Remember the coronation feather? That giant plume on Princess Anne’s hat, which just happened to block Prince Harry’s face from the cameras as he sat in Westminster Abbey for his father’s big day?
At the time, there was chatter that Anne herself had wondered whether she should remove it, but she didn’t, and the message, intentional or not, was unmistakable: the showrunners of this soap opera know how to deploy their bit part actors with ruthless efficiency.
Well, they’ve done it again. For, today, it emerged that Anne was parachuted into Harry’s patch — Ukraine — and not just Ukraine, but the very territory you’d think was reserved for Harry alone: the rehab centers, the veteran recovery programs, the Invictus turf.
Other than the, uh, entire itinerary, the contrast couldn’t be sharper. When Harry went to Kyiv last month, his trip was shrouded in secrecy. His meetings weren’t photographed. A rumored encounter with Zelensky has never been confirmed. Harry brought along a friendly Guardian journalist and photographer, and fell, inevitably, into the trap of talking about himself. The predictable result was that the memoir, his father, and his grievances made headlines, rather than what the trip was supposed to highlight: the recovery of wounded veterans in Ukraine.
Noble work, yes, but muddied in execution.
Anne? No fuss, no Guardian interview, no Netflix crew, no need to explain or complain.