Insulted?

This whole saga surrounding Prince Harry is, I think, so very unfair. In making a personal video, Harry, apparently, insulted one of his squad-mates by calling him a “paki”.

There are two things to be noted here:

1. It was a personal video – it was not meant to be seen publically.

2. It was directed towards a mate. There was nothing meant by the remark, in the same way that nicknames such as ‘shorty’ or ‘ginge’ mean nothing for example.

Yet over the weekend we have been subjected to various different groups throwing their hats into the ring saying how Harry was out of line and racially incorrect. They have succeeded in forcing the royal family and Harry into an apology as public outcry continues. Harry, apparently, is not allowed to laugh and joke around with his mates in the same way that any other young man can. Whilst I accept that Harry is a public figure, I think there are times that we should accept his privacy, and accept that he will say things which may not always be politically correct, in the same way that most people are not always politically correct when they are talking with friends.

Now I understand the difference between a nickname such as those given above and a nickname which makes reference to race or ethnicity. But that is not the point, the point is that it was a joke, it was a personal, private affair; and Harry should not be chastised for it at all.

In the dark: the life of the Bullet Magnet…

So good old Harry is living his dream of killing the Taleban in Afghanistan. And the army, as well as the royal family tried to keep the public in the dark about this. Sensibly in my opinion. The trouble is, much like communism, it was reliant upon everybody agreeing to it. And, as is so often the case with the press, they simply will not.

Being fair, apparently all the British media obvserved the royal family’s wishes, it was the foreign papers who let the cat out of the bag. I can’t be bothered to say that much on the subject, I just thought it was a naive approach to assume all the media across the world would let this story lie. Obviously they wouldn’t, and as soon as the story became public, it was a race to report on it as soon as anyone could. Harry cannot like being such a target for either the media or the Taleban, but, as a sensible man, he is aware of the dangers of both.

I’m just left wondering which he finds worse. The media, or the Taleban. It must be a close run thing.

Editors Note:

Having posted this yesterday, it is disappointing to see that as soon as the story was leaked Harry was removed amid “concerns for his safety”. This is rubbish. Of course there should be concerns, he was in Afghanistan fighting the Taleban, there’s fewer hostile places on Earth at the moment. I feel sorry for him. After all, if he has trained to be in the army, and he is not being allowed to do it, then what can he do?