“Harry, you’ve really upset your granny and destroyed the entire Royal family,” the tabloids screamed, as Prince Andrew slowly chewed a damp cold pizza without breaking a sweat.
Meghan Markle and the Harry formerly known as Prince are the target of wrath from the very same people who stood in the sunshine crying, clutching teddy bears and balloons, as they genuinely wept for their Princess, his poor Mother who was unlawfully killed. I will never quite understand – but at the same time fully understand – why some of the same folk who voted for Brexit to Make Britain Great Again really don’t like Meghan.
I have no horse in this elaborately-organised Covid safe race (unlike Cheltenham then), but I am pretty sure a woman didn’t announce she was pregnant just to upset the Queen or poke the eye out of one of Andrew’s lovely lassies (that sentence should be read carefully and twice).
The melodrama of what is happening in The Royal family can be neither confirmed nor denied, and unnamed sources do not an eyewitness make. It is basically the same as Old Senga hanging over the veranda in a housing scheme and spreading gossip about Big Sharon who might be two-timing her boyfriend Stevie during lockdown, because a woman on Facebook said it.
READ MORE: Janey Godley joins The Herald with weekly column amid launch of new subscriber-only digital platform
We don’t really know who said what. Some of us don’t really care.
We do know that it was rumoured that Boris (the newly-appointed professional chair wiper) was about to unleash the magnificent persuasive power of Prince Edward on the Scottish masses, to make them never sway from the Union. Eddie, the failed fringe thespian of the Windsor crew, was going to love bomb us into taking a knee for Boris.
A tartan-clad Mandalorian marching through the wobbly cobbled streets of Edinburgh, he’ll throw small pieces of Union flag candy to the barefooted kids as they cried in happiness at his presence, the saltire facepaint running down onto their SNP t-shirts as they pledged to stay true to the Westminster wags.
I can’t imagine Prince Edward was taken by the idea that he and his happily settled family were to uproot like a wandering tribe and stay in Scotland against their wishes for an elaborate PR stunt. Even without the Edinburgh Fringe, that is quite a five-star event. For starters, where would they live? Isn’t there a housing crisis in Edinburgh? Didn’t rich people buy all the fancy flats for student lets? I can’t see the royals applying for a two-bedroom down the Dumbiedykes and joining the local community theatre.
Poor Edward and his young family, wrapped in bear rugs, eye patches and gold bracelets, looking over the wall at Edinburgh Castle and repeating “Winter is Coming” for eleven months of the year isn’t something anyone wants to see.
Our collective fascination with the Royal Family is something that we have to admit will be the one subject that will bring out the angry trolls on any social media platform.
But if having a member of the Royal family stay in Scotland is the only thing which will make Scottish people vote against independence, then William would never have been allowed to leave St Andrews. He would still be there in his college flat doing a PhD as a mature student with Catherine organising her home-made Jam business on her Esty page.
It’s as if either Boris Johnson has workshopped some really bad ideas about saving the union OR he really has no idea that we in Scotland know the difference between the Netflix show The Crown and real life. This week, his “Keep The Union” guy got the sack because Boris’s bidey in didn’t like the cut of his jib, so that’s going great already. Maybe I should apply for the job, remotely?
The person who came up with the “Let’s Send Edward To Scotland” suggestion must have blurted that out in a panic and been astounded that someone said “Great idea!” We’ve all been there in pitch meetings, like that time I suggested me and George Clooney live in a remote Highland cottage with a single bed for a TV show. People just stared at me in horror in the same way the pitch for “Location, Location, Location with Eddie” should have been treated.
READ MORE: Donald MacAskill: The time is right to open up our care homes
Harry and Meghan seem happy in their own world in the USA. They will go on Oprah, hang out with Gwyneth Paltrow, start a candle-making class and upload their weekly podcast in between taking the weans to tumble tots and baby massage courses. What could be better?
At least Trump has left the White House and been decanted, as we say in Glasgow, to Florida. America already seems a nice place for people to enjoy, despite the fact the far right have taken umbrage with the tufty matted coat of Biden’s big dug Major. How dare his dug look like a dug?
Piers Morgan is really annoyed at Meghan as well, and I suspect he shouts her name in his sleep. His pigtail-pulling behaviour is bewildering for a bloke his age, like that guy who got spectacularly stood up on a weekend break in Carlisle 20 years ago, had to eat alone at a Toby Carvery, will never let it go and to this day writes nasty comments on the Instagram page of the woman who escaped his advances about her latest eyelash extensions.
I hope Harry and Meghan get on with their life. I don’t really think about them until I see how much they upset everyone. I struggle to find something interesting about their marriage and their life. That’s how it should be.
People and the press should instead focus on Matt “Am your pal” Hancock, who acted unlawfully for giving his mates contracts for PPE that never worked out, but that won’t happen. The public are too wrapped up foaming at the mouth over two people who don’t even know them, or possibly would ever want to.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel