Wannabe working royals: Harry and Meghan cosplay in Nottingham

0:02The Telegraph.

0:30Bill to simplify and secure bill pay. That's proven financial infrastructure built on over a trillion dollars of secure payments. Visit bill.com slash proven for a special offer. Is it a bird? Is it a plane? No, it's Harry and Meghan cosplaying as working royals on the streets of Nottingham. Is this a picture of the king that they can have their royal cake and eat it or are the Sussexes setting up their own rival court? Welcome to the Royal Tea with me, Tim Stanley, me, Hannah Feness and me, India McTaggart. Are they just playing at this for a little while and then they'll get their photos, maybe they'll get a photo with the king at some point soon and then they can go off again and sell some more jam?

1:13Or do they want a serious return? And is this a pitch to the king to say, look, we can do this, we can be great ambassadors for you and we're taking this really seriously. I am joined on today's Royal Tea by India McTaggart, the Telegraph Royal Correspondent, and by Hannah Furness, the Telegraph Royal Editor. Thank you both for being here. Now, when I looked at my TV screens this morning, because as we speak, this is happening, India, I saw something very strange. I saw Harry and Meghan walking around Nottingham as if they were working royals. Now, when people hear slash see this, it'll be the next day.

1:51But just describe as if it's happening right now, what it is you've been watching. So right now, they are visiting three grassroots organizations in Nottingham, ones that we're told they have very close personal connections to, ones that they've been involved with when they were working royals. The first stop was the Community Recording Studio, which is a youth charity that the Duke visited last year and actually donated 1.1 million to last year. So this time he and Meghan met with Jar Digger, musician, poet and youth mentor who received support from the charity as a child. They spoke with children while there and the Duchess joined young girls for a confidence building bracelet making session where they discussed self-belief, resilience, handling rejection, etc.

2:32Handling rejection. Handling rejection. That was part of the brief. Yes. So Prince Harry first visited this charity in 2013, has since returned on several occasions privately and sort of, you know, on official engagements, should we call it, most recently last September. So he said at the time when he donated the money, he said, I continue to stand with you. Nottingham has my respect. It always has my commitment and a permanent place in my heart. Then they will visit Himmer, which is the largest independent food bank in Nottingham and a community kitchen that tackles poverty, racism and social exclusion.

3:06There, the Duchess was reunited with women affected by the Grenfell Tower fire, with whom she worked on the Hub Community Kitchen Cookbook, which Hannah will remember because she covered it at the time, which has raised just over£900 ,000 since its release in 2018 and was arguably her most successful contribution in her short time as a working royal. I think you would probably agree with that. Yeah, I mean, this is like we've gone to sleep and woken up nine years later and everything's exactly the same. We're living in Royal Groundhog Day or ex-Royal Groundhog Day. But to be fair to the Sussexes, Hannah, they do have a connection to these charities.

3:40It's not random. It's not random. We keep being told they love Nottingham. Why? I asked exactly the same question. What is it about the people of Nottingham that is different, the people of London or Liverpool? Anyway, it turns out that they've kept in touch with a lot of these charities over the years. So they do feel like they've got a real friendship and a connection. So it's nice to go back. So if we go back nine years, 2017, and I am so ancient that I was there on this day. This is where Harry introduced Meghan to Britain. So they haven't got married yet. They were just engaged. And they took, he took her to Nottingham.

4:13And they had. What a romantic. It's so romantic. The Venice of the North. And it was cold. It was December. Everybody was bundled up in their coats. But it was just this mad, quite joyous day. an elderly gentleman brought his pet barn owl along and then oh yes we've got we've got the rotor here this was frank shelton 79 brought his eight-year-old barn owl kim along for the day and said i thought ari's bringing his bird so i brought mine best of british brilliant it's the best of british so it was this really jolly day and i had a look over how we covered it like obviously in through the lens of the british media the sussexes have spoken extensively about how terrible we are over the years and then I look back at this copy and it's just glowing it couldn't be more positive you know Miss Markle has won over the British public she's flawless and so on and she very much endeared herself to people there because she introduced her you'll have to do the American accent with hi I'm Megan hi I'm Megan I'm thrilled I'm so happy she said at one point it's just such a thrill to be here in Nottingham and we've heard exactly the same thing this morning so we're hearing how it looks exactly like a royal engagement they've got the barricades up they've got school children kind of aligning the walkway into this first engagement so they can effectively do a walkabout and we're hearing her saying the same things it's so great to be back in Britain you've got you know members of the public who have come to see them as well they're not enormous crowds but they're not embarrassing crowds either there's a good amount a respectable amount of people come to see them and it feels to me like if we're using the 2017 nottingham to introduce megan to britain this is a reintroduction this is their first engagement as they still call it back on home shores okay so india there's no controversy here is that that they've moved back uh they are public figures and they're out and about that this is romantic they're going back to where they met and visiting charities that they feel a connection with.

