There is always a tipping point in Twitterstorms. A moment at which the digital hysteria over something somebody said becomes far more offensive, and far more dangerous, than what that person said.
You can feel when it happens, when the shift takes place, when it is the behaviour of the howling mob that becomes the truly shameful and anti-social thing, far more than the utterance that so outraged the mob in the first place.
Not for the first time, it was Jeremy Clarkson’s fault. The weekend news, which began with a forensic dissection of the fallout from the six unrelenting hours of the Netflix series Harry and Meghan, was soon dominated by Clarkson’s extraordinary column in the Sun, in which he wrote of the Duchess of Sussex:
‘I hate her. Not like I hate Nicola Sturgeon or Rose West. I hate her on a cellular level.’
He went on to suggest that: ‘At night, I’m unable to sleep as I lie there, grinding my teeth and dreaming of the day when she is made to parade naked through the streets of every town in Britain while the crowds chant, “Shame!” and throw lumps of excrement at her.’
“It is like living through a soap opera where everyone else views you as entertainment,” the Duke of Sussex said about life in the royal family, during six hours of prime-time, “Kardashian-style” Netflix access into Harry and Meghan’s world of “truth”.
It is now clear that theirs is a soap opera the royal family want no part in.
In one of his final statements before retiring, the city’s outgoing police chief says assertions made by the Duchess of Sussex that his officers did little to protect her are royally exaggerated.
Ladies and gentlemen, that’s a wrap. The last leg of Meghan and Harry’s docuseries aired Thursday, where we learned about institutionalized gaslighting, how terrified Harry is of big, bad Prince William and what Beyoncé thinks about the whole saga, obviously.
The final three episodes, admittedly, were the bombshell some hoped for. Harry and Meghan’s usual approach of accusing nameless figures of terrible acts went out the window. Prince William was the villain, King Charles didn’t come off much better. Hell, they even threw in some sly digs at the late Queen. For many Brits, this is a cardinal sin.
Their ghastly Netflix weep-fest was an act of slander against the British people.
What an orgy of self-pity that was. What an interminable whine-fest. Six hours of two vexing, pampered, rich celebs in a Montecito mansion moaning to the world about how hard their lives are. Just what we needed to get us through these biting winter nights when many people can’t even afford to switch the heat on. Not to worry, plebs – you can always warm your hands on the burning glow of self-righteousness emanating from the Duke and Duchess of Woke.
At the end of the sixth episode of the interminable, grotesquely self-indulgent wallow in self-pity and score-settling that constitutes Netflix’s Harry and Meghan, a single thought dominates: we’ve been had.
After all the months of hype and expectation, building up to a frenzy over the past few weeks – with every trailer for the show being scrutinised as if it was going to reveal some dark secret – the final judgement on this deeply unimpressive, prurient series has to be that it is nothing more than a cynical exercise in presenting a deeply partisan account of two obviously troubled and unhappy people’s lives: their truth, if you will.
The couple embodies the ethics of narcissism
Harry and Meghan divide opinion very much along the lines of whether one believes we have obligations beyond our control. I still remember a Christmas family row, me a stroppy teenager, that concluded with me insisting: “I didn’t ask to be born into this family.” No one ever does, of course. Which is why the putative obligations one has to one’s parents — “honour thy father and mother” in old money — cut against the grain of contemporary liberal choice-led values.
The Duke and Duchess of Sussex’s popularity in Britain plunged as their Netflix documentary series was released, according to a YouGov poll.
Just one-third of Britons – 33 per cent – now hold a positive view of Prince Harry, while three in five, or 59 per cent, hold a negative opinion of him.
It represents a 13-point drop since November, his joint lowest score since YouGov began tracking royal favourability in 2011.
Meanwhile, almost two-thirds of the public hold a negative opinion of the Duchess, representing a seven-point drop since November.
Harry and Meghan’s Netflix documentary is putting the Royal family at risk from extremists, the former head of royalty protection has warned.
Security expert Dai Davies, a former divisional commander in the Metropolitan Police, who guarded Queen Elizabeth II and other members of the Royal family, said the couple had raised a “credible threat” by attacking their relatives on race grounds.
“There’s a small minority that think Meghan walks on water,” he said. “I’ve always said there’s a greater risk from fixated individuals than there is from terrorists.
Viewers of the controversial new Netflix series on the Sussexes may be left wondering whether the Duke really believes what he says
Whatever else Meghan Markle might be guilty of, she could never be accused of not knowing her own mind. If you are planning on watching Harry & Meghan on Netflix anytime soon, you will be left in no doubt about what she thinks of the Royal family, Britain and the media (spoiler alert: none of them are positive).
In Prince Harry’s case, the picture is rather more confused. Here is a man who adoringly described the Princess of Wales as the “sister he never had” but who now appears to believe his brother only married her because she “fitted the mould”.
Poor Harry married a shrew.
He may be the reigning monarch of the United Kingdom and the head of the Commonwealth, but Charles was a virtual ghost in the first three episodes of the Netflix “reality” series Harry & Meghan.
Montages showed Charles and Diana with their young sons, Harry and William, and there was a glimpse of Charles shooting pheasants with Harry. Whenever Diana was shown, Prince Harry showered her with praise for her mothering and her “compassion, empathy, confidence, and warmth”, qualities that he said his wife Meghan also embodies.
This is just nasty and unbecoming. Meghan looks like a school bully. pic.twitter.com/4O11NqyZnU
— Benjamin Butterworth (@benjaminbutter) December 8, 2022
Who are the world’s biggest victims right now?
You might think it’s the poor people of Ukraine as they’re bombed, shot and raped by Putin’s invading barbarians.
Or those whose lives have been ruined by the COVID pandemic that continues to cause widespread death and long-term illness.
Or the millions battling crippling financial hardship in a devastating cost-of-living crisis that has swept the globe.
New details are coming out of the “Harry & Meghan” docuseries — including Meghan Markle saying that Toronto police ignored her request for protection — as the first three episodes were released on Netflix Thursday.
