um but further in on pages four and five it's revealed that Prince William is burning with
righteous Fury which might you know is to be expected probably but he's still refusing to
comment on any of these allegations about fighting bullying uh and whether his pet
name is really Willy now Nigel in your experience as a journalist of many years standing is this
sustainable this kind of Silence because if if it goes on and on and they keep stem
this just becomes the accepted version of events doesn't it and it gets repeated and then becomes a
form of history in a way so every time William and Kate do something you know with an anti-bullying
charity this gets raised again every time you know when at the coronation the fact
that Harry isn't going to be there is going to get repeated it's going to say well Harry wasn't
there after allegations that you know if they don't say something this just becomes carved in
stone doesn't it to some extent no I think that's absolutely right um but but again it goes back to
what she was saying this is not a normal family um and so what William can't do you can't do a kind
of uh get into a uh he said I said this happened that happened it is very difficult for him to
actually respond so no I don't think you'll ever get any kind of public response you won't get any
comment from uh either vacuum Palace or Kensington Palace probably what you will get is that William
will try and correct the narrative assuming the narrative needs correcting uh by using friends and
different sources to put out his side of the case but I don't think we we're in a situation whereby
he can actually say something himself publicly I think one of the problems with this whole thing is
that it's all very well for Harry to have a go at his brother and his father um but if it just was
a brother and a father what you're talking about is we're now is um uh Charles is now King so what
Harry is saying affects the whole situation of the monarchy it's a constitutional issue if you like
and his brother is is the the heir to the throne so everything that Harry says has implications for
um us as a country and that's where the whole thing becomes difficult I'm sure that the power
us will find a way of fighting back it just won't be terribly obvious like William sitting down and
doing a similar interview no no what do you think everybody do you think that William should be
speaking out about this I would have thought that in the palace right now there would be War gaming
what different possible things they could say what different possible ways it could be influenced and
what where different outcomes they might have they might be considering things like you know
like the queen used to do saying something to a member of the public on a walkabout which is
very artfully sort of overheard by a conveniently close journalist something like that so they're
not addressing anything publicly but they've got some kind of a statement that they managed
to issue which will sort of cover some of it up but let's not forget Nigel um I'm old enough to
remember 1991 1992 when a certain Prince of this Parish wrote a book saying his parenting had
absolutely screwed him up and was emotionally illiterate and and made him terribly sad and
depressed and that Prince was called Charles and they were saying when he did all that
um and he was the Esther throne and he was writing about the queen and it was said that he deeply
upset her and his father um and they still managed to to struggle on for another 30 years together
um and some of the stuff that he wrote and the Diana wrote Harry's just kind of confirming
isn't he this isn't unusual for Royals to sort of talk about personal stuff like this
uh yeah I think I think I think you're right it's just it's probably the the difficulty the
royal family has and their relationship with the uh with the public and the media um I mean years
ago I used to be a role of correspondent so I was dealing mostly with uh the then Prince Charles
and quite clearly he would have much rather that I wasn't actually around however he also appreciated
that the that the royal family have to work with the media I mean part of the function of the royal
family is to appear in public and the only way that they can disseminate that is through press
coverage and that's something that I that I found about last night's interview to Beyond
I wish Tom bradby had actually pressed Harry a bit a bit further about what he was talking about
um this is part of a crusade to change the British media I don't know what Harry means by that
um if it means that the royal family shouldn't work with the media that is plainly absurd and
of course they've got to be able to do that if he's talking about a fundamental change in how the
British media operates that's a whole different ball game and we never actually found out quite
what Harry was getting at well you're also be you know having to try to reverse 320 odd years of
misbehavior which is going to be quite difficult I would have thought and part of the media
um and also you can't have a media which the royal family approves of because then the media is not
doing its job is it I mean the whole point the whole point of what we do is to literally just be
disapproved of to some extent although of course to tell the truth which is part of his problem
whether it's the truth is he sees it rather than other people now Keith says everyone and their
uncle is scrambling to comment on this I am just amazed at how many members of the public know them
