Harry loses court challenge against Mail on Sunday

Joining us now is writer and broadcaster Esther Krakou. Esther, Harry's libel matter was back in the courts this week. It's been reported he's had a bit of a setback. What's happened? So Harry has effectively lost the right to have the ANL, so the Associated Newspapers, defence of an honest opinion thrown out. So Harry is basically suing the ANL for an article that was published in the Mail on Sunday in February 2022, and he's calling that article libelous, and it's to do with his ongoing lawsuit with the Home Office over his armed security. Now, he's arguing that the article effectively defamed him and had a very negative impact on his integrity and his honesty, and it has a negative impact on his charity work and his fight against misinformation online. Now, what I have noticed is there's a bit of a disconnect between Harry's perception of his reputation and his actual reputation, but we'll get into that later on. Anyway, he was petitioning the court to basically throw out the ANL's defence that it was an honest opinion. And what they're citing is, basically, when Harry's lawsuit with the Home Office, and REVEC specifically, which is the committee in charge of sort of royal security and security for high-ranking or famous people, basically people that are considered high-risk in public, he said that it was basically the Home Office refusal to allow him to pay for this armed heightened protection, when actually he only offered to pay, according to documents, after this matter went to court. So, really, his actual lawsuit was based on the fact that he disagreed with REVEC's assessment that he was going to not have 24-7 armed security like working members of the royal family have, but he would be assessed on a case-by-case basis. Now, one topic which keeps coming up over and over again is Harry's security and the circumstances in which that security is no longer provided to him. But a letter from the Queen has surfaced this week. It's shed a little bit more light on all of this, hasn't it? Yes. So, Sir Edward Young, which you may remember, is not a very favoured person, according to Harry's book, Spare. He described the late Queen's former private secretary as a fuzzy, middle-aged white man who apparently has an oval, egg-shaped face, which is an interesting assessment, because you could level those same descriptions at Prince Harry himself. But he has come out and said that the Queen took Meghan and Harry's personal security very seriously. And she also cited, you know, obviously the heightened risk that came with Princess Diana. And she said that she did support, obviously, the Sussexes having round-the-clock security while their status within the royal family was being assessed. Now, obviously, this decision is not in the hands of the royal family. It's in the hands of REVEC, the Home Office Committee responsible for the royal family's security. And so, you know, you would get a different impression if you basically went according to what Prince Harry attested, particularly in his book, Spare, saying that, you know, in his book, Prince William looked at him like he wanted to kill him and that he was basically arguing with his family over his right to paid protection, when actually the decision wasn't for members of the royal family. It was for a separate committee. So, you know, the queen did obviously take the security of Meghan and Harry very seriously, and that's been reflected by the reports of her late— of her private secretary. But, you know, Prince Harry is not accepting that assessment. I would also like to point out that a lot of the public are a bit confused or not necessarily warming up to Prince Harry's, you know, insistence on public security. This is someone who lives in the U.S. America is a country, as we all know, that, you know, you have the right to bear arms. You can be shot walking into Walmart, you know, as you've seen in the University of Nevada this weekend. You can be shot because a disgruntled professor was an—didn't have a job offer from a particular university. He feels comfortable in the U.S. because he has access to armed security. But in the U.K., he doesn't have that kind of access because firearms are regulated differently and firearm officers are a completely different section of public life. Now, the misconception here is that if he's in the U.K., he will receive no security and that he will not be protected. That is actually not the case. So, most celebrities like, you know, the Beckhams and anyone who's wealthy enough to afford private security have a private security detail that is often assisted by the police as and when threats become, you know, relevant or they become exposed. Anesta, look, there hasn't been a formal response from the royal family in the aftermath of the release of Endgame. But, look, we understand from, you know, palace sources that the king won't be emotionally blackmailed by Prince Harry. Is that the position? That's definitely the position. I mean, I don't know if you remember, you know, a few weeks ago for the king's birthday, they allegedly received a call from the Duke and Duchess of Sussex and their children wishing him happy birthday. He did hint that him and Meghan would accept an invitation to Sandringham for Christmas this year, although it has not been clear that even an offer of an invitation has been made. So, that's—those are interesting reports there. But we know that when the king decided to terminate the Duke and Duchess of Sussex's ability to live at Frogmore Cottage earlier this year in the summer, he apparently called his father and said, don't you want to see his grandchildren? Don't you want to see your grandchildren? And many people took that as a form of emotional blackmail. We know that the royal family have been quite mute on this issue with Owen Scobie's book and the revelation that the royal racists are apparently King Charles and Princess Catherine, which we all—which most of the public don't seem to pay much mind to. But at the end of the day, the reality is Prince Harry has effectively eroded any sort of possibility of any meaningful relationship with his family. And I think that's a reality that's really starting to sink in. I really don't understand on what planet he thinks his behavior over the last few years would be conducive to any sort of relationship with his family. Most people saying that, you know, if they had a family member that behaved in the way that Meghan and Harry have, there's no relationship there to be salvaged. And I really think he's deluded himself into believing that he can have it all. Now, we know that King Charles attended COP28. He gave a speech, which is a little bit controversial in itself, depending who you speak to. But there was also a controversy around a tie that he wore at the conference. Can you tell us about that? Yeah, so the king wore a tie with the Greek flag on it, basically, and many people are alluding to that this was in tacit support of the Greek prime minister, which, if you remember a few weeks ago, Rishi Sunak canceled a meeting with him because there were disagreements over what he wanted to discuss. Apparently, he was going to use his platform with Rishi Sunak to discuss the return of the Elgin marbles. Now, I have to be transparent and say that I have no dog in this fight with regards to the Elgin marbles. I'm not Greek. I do think there is a strong case to returning the marbles. But again, it's not something that keeps me up or most of the members of the British public up at night. Most people don't even know what they are. But there's been kind of this ongoing PR dispute, particularly with the leader of the opposition, Keir Starmer, and Rishi Sunak, over whether these marbles should be returned, whether it was right for Rishi Sunak to cancel the meeting over that. I happen to think that he was actually right because even if you do want to discuss the Elgin marbles, it's not at a meeting where it has been designated to discuss other more pressing issues like immigration in Europe and the economy and all of that. Now, I don't actually think this move by King Charles to wear a tie with the Greek flag on it was an intacit kind of agreement with the prime minister of Greece, even though I suspect he probably leans more towards returning the Elgin marbles. We have to remember that King Charles' father, Prince Philip, was actually Greek. He was a Greek prince. So it's not surprising that he will have some affinity with his heritage in that way. I think, actually, King Charles is more clever than people give him credit for. And I don't think he will make those kinds of PR blunders lightly. And so I do think that there is an element of bad faith. I'm not necessarily fond of King Charles still going to COP28 and still trying to get involved in an increasingly political debate with regards to action to tackle climate change and all of that. But I do think in this particular instance, it just happened to be something to celebrate his own heritage. Thank you so much for that, Esther. Excellent insights, as always. Thank you so much for joining us.