I thought this was an interesting article for the BBC to produce, given the criticism they’ve had about not pushing back on Harry’s accusations in the interview.
We also get a lot of misinformation about the case repeated on this sub, and I think this helpfully breaks down a lot of the points frequently made about it.
Because his pleas were based on bruised ego, not actual security threats.
He wanted Top Royal levels of security, because he sees himself as Top Royalty. He wanted it as basically a pomp and circumstance prestige package.
But he’s not a Top Royal anymore, so he doesn’t warrant pomp and circumstance packages. They assessed his needs and current threats, just they do with anyone if they ask. You can ask the police to assess the threat to your life and what your security needs are, anyone in the UK can, just most of us never rise above baseline policing needs. Harry is a bit more high profile than us hoi polloi, but absent any specific intelligence, he only needs a certain level of security akin to B-list celeb baseline policing. If that changes, or there are specific threats or intelligence, then it will be stepped up-and stepped down afterwards once the threat has passed. He doesn’t need the fulltime package.
He just wants it to reassure his ego. He’s mistaken the Tabloids being assholes for actual security threats. The British Tabloid press are assholes, to be fair, intrusive assholes, but they are only occasionally a security or terrorist type of threat warranting high policing levels.
The issue isn’t that he doesn’t want to pay for private security. He can. He obviously does in the US and elsewhere in the world.
He’s trying to get ARMED security (RaSP) and in the UK, you can only have that if you are declared a Person of International Importance (PM, working royal, visiting head of state, Pope etc)
This declaration will allow Harry:
A. Visa free travel everywhere, handy for a self confessed drug addict, bypassing restrictions in many countries.
B. Feed his vanity, and that of his wife.
C. Give him a much closer status to where he was before, but none of the work.
He has, however, chosen an extremely weak argument. Any visit to the UK is risk assessed and appropriate measures taken,(including armed response if necessary).
His argument is that the UK is apparently routinely and significantly more dangerous than California, Colombia, several African countries and Ukrainian battlefield.
Its flimsy, nonsensical and ridiculous.
I remember hearing that he thought Meghan gets Diana-level scrutiny. I don’t think most folks care about him or his family besides the media to push a story. He can alert security officials in advance when he and his family are coming for visits. It’s not like they didn’t attempt to find a happy medium. He and his family live in California relatively quietly. I don’t see constant hounding for photos. I don’t even see their photos published in tabloids unless they release the images themselves. I believe they are on the outskirts of celebrity life
I think winning this case was very important for him, as it would give him an argument that his security needs have to be covered not only in the UK, but globally, as an international protected person. I’m sure his security is expensive, and he probably thinks it’s still inadequate (because of things like the “car chase” in NYC).
The thing is, IPP status is typically only given to representatives of states, and the like. High-profile celebrities don’t get it just because the paparazzi follows them. And you can’t have your cake and eat it too – you can’t leave all of the restrictions on royal life and chart a life as a pretend celebrity, while also getting all the perks that come with being a working royal.
Of course the establishment will try to defend itself against the accusation that the security arrangements by Ravec and the Royal household is an establishment stitch up. This article is incredibly disingenuous.
Citing anonymous senior judges who claimed Harry’s case was ”preposterous’ is typical royal propaganda where they hide behind a fictitious or malicious anonymous source to validate their position in opposition to Harry.
The reference to Harry failing to prove that The Royal Household is not acting in his interest is bizarre when his father is not speaking to him because of security is a great indication of his mindset and when Harry has said that his questions to his apparent representative were ignored.
While they say Harry cannot prove the Royal Household were not acting in his best interest I don’t think they or this journalist for the establishment who has not seen all the papers Harry’s has seen, would be able to prove how they did act in his interests. Instead like the royal PR team they like to suggest the decision lay with the Home Office but does anyone really believe that The Royal Household pushed hard to the Home Officer in favour of more robust security? Very unlikely.
Then the article fails to cover why Harry’s request for a risk assessment were ignore and left undone when other VIPs getting this yearly or why his risk assessment was dropped from the highest risk to the lowest overnight or how we’re supposed to believe that was in good faith and expertise when the reporting against the Sussex was at it’s most negative in 2020, hence surely increasing the risk.
Then the article focuses on the legal points that Harry failed to prove but ignores that the appeal failed essentially because of ‘Royal prerogative’ and that Ravec did not need to be bound by the rules that they set up to assess Vips in the category and could single Harry out and do something else without justification based just off royal prerogative. To me it is so clearly an establishment stitch up through royal prerogative and with Charles pushing for this out of vindictiveness since we all know he did not want Harry to leave and was never going to make it easy or fair since Harry inherited this risk at birth and through the deal his father did with the media allowing them to go after Harry and Meghan so hard.
Harry indicated that he will not appeal because he knows that with royal prerogative there is no remedy through legal channel. I do not think this looks good for the monarchy. Especially if something were to happen to Harry. However they know this too, especially as Harry said things in his interview which shows their hand in this and so in my opinion they will put out these disingenuous pieces for that reason. I don’t think it will help much. This still looks like a father who had a role in blocking his son’s security.
It failed because it wasn’t based on reality and facts but instead on his own disillusions.
