Sussexes' fading comet-tail of fame — an exchange of Aussie lucre for a soupçon of royal lustre.
A media statement published by Team Sussex before the pair arrived in Australia said their program "will focus on mental health, community resilience, and support for veterans and their families, alongside private meetings and special projects”.
And what are those “private meetings and special projects”? They included a speech by Harry at a corporate conference in Melbourne, with tickets costing up to £1,250.
Meghan also gets in on the act. This weekend she’s hosting a “luxury wellness event” in Sydney. Her Best Life girls’ retreat, yours for £1,400 a ticket. For £200 more, you can even guarantee a group table photograph with Meghan herself.
Oh, still my beating heart. Or, as the Sydney Morning Herald put it in one stinging headline this week: “Australia was good to Harry and Meghan. Now they want to use us as an ATM.”
The problem for the Sussexes is that, for all but a hardcore of supporters, the Australian public has a well-honed nose for b******t detection, which augurs ill for the couple.
Meghan may riff on how she believes in empowering women. But the more world-weary Aussie is unlikely to be taken in. Meghan presents herself as a woman who has fought against the patriarchy, even as she assumes the mantle of fame for marrying a famous man, rather than building a reputation for competent acting.
And those same Aussies will look at what Harry had to say this week about parenting and wonder: are you for real, mate? Harry told an audience in Melbourne that every generation of children deserved to be better-parented than previous generations.
“Our kids,” he said, “are our upgrades”. Or, as a wickedly understated Daily Telegraph write-up of this Californian psycho-babble had it: ‘Prince Harry: I’m not judging my father, but I want to be a better parent’.
Just as I have no idea what kind of husband Harry is, I have no idea what kind of father he is, either. It’s none of our business, even if Harry seeks to make it ours.
And yet I think we can confidently say that it does seem odd for Harry to be dispensing advice about family relationships.
This is a man, after all, who so sufficiently badmouthed his father, brother, sister-in-law and late grandmother, that they decided to shun him - indefinitely.
I’m sorry Harry has become a punching bag. A pantomime figure of derision. It didn’t have to be like this. I remember watching him as a young man on the ski slopes of Klosters, where the press had been invited to take photographs. I thought he was a charmer, and he seemed deeply attached to both his brother and father.
Years later, I flew to Camp Bastion in Afghanistan, where Harry was part of an Apache helicopter squadron. He seemed popular there, in the theatre, and at home too, where the public seemed grateful someone born into such an honoured position should put himself in harm’s way for our country.
Even the excesses were forgiven. The drunken shenanigans. The inappropriate fancy dress costumes. But one of the reasons royalty endures in Britain is the stories it tells us about the human condition.
Harry did not have to succumb to the curse of the second son; the spare to William’s heir. He did not have to make the bad choices that, in different ways, ruined the reputation of other royals who found themselves cast adrift in the Palace's pecking order: Princess Margaret and, most shamefully, the reprobate formerly known as Prince Andrew.
But Harry did make bad choices. He let down a father who was fighting cancer and a grandmother who was dying. Sadly, this can happen in any family.
But the monarchy isn’t just another family. It works because we - its subjects - acknowledge that the duty and service required of working royals deserve, nay, command our respect.
The moment Harry stopped being a working royal and became just another fading celebrity with a hanger-on spouse, that covenant was smashed to smithereens.
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