Phil Brown Bread - Let’s Blame Meg

So Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh and Royal spouse, has passed just short of his hundredth birthday. A life notable as much for what it tells us of the retreat from monarchy across much of Europe, as the inevitable talk of duty and devotion, Philip was one of the now few survivors of those who served in World War 2.

Brian Kilmeade - with North and South flapping away

Sadly for the Royals, though, much of the talk today is not that Phil The Greek, as he was more often known (despite having to leave the country at rather a young age), had a decent innings, but is being taken up by self-appointed pundits not only making it all about Themselves Personally Now, but also trying to make it about the Duchess of Sussex.

After all, many in our free and fearless press used Phil being in hospital as a reason why Haz and Meg’s interview with Oprah should not have been aired. It was inevitable, with the certainty of night following day, that some of them would blame her for his demise.

Brutus Moriartus, this man is a bit of a crawler

Fortunately, former Screws and Daily Mirror editor Piers Morgan was not one of them - well, not yet, anyway. He was merely pitching for a brown nose award. “RIP Prince Philip, 99. A truly great Briton who dedicated his life to selfless public duty & was an absolute rock of devoted support to Her Majesty, The Queen, as the longest-serving royal consort to any British sovereign. A very sad day for our country. Thank you, Sir”. Pass the sick bucket.

Mail Online, though, where Morgan is an “editor at large”, was already shaping up to kick the Sussexes, starting with “Will Harry and Meghan go back to the UK after Prince Philip's death?” and moving right along through “Prince Harry is coming back to the UK for Prince Philip’s funeral – but will Meghan?” to get rather adjacent to blaming Meg for it all.

“How Prince Philip's last 12 months were marred by bitter fallout from Harry and Meghan's decision to quit 'the firm’”. Shola Mos-Shogbamimu, who you can tell as she’s a doctor, tried to get the more partisan to desist: “the haters out with sharp knives. Prince Phillip died from old age not by #HarryandMeghan. Just stop the nonsense - ENOUGH. You can wish him #RIP, support #Meghan from blood hungry media & haters and still hold Monarchy accountable when wrong. It really isn't difficult”. But she was too late.

That was because the rodent-faced Brian Kilmeade, a breakfast show host at Fox News Channel (fair and balanced my arse), who knows that he works for anti-Royalist Rupert Murdoch but also knows how to chase ratings, went there and blamed the Sussexes.

As Bobby Lewis observed, “Brian Kilmeade connects the death of 99-year-old Prince Philip to Meghan Markle & Prince Harry's Oprah interview: ‘If you factor in this, there are reports that he was enraged after the interview ... Here he is trying to recover, and then he gets hit with that’”. What reports would those be, O Not So Wise One?

But Kilmeade and his fellow FNC hosts know full well how the media works, and especially our free and fearless press. That was the green light for a campaign of blame: that Meg is heavily pregnant with her second child is not allowed to enter. They have already decided that She Done It, that she is fair game, and in any case they don’t care what she thinks.

The media is crap on both sides of the North Atlantic. But you knew that anyway.

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