Writing with a mother’s heart, I find it
impossible to condemn the foolish frolics of Prince Harry, who serves in our
armed forces – against the will of the establishment – and risks his life along
with the rest of our brave troops each and every working day.
I gave birth to my daughter around the same
time Harry was born and I suppose I have watched him grow up, along with
everyone else, via the media.
For my own daughter, I have been a constant
presence, the daily backdrop to her life. Always there for her, I have played
the role which, like all mothers, provides the invisible, subtle boundaries that all
children need in place to bounce off.
Harry lost his own mother at the age of
twelve, possibly one of the most formative years of his young life, and which
of us who watched Diana’s funeral, can forget the very brave little soldier in
the face of the world’s cameras, following her coffin.
There can be no doubt that had Harry’s mother lived, he would
be a very different person today. However, that doesn’t mean he still wouldn’t
have got his kit off in a private party whilst playing strip pool.
He may have been a foolish Prince, but he
is our Prince, and that is why I find the photographs being published by a
British newspaper so utterly reprehensible. Newspapers which spent days, if not
weeks, covering the funeral of his mother, who was after all literally driven to
her death by the media.
There was absolutely no public interest in
publishing the photos. It was about a British newspaper chasing profit and
failing to support our unique Royal family, who are, after all, just a family,
with children like the rest of us who mess up every now and then.
It was a private party in a private room.
Harry was not photographed paying for sex, taking illegal drugs, or engaging in
anything other than a soldier letting off steam on holiday.
If he had been my son, his naked butt would
have been roasted to Vegas and back again, but he isn’t and I am quite sure if
his mother had been alive, he would have faced the same consequences.
I was bitterly disappointed to
see the face of Louise Mensch, and the words taken from her interview on the
Today programme supporting the Sun, used by the paper as a justification for
their actions.
The Sun headline above the photograph of
Louise Mensch stating, ‘MPs back
the Sun’ is wrong. She is a former MP who has resigned midterm, supposedly for
the sake of her family and has, without doubt, handed her seat to Labour. A
pill very hard for some to swallow when she appears on her social media site
and Twitter by the minute and has no problem leaving her family, popping up on
the media on a regular basis, even to condemn Prince Harry.
One of the most unprofessional and
undignified comments ever heard in a select committee hearing was when Louise
Mensch announced that she had to leave a crucial, televised hearing involving
the Murdochs, in order to do the school run. As she left she schmoozed to James
Murdoch, in the witness chair at the time, ‘I believe we have children the same
age’. This was stomach turning for female MPs, who act in a professional manner
in order not to be judged lacking against our male peers, knowing that hell
would freeze over before any male MP would behave in the same way.
Louise has always put her own ambitions
first. She has spent her entire time in Parliament void of principle, as an
ultimate loyalist Cameroon, regardless of the issues, and then commented in
frustration ‘what do I have to do to get promoted?’.
Having schmoozed the Murdochs in a select
committee, followed up by her backing of their sad decison to print the
photographs, who knows, maybe she will be luckier in the job stakes this time
now that she has made herself available, having walked away from a seat she
knew she may lose at the next election?
However, I would ask the former MP, next
time she wants to open her mouth about a boy who lost his mother at the hands
of the media in a way which shocked the world, she might want to look to her
own heart and wonder how she would feel?
After all, it’s not as though Prince Harry
has admitted to taking illegal drugs, abandoned his post, or failed to turn up
to work every Thursday in the style of Louise Mensch, now is it?