{"id":40876,"date":"2023-12-17T09:50:06","date_gmt":"2023-12-17T09:50:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/?p=40876"},"modified":"2023-12-17T09:50:09","modified_gmt":"2023-12-17T09:50:09","slug":"harry-wanted-respect-now-with-this-court-victory-hes-earned-it","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/2023\/12\/17\/harry-wanted-respect-now-with-this-court-victory-hes-earned-it\/","title":{"rendered":"Harry wanted respect. Now, with this court victory, he\u2019s earned it"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Whatever else might be said about Prince Harry, he got to pull the sword from the stone. He got his day in court, his longed-for legal vindication, winning phone hacking rulings against the Mirror group. The hacked-off royal even got to witness arch-enemy Piers Morgan\u2019s head roll into the executioner\u2019s basket (though, characteristically, the former\u00a0Daily Mirror<\/em>\u00a0editor failed to go quietly, accusing Harry and wife Meghan of scheming to bring down the monarchy).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For Harry, there must also be the sense of ethical, almost biblical, restoration, not least of his reputation. You felt it thrumming behind the statement read out by his lawyer outside court, hailing the ruling as a \u201cgreat day for truth\u201d. He\u2019s been awarded \u00a3140,600 in damages. Scotland Yard hasn\u2019t ruled out a criminal inquiry. So, what now for Harry, self-styled \u201cdragon slayer\u201d and would-be reformer of the British media?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Few could deny that Harry has been the most tarnished British prince of the modern era, which is saying something (two words: \u201cPrince\u201d and \u201cAndrew\u201d). First the upbringing in the regal Truman Show<\/em> of pomp and privilege, and the loss of his mother, Diana (12-year-old Harry walking behind her coffin with his brother, William, in what now registers as globally televised child abuse).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Then, of course, Meghan Markle, AKA misogyny-bingo made flesh (entitled starlet, wily gold-digger \u2013 take your pick). Followed by Megxit (The Great Escape<\/em>) to celebrity-stuffed Montecito, California. The exhaustively reported details of their departure (including race and mental health) don\u2019t technically apply here: the rulings relate to earlier intrusion, and only Harry. But when it comes to Harry\u2019s fall from media grace (his transformation to reputational roadkill; the industrial victim-blaming) the smart money is on him and Meghan.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I was among those who were wishing the Sussexes well when they left Britain, but here\u2019s where it got tricky for their supporters. Too often, Harry came across as a thin-skinned, paranoid hot mess.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Cue the large-scale erosion of public goodwill, prompted by the Sussexes\u2019 own actions. Delivering what amounted to\u00a0Through The Buckingham Palace Keyhole<\/em>\u00a0to Oprah Winfrey from upmarket Californian garden furniture. The dull Netflix series (from a deal worth a reported \u00a388m) that mainly consisted of complaining, self-soothing and monitoring their fame on his-and-hers laptops. Signing up to Spotify (another reported \u00a316m), then\u00a0losing that deal\u00a0<\/a>and getting labelled\u00a0\u201cgrifters\u201d by an executive.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Since then, their personal ratings have been in freefall. Even Harry\u2019s memoir,\u00a0Spare<\/em>, the fastest-selling non-fiction book ever, seemed a grimy, petty read. Cast as the Prince of Wails, selling out his family for a quick buck, he was constantly savaged by bad press (sometimes deserved, but \u2013 let\u2019s face it \u2013 it was in certain people\u2019s interests to discredit him). Worst of all, there was the\u00a0South Park<\/em>\u00a0<\/a>episodelampooning the Sussexes\u2019 \u201cWorldwide Privacy Tour\u201d, which arguably they never fully recovered from. Even now, in Harry\u2019s moment of glory, the court threw out 18 of the 33 sample cases, pointing out his \u201ctendency to assume\u201d that every story written about him was obtained illegally.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So, it\u2019s complicated. For all that, here the runaway royal is: battered, bruised, but triumphant after succeeding where so many others didn\u2019t have the energy, will (or indeed the funds) to try. For Harry, this should be appreciated for what it is: the hard-won restoration of his good name, a reputational cleansing on a global scale.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For all the mistakes that have been made, for all the human blunders and missteps, some important things can\u2019t be denied. He stuck to his guns. He was true to his word. He said he would fight for justice, and he did. He said he would take it all the way, and he has. It\u2019s reported his chief aim is to reform the British media, and for now, for what may be a brief golden moment, certain sectors of the press have abruptly stopped laughing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

By anyone\u2019s reckoning, it has been a courageous and audacious stand and, despite his wealth and privilege, one taken at great personal risk. As a royal prince, Harry, Duke of Sussex, was born into automatic status and prestige. Now not only is his reputation restored, but this time, he actually earned it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

source: Barbara Ellen<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Whatever else might be said about Prince Harry, he got to pull the sword from the stone. He got his day in court, his longed-for legal vindication, winning phone hacking rulings against the Mirror group. The hacked-off royal even got to witness arch-enemy Piers Morgan\u2019s head roll into the executioner\u2019s basket (though, characteristically, the former\u00a0Daily […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":40877,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_post_source_name":"","_post_source_url":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[80,57],"tags":[4791,1079,2014,5307,5268,6900,2848,7599,9214,9315,7897,10507,10884,2610,5494,11067,5455,5918,12921,3722,9385,8697,69,12634,10419,10776,70,2812,9336,5913,5316,5612,5936,11973,2352,7039,1793,965,10614,6200,5807,5151,4536,9881,9247,8318,9847,6272,146,10885,594,6974],"class_list":["post-40876","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-entertainment","category-opinion","tag-abuse","tag-aka","tag-and-meghan","tag-britain","tag-british","tag-buckingham-palace","tag-california","tag-celebrity","tag-child","tag-child-abuse","tag-coffin","tag-court","tag-daily-mirror","tag-duke-of-sussex","tag-energy","tag-escape","tag-family","tag-gold","tag-goodwill","tag-guns","tag-hacked","tag-hacking","tag-harry","tag-health","tag-justice","tag-lawyer","tag-meghan","tag-meghan-markle","tag-memoir","tag-mental-health","tag-monarchy","tag-money","tag-netflix","tag-one","tag-oprah-winfrey","tag-phone","tag-piers-morgan","tag-prince-harry","tag-privacy","tag-race","tag-risk","tag-scotland","tag-scotland-yard","tag-smart","tag-spare","tag-spotify","tag-sussexes","tag-the-monarchy","tag-truth","tag-victory","tag-who","tag-worldwide"],"blocksy_meta":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40876","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=40876"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40876\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":40878,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40876\/revisions\/40878"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/40877"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=40876"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=40876"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=40876"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}