Meghan + Mail + Latte = Smear

The Mail titles’ obsession with the Duchess of Sussex has long ventured beyond mere journalism, and has reached the creepy and disturbing phase. This has been especially true of the Mail on Sunday, which, having received a legal drubbing from Meg, and in accordance with the iron law of Northcliffe House, has gone in search of stories - any stories - which will show her in a bad light and prove they were right all along.

This is being done while, all across our free and fearless press, the denials ring out: they aren’t being unfair about Meg and Haz, there is no bigotry, honest, and to show their disinterest, the full bevy of unappealing pundits has been scrambled to go on the attack. The latest demonstration of how not creepy at all the MoS really is came yesterday.

And the headline was the full smear: “Meghan Markle's woke coffee firm bought oat milk from company based in China's 'police state' Xinjiang province where a million Muslim Uighur people are kept in camps and brutally persecuted”. She owns a coffee firm?

Well, er, no she doesn’t. But “The Duchess of Sussex announced she was investing in Clevr Blends last year … Firm imports 19 tons of an ingredient from Chinese supplier in brutal police state … Oprah Winfrey has also plugged the coffee company on her social media”. And Oprah was in on it too! There is, however, a problem here.

After trowelling it on with “The supplier - Xinjiang Haiyan International Trade - has its head office within four miles of four suspected detention centres, including a possible maximum security prison, and an alleged re-education site”, comes the admission “There is no evidence to suggest that Xinjiang Haiyan has used forced labour and The Mail on Sunday understands that the oats were neither grown nor processed in Xinjiang”.

There was more. “When contacted by an undercover reporter, a representative said that the oats are farmed and turned into milk powder in different Chinese provinces, many miles from the Uighur region. The MoS was told that Clevr Blends stopped working with Xinjiang Haiyan several months ago and now uses a US supplier, which uses Canadian oats. It's understood that Meghan had not been aware of Clevr's previous relationship with Xinjiang Haiyan”. Previous. As in Past. So the whole “story” is a crock of crap. Again.

But it didn’t stop the MoS including a photo depicting alleged human rights abuses. Nor did it stop the Murdoch Sun lifting the story and adding both its own shock horror headlines - their choice being “WHOLE LATTE TROUBLE” - along with a photo claimed to be of a Uighur detention camp. Plus the photos from the MoS article.

On top of all that, Mail Online’s so-called “editor at large”, former Screws and Daily Mirror editor Piers Morgan, has appeared with Tucker Carlson on Fox News Channel (fair and balanced my arse) to slag off Meg as part of his silence breaking. Well, with his buttocks clenched so tightly, it wouldn’t be wind that he was breaking, would it?

Meanwhile, the Mail’s This Is Money strand has brought us “Video: Would YOU invest in China right now? We ask Fidelity China's Dale Nicholls whether the Chinese consumer story can still deliver returns”. No mention of human rights there, it seems.

Principles, principles - or not, when Meg’s the target. I’ll just leave that one there.

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