6:14I mean, I think the controversy depends on who you are and how you're looking at it. But I was saying to Hannah this morning, if it looks like a duck and walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, this is a royal engagement. Yes. You know, for all intents and purposes. And that's what I thought. Yeah, completely. And, you know, if we who know all the nuance can't really tell the difference, then the public certainly are not going to be able to tell the difference. And I think for them, after the letter that was sent, you know, on behalf of the king, which made it very clear that they are not public figures, they are not undertaking charitable engagements on behalf of the Crown, that they are private individuals with their own charitable interests.

6:46This is very confusing. And this is going to give the public whiplash again, because what do they want? That's what is so unclear continuously, because they leave the royal family, they leave as working royals, they sort of want to pursue their own charitable interests in the US. They then actually go on to pursue purely commercial interests, protests, as we know, and don't need to rehash. It's well-trodden ground. Then they return and Meghan wants to go back to acting, but actually now they're doing joint public engagements. They're worried about security. She can't go to two jobs with Harry in July, but can go on this one and they can announce it ahead of time.

7:22And security is not an issue. They wanted people to know they were doing it. Right. So, I mean, you tell me, you know, the coherence, the lack of coherence in all of this is what is so extraordinary. And even in the source quotes that, you know, we've been told from sources close to the Duke and Duchess that she is not going to be undertaking these, you know, quasi-royal engagements, whatever you want to call it, you know, more than, let's say, twice or three times a year, that actually she's going to be focused on being an entrepreneur, on running as ever, on being a mother, and on returning to acting.

7:54And we literally have a quote that's saying, you know, she's very busy reading a lot of scripts right now. So, you know, when she has time for charity work, she might be able to do it, but this is not going to be her priority. But then, you know, it looks today as if this is really deeply important to them. So again, it's just these messages are so conflicting constantly. Yes. There was a really fascinating briefing this morning to Hello Magazine, actually, whose royal editor has a very long relationship with Harry. So we trust that this source is close to Harry. We trust in this case, where it has said that the Duke and Duchess of Sussex never agreed to not be half-in, half-out royals.

8:28It doesn't trouble them, this idea that the king is still saying they're not allowed. They never agreed they wouldn't be half-in, half-out. That was decided and foisted upon them. They're just living their lives, and they can because they're financially independent. So we're getting a real sense here of, well, the king might be sending a letter to the Lord Lieutenant saying they're not official working royals, but we don't really care. Let's just break that down, because there are two points of confusion here. One, India. I thought they were unsafe in this country, but here they look very safe and very happy.

9:01Now that they've come back, all those concerns seem to have just disappeared like a lawsuit in the wind. But the other thing, Hannah, that you raise, if I read the key part of the letter that was sent on behalf of the king regarding Harry and Meghan, It says, it is well known that in January 2020, the Duke and Duchess stepped down from undertaking representative duties on behalf of the Sovereign and are no longer working members of the royal family. Now, saying they stepped down, it suggests they left this role. But what you're saying, what's being reported by Hello, is they feel very differently that they didn't agree to that.

