Dan Wootton’s Royal Smear

So farewell then Queen Elizabeth The Second: the monarch had looked terribly frail when she met outgoing alleged Prime Minister Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson and his successor Liz Truss earlier in the week, but the speed at which the end came on Thursday still took many by surprise.

Creeps gonna creep

Not surprising enough, though, for the self-promoting part of our free and fearless press and broadcast media to move effortlessly to leverage the death of our longest-reigning head of state for their own ends, and indeed to pursue their own obsessions and hatreds. And when it comes to obsession and hatred, few can hold a candle to the singularly repellent Dan Wootton.

Wootton, now a top rating host at Gammon Broadcasting™ News (“Bacon’s News Channel”), shares an overriding obsession with former Screws and Daily Mirror editor Piers Morgan: the Sussexes. Whatever Haz and Megs get up to is, by definition, wrong. Desperate Dan has willingly joined in the vicious, vindictive and unremitting campaign to break the Duchess.

The evening before the Queen passed away, he was in full cry, as the GB News Twitter feed told: “Dan Wootton urges Prince Harry to drop plans and visit the Queen at Balmoral: ‘If he had a shred of dignity’”. Even before the death was announced, he kept going: “Harry and Meghan are making this all about themselves when the Queen is ill. I actually think if Harry had a shred of dignity he would drop today's event, leave Frogmore Cottage and go to see the Queen at Balmoral”. Harry was, in fact, on his way.

Which Wootton then sort of acknowledged. “Harry and Meghan are now also travelling to Balmoral to be by the Queen’s side”. Except she wasn’t: William had gone alone; Harry had to follow suit. But having recognised that Haz was on his way to Balmoral, the original Tweet was not amended or deleted.

And then it was on to his Mail Online column for Wootton to continue shamelessly leveraging the Queen’s death in order to pursue his creepy obsession. “If the Queen's life has taught us one thing it is that blood is thicker than water. The greatest tribute Prince Harry could pay to his grandmother is to reconcile with King Charles and Prince William”.

Evening all

But that assumes the King and his sons needed to be reconciled, which, from the King’s broadcast yesterday evening, suggests they did not, as Charles sent his love to Harry and Meghan, as they built their life overseas. Was that enough to silence Wootton, make him stop and think for just a moment, get him to back off and stop using the Queen’s death to promote Himself?

As if you need to ask. Out came the smearing iron: “A pitch perfect address to the nation by King Charles III. Vowed to move on from the issues he cares so deeply (translation: no more politics). Endorsed Wills and Kate as the Prince and Princess of Wales. Expressed his love to Harry and Meghan, even though they plan to trash him”. He just can’t help himself.

And, to be fair to Desperate Dan, nor can others in the Northcliffe House bunker, with “Royal Editor” Rebecca English also using the occasion of the Queen’s passing to lay into the Sussexes, making a series of claims about the Duchess that have been at best wildly exaggerated, and at worst contain a significant amount of falsehood and misinformation.

Such is their blind determination to trash the Sussexes, and to break the Duchess, that the right-leaning part of our media class is even prepared to use the Queen’s death as another means of attack. Senior editors and hacks see the falling sales figures, yet still imagine themselves to be in touch with the public mood, and carry on their campaign of vilification.

Much of Wootton’s social media feedback has been hostile, calling out his obsession. He may read it. He may not. But he has his instructions.

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