both so intimately it didn't stop previous Royals that wrote books thank you Keith and
commented before there are bigger problems in these islands than a bus stop with Royals now
he's right of course isn't it there's other more important things going on which we're going to
get to next but the fact is that the royal family I think Nigel it's like a it's like it's almost
like big brother it's National entertainment but also it's like a cipher for our own families we
watch what happens with them and we go well we've all had a sister-in-law like that or we've all
we've all got our brothers you know and we kind of see connections with them because of what
happens their own family and that is what keeps the monarchy going the fact that they're relevant
to us in our lives is why it's still there as an institution because otherwise it's just Dreadful
you wouldn't invent it tomorrow if you had to invent a system to to be the head of state for
a country um so if they didn't have this press attention going over every detail of their lives
and and that's how Keith everyone is commenting on it because they all feel that connection if
you didn't have that you wouldn't have a royal family at all would we no I think that's the
that's a very good point that the the whole thing is we've got two things going on here we've got a
family and it's a family like others and they have their disputes and their difficulties and
their problems with each individual um and of course that the the public is interested
in that and so it should be and what is going on within the family is in the public interest and
that's because we actually have a constitutional monarchy that our whole kind of political system
is based on having a king as a head of state now in a sense that's an odd thing to have
it's something that's actually developed over uh what a couple of thousand years effectively
um but we but because the we have a a hereditary head of state that we have a
a royal be being head of state rather than a president there is a public interest in what
that head of state and his family get up to and so of course that Strays into the personal now what
um what I think the the uh the king would tell you if he was actually doing this broadcast rather now
yeah but if he if he was what he would say is he'd like the two things to be separated but
I mean that's the ongoing problem if you are somebody in the public eye whether you're a
politician a celebrity or a footballer if you're going out there and and uh you are in front of
the public you've got to expect the public to be interested in your private life and the question
is how you get that balance right exactly now um it would just be interesting it was one of the
things that you know for example talk about Royal racism that has an impact on the Commonwealth and
on questions of Independence sometimes from the Commonwealth so it what happens in the family
private conversations can play out on the global political stage it can have a legitimate impact
something should be reported on but one thing I want to ask you about this Nigel before we move
on to Rishi some of the comments in the paper are from a sort of anonymous comments from childhood
friends of Harry saying they know plenty they know a field full of stuff about Prince Harry
they could write a book of their own now well although Harry's got every right as a private
citizen to pick up his pen the fact that he's broken the Royal murder which all William and
Harry's school school friends and adult friends have observed up to now does that in your view
make it more likely some of those friends who might know something more or different might
themselves then break that silence because they'll consider that Harry's already broken and she think
this could actually backfire on him that other people now start speaking yes they could well
do and there could be more stories coming out that Harry has actually not included in his book
um uh and he won't be terribly happy to actually have those sort of things put in the public domain
I mean Harry constantly went on about invasions of his privacy and of course he's done more to
his invade his own privacy um than anyone in the in the me in the media has these one of the
the issues I think comes down to whether or not there is actually a Reconciliation that could be
possible now uh last night Harry seemed to think that yes there could be and he wants to sit down
with the royal family in private and discuss how that might happen and never tell people what was
said and the idea would be we never hear about it so I think again we're back now to how this
family actually works it rather depends on whether William and Charles want such a Reconciliation
um it does seem to me that having put quite so much out there uh quite so often I mean
so far Harry has broken the rules with Opera he's broken the rules with Netflix uh and now
with with the forthcoming book it seems to be difficult how he can ever have a place back in
the royal family ever again but maybe Charles and William have a different idea and they would like
to actually get him back um only time will tell on that one yes we'll have to wait and see won't
we it's only May the coronation um and there is apparently a standing open invitation for Harry
and Megan to attend whether they'd fly in and fly out again or whether they'd go to the sandwiches
and tea afterwards who knows I have to find out that would be interesting to watch I'm sure