On Saturday, Radio 4’s The News Quiz asked if Prince Harry’s top PR adviser is in fact Elon Musk. That would explain a lot, was the point.
Many of the reviews of Harry’s book, now hacks have actually read it instead of relying on snippets translated from Spanish, take the same tone.
They feel rather sorry for a plainly damaged man, but wonder why he is so insistent on making the damage worse.
It was hard to sit through the Harry/Tom Bradby TV interviews, as gentle as Bradby mostly was, without thinking: Where on earth is your PR guy?
The PR plan has plainly been to create as much fuss as possible. Dignified silences are nowhere to be seen.
The effect of this, as Sarah Sands notes in the FT, is to make the press in some ways look good, or at least less melodramatic than him.
Many of us assumed for years that the tabloids were exaggerating the extent of Royal Family feuds.
Harry’s revelations rather make it plain they were all far worse than anyone knew.
When Harry guest-edited The Today programme, Sands recalls noting to a colleague that it was a good thing he had such professional and dedicated advisers to rein him in. They seem long gone.
It was they who blocked her brilliant idea that Granny should do the racing tips that day. (That would have been as awesome as the idea that Harry lost his virginity to Liz Hurley. Hurley denies it, which makes her a spoil sport.)
Officially, William, Charles and the rest of the family are saying nothing about any of this.
But someone is briefing on their behalf, and with more skill than Harry can muster.
Today The Times has Harry “rebuked over pot shots at press” over his youthful drug use.
An insider notes: “As Harry says himself, what was being written was basically true.”
Ah, the truth. The awkward thing for Harry and his wife is that while they may not like the way they are portrayed, that’s different from those portrayals being wrong, or part of a conspiracy.
Harry is plainly unsuited to the job life gave him. He doesn’t look suited to his latest role either.
