Douglas Murray examines ‘stark contrast’ between Princess Kate and the Sussexes

Now, let's go back to the UK. There were some heartwarming scenes at Wimbledon with Princess Catherine receiving a standing ovation. It was rather emotional. And Douglas, there's certainly a great deal of love and goodwill for her from the British public. She's in so many ways the polar opposite of the most attention-seeking royals at the moment, Harry and Meghan. Well, she is. And I mean, it's sort of inevitable always that people will hold these up as rivals or competitors or something like this. But really, I mean, the story with Princess Catherine is simply that she has just not put a foot wrong since she first entered public life many years ago now. And that just stands in stark contrast, not just to Meghan, but to Harry, who was brought up to know what the rules were of public service and of, you know, never complain, never explain. He was brought up in all of that. He, like his wife, has just completely flouted all of that. And Princess Catherine, who was not brought up in that, has adopted it and has been rewarded in the way that people are when they do that. When members of the royal family share a duty to the country and a duty to the public, the public returns the warmth in kind. You know, it's why Princess Anne, you know, who's a less glamorous figure, perhaps, than the now Princess of Wales, has huge public admiration because she's seen to be giving her tie of life to the country and to all of the causes and charities and good causes within it. In the end, that's how people get public admiration within the royal family. It is by showing a sense of duty. It is not by setting up in California at a multi-square million dollar mansion and making jam that you then flout. Who knew? Well, yes, it is. And you think it's all about style, but really to earn the love of the British public, you have to have some substance about you as well. And Princess Catherine certainly has that. The Queen always understood her role. She remained, Douglas, apolitical, but King Charles seems to struggle with that a little bit. He's now officially in charge of saving the planet. His role has been redefined to include leading on environmental sustainability. Do we really need or want a climate King Douglas? No, I mean, this really has to be, I hope that the King's advisors keep this stuff away from him. As Prince of Wales, there was an argument for him to have personal causes of his own, personal campaigns of his own. On a number of those, the then Prince of Wales was seen to be actually ahead of his time, quite often faced ridicule on things like organic farming and so on, but was often actually ahead of his time and deserves some credit for that. And that's something you can do as Prince of Wales. But once he's King, I'm afraid that all of that stuff is a luxury that he just can't afford. None of the things that could be the day-to-day stuff of politics and politicking can be in his realm. His realm is to be King and to be above politics and to be above all of this sort of thing. And that just has a very, very special role in a constitutional monarchy, because otherwise, basically, you're stuck in the sort of day-to-day Ed Miliband-ness of everything, for instance. You're sort of stuck in being climate secretary and talking about emissions and so on. That's not what the monarchy is there for. The light that the monarchy can shed on a constitutional system is the light of something that is above politics and above the fray and that unites people. And as you say, Rita, the late queen was an absolute master of that. Nobody ever knew where she stood on anything other than her service to the country and her love for the country and the Commonwealth. Other than that, it was an absolutely closed box. And I think that was the ideal, that is the ideal. And it's one that Prince Charles, now King Charles, was brought up with. And I hope his advisors advise him to try to stick to that, his mother's example.