Meghan's businesses are struggling - so is it any wonder she's now trying to use her CHILDREN to rescue her brand? And here's why Harry won't be happy about it!
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How lovely it is to see – and now hear! – the King’s ‘other ‘grandchildren at long last.
On Sunday Meghan treated us to pictures of Archie, five, and his three-year-old sister Lilibet picking roses in the garden of the family’s Montecito mansion.
The day before, it was videos of Archie excitedly feeding their Koi carp and Lilibet helping her ‘Mom’ make strawberry jam. Both children have American accents and Lilibet an adorable lisp.
We don’t get to see their faces, of course, just the back of a head or a cute little profile. But in the past few months we’ve certainly seen more of them than ever before in the carefully curated snaps released by Meghan.
And the cynic in me is wondering: why now?
When the Duke and Duchess of Sussex walked away from the Royal family and a life of public duty to quit these shores, they cited their need for ‘privacy’ as a key reason for doing so. ‘I think everyone has a basic right to privacy,’ Meghan told Oprah Winfrey during that tell-all TV interview, seemingly unaware of the irony.
More revelations were to come in their 2022 Netflix documentary, closely followed by Harry’s memoir Spare that even revealed how he lost his virginity in a field behind a pub.
Little wonder they were then witheringly lampooned in an episode of South Park featuring the thinly disguised ‘Prince and Princess of Canada’ and their ‘World Wide Privacy Tour’!
I suppose interpretations of the word private may vary. The Sussexes, it seemed, were happy to override a desire for privacy if it could be leveraged financially. But at least when it came to their children, I thought they were getting it right.
I understand Harry was adamant that his children’s lives would be free of the public gaze. Which is unavoidable for their cousins, George, Charlotte and Louis back in the UK.
So, after years of keeping Archie and Lilibet out of view – apart from the release of sanctioned images – why are they suddenly cropping up now?
Is it because their presence might be perceived as helping Meghan’s aspirational lifestyle brand, As Ever, sold as it is on the idea of perfection in the home and joyful family life as she projects the Californian image of motherhood and apple pie?
The Duchess is said to have entrepreneurial ambitions, but things haven’t been going quite her way of late. The Sussexes’ Spotify deal collapsed and her Netflix reality series With Love, Meghan was a critical failure. There is footage shot for a second series but quite why anyone would bother watching this banal show is beyond me.
I can’t honestly believe that Harry will be entirely happy with his children being seen on social media in this way. No one knows better than the prince that placing your children in the spotlight like this diminishes any claims you make for privacy.
Her latest podcast venture, Confessions of a Female Founder, is struggling after just a handful of episodes, dropping out of the Spotify top 100 podcasts and failing to penetrate the Apple top 200. A dearth of big name guests seem to be the problem, as the Sussexes’ popularity slides in the US.
And now suddenly we have sweet videos of the children posted on Meghan’s Instagram account, a surefire way of securing headlines in newspapers and media sites worldwide.
Whatever the motivation for Meghan’s actions this weekend, I can’t help thinking how lovely it would have been for their grandfather King Charles – who hasn’t seen his half-American grandchildren face to face since they were aged three and one – to receive those videos privately rather than having to share them with millions of us. And we can only imagine how he must have felt.
Chivalry is alive and well, as I was delighted to discover while standing in a queue at an M&S petrol station with a basket full of shopping recently.
When the young man in front of me had settled with the cashier he swung around, saying ‘Allow me’.
Then he took my basket and placed it up on the counter next to the till. Somewhat stunned, I thanked him. He responded with a smile and ‘It’s my pleasure’ as he headed off.
My faith in the male species was instantly restored – until it dawned on me that this is what happens when you get older. Good-looking men take pity on you and offer to help you with your shopping as opposed to flirting with you.
Well, I can always pretend...
I picked up a brush for the first time since I was a teenager last week when I attended an artists’ workshop at The Bell pub in Charlbury, Oxfordshire, with a friend.
She took one look at me when I turned up – I was wearing a white shirt and my favourite white jeans – and fell about laughing. She was in scruffy, paint-spattered overalls.
I joked I was a blank canvas but, in another act of chivalry, a kind barman took pity on me and produced a bin bag with holes cut out for my head and arms.
I was saved by The Bell!
Migration mess-up
Yet more empty words on tackling illegal migration from Labour as they cynically and desperately attempt to woo the many voters for whom it’s a key issue in the local elections.
The number of illegal migrants reaching Britain in small boats now stands at 10,000 since January – around a third up from the previous all-time high for this period, in 2022. As the weather improves, numbers will rise even further.
They promise a ‘crackdown’ but the truth is that Starmer & Co have no substantive policy on this or any solution to it. And they promptly cancelled measures brought in by the Tories – most notably the Rwanda scheme – which would have had an impact.
Even its planned introduction had begun acting as a deterrent in diverting illegal migrants from these shores.
Ask yourself this: how many would be prepared to pay thousands of pounds to people traffickers to risk a trip across the Channel in a dodgy dinghy if they knew that, on arrival in the UK, they’d be popped on a plane to Rwanda while their cases were assessed? I’d say the answer is zero.
A little local difficulty
As for the Tories, I despair at their woeful efforts. There appears to be no game plan, no strategy upon which to campaign, let alone win, at a local level.
Anyone in politics for long enough knows that before you win in Westminster, you win locally. When you start to lose at a local level, the Westminster losses will surely follow.
Of course, Kemi Badenoch can’t deliver the huge gains made at local elections when Boris Johnson was PM, but she could at least try.
We know where she stands on trans issues – but beyond that..?
The lack of coherent messaging has not been helped by party director of strategy, Rachel Maclean, reportedly taking a holiday in the Himalayas in the run-up to these elections. Is this a joke? Will she be back in time to do the media rounds acknowledging the losses and bleating about how they must try harder?
She’d be better off staying in the mountains because I can promise her and the rest of the party, after this abysmal effort, that no one is listening.
At a friend’s house for lunch the bowls were hurriedly taken back moments after dessert had been served.
The hard, dried remnants of Christmas pudding were sitting in the bottom of some dishes, having evaded a less than effective dishwasher cycle.
‘Oh, don’t worry,’ laughed one guest to the mortified host. ‘It’s not like it’ll be in the Mail.’ Oops!
