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King Charles, Prince William and the rest of the Royal Family have been praised for avoiding being dragged into a public feud with Prince Harry and Meghan Markle. The Duke and Duchess of Sussex have levelled a series of blistering criticism, allegations and attacks at the Firm and its most prominent members over the past few weeks via interviews, a six-part Netflix documentary and a memoir.
Neither Buckingham Palace nor Kensington Palace, however, have released a statement in response to the pair’s claims.
Paul MacKenzie-Cummins, PR expert and managing director at Clearly, praised the Firm’s silent stance and described the Duke and Duchess of Sussex as on a “self-determined course heading straight for self-destruction”.
Speaking to Express.co.uk, he continued: “The royals have rightly refused to allow Harry and Meghan’s desperate attempts to gain both attention and sympathy at all costs to become a public feud that frankly no one has either the time or appetite for.”
Mr MacKenzie-Cummins also commented on the recent Ipsos Mori poll, which suggested most members of the Royal Family have lost popularity among Britons over the past few weeks.
“The revelations and allegations emerging from Prince Harry’s book, the plethora of recent TV interviews he has done, and the Netflix documentary were always going to see a negative shift in public perception of the Royal Family – the whole ‘no smoke without fire’ mentality.
“These are simply knee-jerk reactions and will be short-lived. If the same poll is run again three months from now, I would expect a popularity swing in favour of the Royals but a plummeting for Harry and Meghan.”
The recent survey was conducted in the UK on 1,000 adults aged between 18 and 75 on January 10 and 11 – in the immediate aftermath of the publication of Harry’s best-selling memoir, titled Spare.
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Among the people polled in January, Prince William appears to be seen more favourably by those aged between 55 and 75 than those aged 18 to 34.
Princess Anne, who like Kate saw 60 percent of the people polled saying they have a positive opinion of her, lost four points when the results were compared to December’s, while both King Charles and Prince Edward experienced a loss of three points.
The Royal Family as a whole lost one point in popularity over the past few weeks, settling at 53 percent.
Harry spoke more in-depth about his opinion of paparazzi and reporting on the Royal Family in his memoir.
He also levelled several potentially damaging accusations at the royals, including that the office of Queen Camilla and King Charles briefed the media to improve their image to the detriment of the Sussexes and, at times, the Prince and Princess of Wales.
The Duke of Sussex spoke also during an interview about Camilla’s need to rehabilitate her image, a desire which made her “dangerous”.
Speaking to Anderson Cooper for the CBS’ 60 Minutes programme, Harry claimed: “That made her dangerous because of the connections that she was forging within the British press. And there was open willingness on both sides to trade of information. And with a family built on hierarchy, and with her, on the way to being Queen consort, there was gonna be people or bodies left in the street because of that.”
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