Poor Harry.
No one will deny that the revelations about the infamous interview of Princess Diana conducted by Martin Bashir in 1995 are shocking. Bashir lied and deceived in order to obtain the result he wanted and it seems that the hierarchy of the BBC at the time, including recently departed Director General Lord Hall, took a blind eye to the whole affair. A inquiry at the time concluded that nothing was wrong, though not it's clear that very much was wrong.
Following the publication of the latest report, by Lord Dyson, Prince William has taken the quite unusual step of making a public statement in which he lambasts the BBC for its failings and the effect which they had on his mother. He has not sought sympathy for himself but has concentrated on the damage done to Diana. If only his brother had done the same.
Poor Harry. While equally castigating the BBC, Harry has then turned the attention onto himself and his own supposed struggles. I don't deny that for a young boy, barely into his teens, to experience the publicity that surrounded his parents marital strife followed by the death of his mother in a horrendous car crash must have been traumatic, but for him to use the Dyson report into Bashir's activities as a basis for launching into more claims of neglect by his family, leading to supposed drug and alcohol abuses by himself is pathetic.
Harry is one of the most privileged people in the world, a close member of what is probably the most well known family there is; while the monarch does not have the political power of other leaders, her 'soft power', and that of other senior members of the family, is immeasurable but vastly greater than that of most national and even international leaders. As one of the most senior members of this bastion, Harry was in a position to do great things, to bring about change if change was necessary, and to provide long lasting and loyal support to the family, monarchy, nation and world.
He appeared to be doing this when he joined the army and served with some distinction. Whenever he appeared on screen, he gave every impression of being happy and fulfilled and his involvement in the 'Invictus Games' was widely applauded. The occasional blip - such as being photographed taking part in a NAZI themed party - was put down to youthful indiscretion. Nonetheless, things seem to have begun to change after he left his military career and that change has escalated in more recent times.
Now, on the back of the Dyson report, he bemoans his own fate in an American television chat show and berates his family. It was they, not him, who was responsible for his binge drinking and other wild exploits which he attributes to claimed mental health problems. The family didn't help him and now he's having to undergo therapy, he says. Does it occur to him that his supposed mental health problems are nothing but the mostly minor irritations that most of us experience at points in our lives ? His grandparents went through the Second World War, experiencing far greater problems and deprivations than he has ever suffered, but they got on with life without whining and without the need for therapy. It appears that Harry is a victim of a modern society in which every slight problem is deemed to assume massive proportions and to be in need of professional attention.
If Harry had 'issues' I have no doubt that the Duke of Edinburgh would have told him, quite rightly, to "pull himself together and stop whining". It is a shame that such advice is not given more often, indeed, much more often, in these days in which every slight problem seems to be evolved into a mental health issue. As for Harry, the more he whines, the less he will achieve, for himself or for others, except within the closed world of US media celebrities which he now inhabits. The rest of the world will soon lose interest in this whining. highly privileged and super-rich little boy.
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