7 comments
I thought this was an interesting article for the BBC to produce, given the criticism they’ve had about not pushing back on Harry’s accusations in the interview.
We also get a lot of misinformation about the case repeated on this sub, and I think this helpfully breaks down a lot of the points frequently made about it.
Because his pleas were based on bruised ego, not actual security threats.
He wanted Top Royal levels of security, because he sees himself as Top Royalty. He wanted it as basically a pomp and circumstance prestige package.
But he’s not a Top Royal anymore, so he doesn’t warrant pomp and circumstance packages. They assessed his needs and current threats, just they do with anyone if they ask. You can ask the police to assess the threat to your life and what your security needs are, anyone in the UK can, just most of us never rise above baseline policing needs. Harry is a bit more high profile than us hoi polloi, but absent any specific intelligence, he only needs a certain level of security akin to B-list celeb baseline policing. If that changes, or there are specific threats or intelligence, then it will be stepped up-and stepped down afterwards once the threat has passed. He doesn’t need the fulltime package.
He just wants it to reassure his ego. He’s mistaken the Tabloids being assholes for actual security threats. The British Tabloid press are assholes, to be fair, intrusive assholes, but they are only occasionally a security or terrorist type of threat warranting high policing levels.
The issue isn’t that he doesn’t want to pay for private security. He can. He obviously does in the US and elsewhere in the world.
He’s trying to get ARMED security (RaSP) and in the UK, you can only have that if you are declared a Person of International Importance (PM, working royal, visiting head of state, Pope etc)
This declaration will allow Harry:
A. Visa free travel everywhere, handy for a self confessed drug addict, bypassing restrictions in many countries.
B. Feed his vanity, and that of his wife.
C. Give him a much closer status to where he was before, but none of the work.
He has, however, chosen an extremely weak argument. Any visit to the UK is risk assessed and appropriate measures taken,(including armed response if necessary).
His argument is that the UK is apparently routinely and significantly more dangerous than California, Colombia, several African countries and Ukrainian battlefield.
Its flimsy, nonsensical and ridiculous.
I remember hearing that he thought Meghan gets Diana-level scrutiny. I don’t think most folks care about him or his family besides the media to push a story. He can alert security officials in advance when he and his family are coming for visits. It’s not like they didn’t attempt to find a happy medium. He and his family live in California relatively quietly. I don’t see constant hounding for photos. I don’t even see their photos published in tabloids unless they release the images themselves. I believe they are on the outskirts of celebrity life
I think winning this case was very important for him, as it would give him an argument that his security needs have to be covered not only in the UK, but globally, as an international protected person. I’m sure his security is expensive, and he probably thinks it’s still inadequate (because of things like the “car chase” in NYC).
The thing is, IPP status is typically only given to representatives of states, and the like. High-profile celebrities don’t get it just because the paparazzi follows them. And you can’t have your cake and eat it too – you can’t leave all of the restrictions on royal life and chart a life as a pretend celebrity, while also getting all the perks that come with being a working royal.
Of course the establishment will try to defend itself against the accusation that the security arrangements by Ravec and the Royal household is an establishment stitch up. This article is incredibly disingenuous.
Citing anonymous senior judges who claimed Harry’s case was ”preposterous’ is typical royal propaganda where they hide behind a fictitious or malicious anonymous source to validate their position in opposition to Harry.
The reference to Harry failing to prove that The Royal Household is not acting in his interest is bizarre when his father is not speaking to him because of security is a great indication of his mindset and when Harry has said that his questions to his apparent representative were ignored.
While they say Harry cannot prove the Royal Household were not acting in his best interest I don’t think they or this journalist for the establishment who has not seen all the papers Harry’s has seen, would be able to prove how they did act in his interests. Instead like the royal PR team they like to suggest the decision lay with the Home Office but does anyone really believe that The Royal Household pushed hard to the Home Officer in favour of more robust security? Very unlikely.
Then the article fails to cover why Harry’s request for a risk assessment were ignore and left undone when other VIPs getting this yearly or why his risk assessment was dropped from the highest risk to the lowest overnight or how we’re supposed to believe that was in good faith and expertise when the reporting against the Sussex was at it’s most negative in 2020, hence surely increasing the risk.
Then the article focuses on the legal points that Harry failed to prove but ignores that the appeal failed essentially because of ‘Royal prerogative’ and that Ravec did not need to be bound by the rules that they set up to assess Vips in the category and could single Harry out and do something else without justification based just off royal prerogative. To me it is so clearly an establishment stitch up through royal prerogative and with Charles pushing for this out of vindictiveness since we all know he did not want Harry to leave and was never going to make it easy or fair since Harry inherited this risk at birth and through the deal his father did with the media allowing them to go after Harry and Meghan so hard.
Harry indicated that he will not appeal because he knows that with royal prerogative there is no remedy through legal channel. I do not think this looks good for the monarchy. Especially if something were to happen to Harry. However they know this too, especially as Harry said things in his interview which shows their hand in this and so in my opinion they will put out these disingenuous pieces for that reason. I don’t think it will help much. This still looks like a father who had a role in blocking his son’s security.
It failed because it wasn’t based on reality and facts but instead on his own disillusions.
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