Daily Mail Goes Royally Spare

As was amply demonstrated by Edwin Hayward more than a year and a half ago, it matters not a jot whether the Sussexes say anything in public or keep totally schtum - our free and fearless press has decided that, in failing to do the usual Royal deal with the papers, it will dump viciously and constantly upon them, a situation exacerbated by Haz’n’Megs’ legal actions.

Also exacerbating the press hostility is the equally vicious racism directed at the Duchess: from talk of “exotic blood”, to “Harry’s girl is [almost] Straight Outta Compton”, to the ultimate exercise in plausible deniability, Sarah “Vain” Vine having a NIGG-ling worry about Megs, the dog-whistling has been both unmistakable, and equally inexcusable. Now it is getting ridiculous.

We have known for some time that Haz has written, or partly written, a memoir called “Spare”, which will be published next week. The press, and especially the Mail titles (against whom the Sussexes have taken legal action, in which, so far, the Mail titles have lost), have speculated ad infinitum, and indeed ad nauseam, over the contents. Now they know some of the detail.

This is because some of the outlets selling the book in Spain have begun to sell copies ahead of the agreed launch date. Now that some of the press has translated the contents, the inmates of the Northcliffe House bunker, under the less than benign leadership of their editor-in-chief, the legendarily foul mouthed Paul Dacre, have decided to throw that book back at Haz.

What the f***'s this got to do with me, c***?!?!?

The ranting headline is all that the most discerning rant connoisseur could wish for: first it teases “Jan Moir’s Unmissable Verdict” (about which few people give a flying foxtrot), before thundering “World stunned by prince’s litany of excruciating attacks on family … Writes of ‘assault’ by William, bust-up with Kate & ‘wicked stepmother’ Camilla … But after years of hearing him wail about HIS privacy, millions will groan … OH SPARE US!”

Quite apart from the unintended benefit to both Haz and the charities which are set to receive significant sums from sales of the book - all this attention will mean it sells out next week, the week after that, and the week after that - the Mail manages to miss that they need the Sussexes. Badly.

The Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday are heavy on opinion writers - pundits who are paid obscenely large sums of money to dispense their superior insights to the titles’ readership. In doing so, they shape public opinion, bending it to the iron will of the Vagina Monologue. As the Sussexes have taken the titles to court, they must be punished until they repent.

Jan who? Rebecca who?

Were Haz’n’Megs to accede to the sneering bigotry and play nice with papers like the Mail, the hatred would evaporate overnight. That would also be true if the Duchess were to cease blanking the appalling Piers Morgan, whose obsession with her shows no sign of abating. But they won’t play nice, so the Mail trowels on the abuse at every opportunity. It’s the next best solution.

After all, it sells papers, and so helps pay for all those opinion writers. Hence Jan Moir being sent over the top to be characteristically catty about her targets. And Rebecca English, so-called Royal Editor, having her name above that front page lead. Pundits who would be unemployable in the big bad real world outside the bubble of our out of touch media class.

But the cracks are already beginning to appear in the Mail’s edifice of hatred: the version of the paper that readers in the USA see takes a rather less hostile line, with Ms Moir’s swipe relegated to further down the page, although the line that the Mail is getting the US media to take a more hostile line towards Haz keeps getting peddled. But the Sussexes are popular there.

Above all, this faux outrage - so the Royals are a dysfunctional family like so many others No Shock Horror - allows the Mail, while claiming to be loyal and patriotic (and based for tax purposes not in the UK), to sling the biggest dead cat it can find on the table, rather than let its Middle England readership know that the country is in a very bad way, and the Mail is directly responsible.

It was the Mail that dumped on Ed Miliband (including the anti-Semitic attacks) to keep Young Dave in Downing Street. It was the Mail that then called anti-Semitism on Jeremy Corbyn. It was the Mail that slavishly supported Theresa May, before slavishly supporting now-disgraced Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson, and then - God help us - Liz Truss.

The Mail titles have backed every last inept politician in Westminster. How convenient for them to be able to tell readers to Look Over There, even as the NHS is on its knees, the cost of living is ever-increasing, and industrial unrest threatens to boil over into actual civil unrest. They sell papers, the momentary interest is maintained, and they get away with hypocrisy and mendacity.

But the public is not as stupid as the Mail hopes. We see you, Paul Dacre.

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