9:43We know this is all going back to the Sandringham Summit. So this was the reign of Queen Elizabeth II, Harry's grandmother, whom he respected. They discussed five possible options for how they were going to exit the royal family or indeed how they could stay in the royal family in a way that was acceptable to them. what they settled on in the end what we now call the Sandringham Summit Agreement was that the late Queen said you cannot be half in half out if you want to be financially independent which they did that was a key part of what the Sussexes wanted you have to sort of make your own way and do that you can't appear to be working roles and also have commercial activities that are linked to it we'd known all along that there was a lot of disagreement at the time they didn't like this process but the queen is the boss you can't negotiate with the queen you can talk to her as a member of the family but she this wasn't an equal negotiation and the idea that they didn't sign up to anything is this slightly american perspective that there should have been a summit document point by point that there should be a florid calligraphy megan on the bottom of it doesn't exist because that's not how it works in the royal family they're not legally beholden to this it's not a legally binding agreement it is i suppose it's it's a royal version of a gentleman's agreement this is what we've agreed you're free to go you found your freedom you're you're you can be financially independent but you can't also call yourself working royals appear to be working royals and the the difficulty is and you're right it's as long as they're behaving themselves they're going to these engagements doing a good job they're boosting charities the kids there will have a wonderful day they will have a wonderful day the complication comes will make and give an as-ever gift basket to the Himmer Food Bank.

11:30Right. Are we going to see, as we did in Australia, the outfits that she wore to these charities then being uploaded to a platform where you can buy them and it generates commercial revenue? It is just not as simple as it looks. And also, how does this reflect on the actual working members of the royal family who cannot commercially benefit while representing the crown, as it's very clear? You know, it makes it look as if you can have your cake and eat it too. And I think that's going to be kind of problematic going forward for them. And I understand why that would really ruffle a few feathers for them, because, you know, they have been duty bound all their lives and get on with it without complaint.

12:08And then Harry and Meghan seem to be able to do exactly what they want at any given opportunity and still have the trappings of being a royal, essentially. Yeah. So that's going to be a huge problem. And also coming back to, you know, their negotiation, let's call it, with the late queen. They also expected to negotiate with the king on this letter saying, you know, we didn't get this in advance, that we wanted to possibly make amendments. And, you know, they spoke of their surprise through their spokesperson having received it, you know, without notice and then it going to the press so quickly.

12:38It is always this attitude of we expect to be consulted and be able to make changes. And it's just no, you are not setting the agenda for this. It is not your role to do that. It is, you know, the monarch, the boss. Yes.

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14:19What I think we'll find today, and as we're seeing on the TV, as you said, is this looks like a working royal engagement. There will be a lot of column inches dedicated later to how brilliant it was. This is my prediction. Aren't they great at royal engagements? Isn't Harry brilliant with kids? Doesn't she listen so well? It's going to look great and seem great. The difficulty is we always knew that. They were always fantastic at engagements. There's no issue that they were bad at their job. They were very good at their job. And we all said at the time, they are excellent on engagements. where it falls down is they didn't want to do them they didn't want all the boring bits that come with monarchy so they've now managed to spend their time away and come back again it's like a cameo royal appearance as it were so they get all of the benefits all of kind of the love and appreciation and the praise and the hugs and the photos and the kind of ego boosting joy that comes with all of this stuff yes with none of the boring bits they're also doing things which are quite young, youth orientated, they feel current and fashionable, which is all good.

15:24They're very, very good causes, don't get me wrong. But they're not opening a cat home. They're not doing the sort of rubber chicken stuff that one associates with poor old Princess Anne. Exactly. It's not unveiling a plaque. It's not cutting a ribbon. It's not a wet Wednesday. A new car park. Exactly. It's the glamour. It's the glamour and stuff. And I think that if you are Princess Anne, although Princess Anne has better things to do, let's face it, all the Edinburgh's, all the Gloucesters who spent their lives doing a lot of very boring jobs, along with the very fun royal glamorous stuff. I find that a very interesting position that they can watch this and see, do you know what, as you say, have your cake and eat it.

16:03Somebody told me years ago that the thing that Meghan loved the most in royal life is the competition winner style engagements where you can surprise people and you get that, oh my goodness, it's Harry and Meghan. It's so exciting. And she loved that response from people. And they're now managing to curate that for themselves to pick and choose what they want to do, the causes they want to do. And you've kind of, at a point, you've got to hold your hands up and say, well done. Like, you've kind of won. This is what I was going to say. So at what point are we going to sort of address this as like a rival court almost to the one we have?

