A Maniac With a Crowbar Just Charged a Royal. The Government’s Refusal to Protect Harry Is Now Indefensible.

Harry, who has an al-Qaeda fatwa on his head, is soon to spend days in public in Birmingham. The establishment needs to stop playing politics with his life.

On Wednesday evening, a man in a ski mask leapt out of his car near the Sandringham Estate, and sprinted towards Prince Andrew while he was walking his dogs screaming abuse. A crowbar was later found in his car.

Ex-Prince Andrew Chased by Armed Man in Balaclava

He got within fifty yards of the former royal and his private, unarmed bodyguard, both of whom scrambled into their vehicle and sped away, with the nutjob chasing after them.

John Stillwell POOL/ Tim Graham Picture Library/Getty Images

Norfolk Police told me last night that they had arrested the man on suspicion of a public order offense and possession of a weapon. Alex Jenkinson, 39, was due in court earlier today.

A man with a weapon, in a balaclava, charging a member of the royal family while he walked his dogs on public land near his home is arguably the most serious security breach in modern royal history. People will point to Michael Fagan, who scaled the walls of Buckingham Palace and broke into Queen Elizabeth II’s bedroom in 1982. But Fagan was unarmed. He didn’t intend to harm the Queen. He sat on her bed and asked for a cigarette.

This man was intent on doing serious physical harm to a member of the royal family.

The fact that people may despise the royal whose security was breached is entirely irrelevant.

Nobody, of course, wants to be compared to Prince Andrew, but Andrew is a hate figure in the British media in much the same way that Harry and Meghan are.

Harry has been made aware of the attack on Andrew, I am told, and while he has not yet shared his reaction with the sources I spoke to, they said it’s reasonable to assume he will be totally freaked out and will now double down on his position that he simply cannot bring Meghan and the children back to the UK without a comprehensive security package in place.

Whatever you think of Harry, or the sometimes foolish ways in which he has made the security situation worse for himself, the attempted attack on Andrew shows that a way must be found to make Harry secure when he visits Britain.

A decision urgently needs to be made.

The difficulty for the royal family and the British government is that they do not want to make it easy for Harry to come back.

The whole principle of royal exile — the playbook as developed in the case of Edward VIII — is to keep your problem person out of the country. Edward was also arguably more respectful of the Crown's wishes, not least because he depended on an allowance from the Crown, which gave the Palace leverage.