Prince Harry has weighed in on Sir David Attenborough’s birthday (Image: Getty)
Trust Prince Harry to pipe up right on cue. As Sir David Attenborough celebrates his landmark 100th birthday today, the Duke of Sussex has emerged from across the Atlantic to hail the broadcasting legend a “secular saint”. Writing for Time magazine, the father-of-two described Sir David as an “institutional pillar as essential to the national fabric as a cup of tea”.
Ocean’s premiere with David Attenborough and King Charles III (Image: Getty)
But here is the bitter aftertaste. Does Harry truly have the right to preach about our “fragile planet” – or our beloved Sir David – six years after he jetted off to California to start a new life with wife Meghan Markle? Personally, I don’t believe so.
He cannot simply dip in and out of the British consciousness when it suits his Sussex brand. Having stepped down as a senior royal and making his disdain for the media crystal clear, Harry’s decision to pen a glossy magazine tribute feels nothing short of opportunistic. (Today is all about Sir David’s milestone birthday, not virtue-signalling Harry.)
Sir David was a confidant of the late Queen Elizabeth II and remains a close ally of King Charles and Prince William; surely they, as the ones actually serving the nation, were the rightful voices to lead this tribute.
But it appears as though Harry got in there first and the irony is staggering as he lectures us on “responsibility” while having abandoned his own.
If you want to live 5,000 miles away in the sunny West Coast of America and write a tell-all memoir about the trials and tribulations of growing up royal, you don’t have the right to gatekeep the UK’s icons.
So the message is simple: Pick a side, Harry. You cannot lambast the Royal Family and the press one day, then use both to secure a byline (as the Duke of Sussex in Time magazine) on our national treasure the next.
