Faced with the Duke and Duchess of Sussex’s six-part Netflix documentary series, many will dismiss them as a distraction at a difficult time for the nation. In one perspective, that is a completely fair response. If you weigh the anger and hurt felt by two exceptionally wealthy and entitled people living in California against the struggles and deprivation facing millions of underpaid Britons grappling with a daunting cost of living crisis and unable to afford a Netflix contract, there can only be one conclusion. It is the underprivileged many who have the deeper grievances against contemporary Britain, not the super-privileged few like Harry and Meghan.
The disjunction between the world of the royals and ex-royals on the one hand and the world of ordinary people on the other feels particularly glaring and cruel this week. The documentaries are being launched in a battened-down, battered country in which 3 million families cannot afford to heat their homes as the winter weather turns Arctic across a continent blighted by war. It is a country in which more than 7 million people are waiting for treatment from the National Health Service. It is one facing prolonged industrial disruption over low wages. And it is one in which a divided and broken government has given the go-ahead for a new coalmine forecast to pump out more carbon emissions than Cardiff, Edinburgh and Belfast combined. In this real Britain, the bread and circuses of the royal family seem infantile.