16:37At what point is that going to be the perception that the public have, you know, in sort of challenging all the norms that we know about what a working member of the royal family should look like and should act like. And inevitably, contrast is going to be made with William and Kate, right? Yes. How will they be thinking? How will they be feeling about this? I mean, as I said previously, I wouldn't be surprised if it ruffled some feathers because it's, you know, Meghan's able to be an entrepreneur, to have this financial independence, to sort of carve out the time that she wants for her children, to be able to do all the things that she wants to do and, you know, be a celebrity and read scripts and potentially star in The Gentleman or potentially, you know, start, you know, becoming a working actress again.

17:19Not that Catherine wants to do any of those things, apart from, you know, of course, being very passionate about her early years initiative and, of course, very, very passionate about her children and raising them in the right way and being very present as a mother. But then naturally, comparisons will be drawn between the two. And I think it will be a situation whereby you start to question whether you can commercially benefit and represent the Crown at the same time. It's a confusing one, and I think it will be slightly jarring for the public in a way. I think the Walesers try extremely hard to not think too much about what the Sussexes are doing.

17:55And people in studios like us, we need to take a step back. This is a today issue. This is what's happening on television today. These are the pictures we're seeing today. if you're William and Catherine you need to be thinking 10 years in advance 20 years in advance they're going to be the king and queen the long game the long game they're going to be the king and queen and I think they try very hard to sort of keep their eyes on that and not be pushed and pulled by people like us having opinions one way or another to just keep their heads down do what they're supposed to do you know the royal family needs to be about duty and service to fly with the British public.

18:32They need to stick to that and they cannot be knocked off course by trying to do something sexy in order to compete with people who are one day out in Nottingham and another day, India, you wrote this at the weekend, doing a documentary about racism in Britain? Yes. Baroness Lawrence, who was involved in the Associated Newspapers lawsuit with Harry, is doing a documentary for the BBC about the death of her son, Stephen Lawrence, in 1993, which was a racially motivated knife crime. And Prince Harry is going to take part. We've been told that he has taken part. We don't know exactly what that looks like yet, possibly, you know, an interview about race relations in the UK, we expect largely will be about the press and his complaints that he's already been quite outspoken about and how they treated Meghan, his perception of how Meghan was treated when she became a working member of the royal family.

19:26So, I mean, it's TBC. And he and Baroness Lawrence were both involved in that case against the Daily Mail, which they lost. Which they lost. Yes. So that's very interesting. I guess Harry and Meghan, because they walked away from the family, their existence is always an implicit comment upon the working royals. So I'm just really interested in this point about what will things look like in 10 years' time. So long as there is this alternative of people who walked away and who said some things about the royals and the way that they work so long as they are there in this country and they are visible it always feels like an implicit contrast is being drawn with the very stuffy and choreographed and well orchestrated royal family right this is this is something we're going to have to get used to they're here now and we'll always be watching them and thinking how does that compare with william and kate what What they've done over the last few years since they've left is try to recreate this overseas on tours.

20:25So they've done what we keep calling quasi-royal tours, where it has been more confusing because obviously the people of Columbia, even in Australia, where obviously they have the crown, they have much greater knowledge of the monarchy. There's no real nuance of are they working or they're not. Prince Harry abroad is always Princess Diana's son or the late Queen's grandson. and they make very clear nobody can take that away from him. That is his position in public life. Here there is a little bit more of an understanding. I think the public have got the message that they're not working royals but the more we see them try to conjure up this perception of working royals the more confusing it will be.

21:04But equally, what are they doing with that? If they wanted to do the duty, what's so different now that they couldn't bear to do it then but they can do it now? It's the same press. It's literally the same individual members of the press that they're working with. It's the same system. It's the same institution. It's the same. It's not the same security, but it looks like it is because they've got the barricades up today. They've got their private security. So it's a question for them of, are they just playing at this for a little while and then they'll get their photos? Maybe they'll get a photo with the king at some point soon and then they can go off again and sell some more jam.

21:42or do they want a serious return and is this a pitch to the king to say look we can do this we can be great ambassadors for you and we're taking this really seriously can you let this in a little bit and that's what's very interesting to me is where does it go yes and you're right is this a pitch to show the king that it can work but then again i feel they're always at odds and there's always this tension between them so i don't think it's a pitch so much as a pitch to the public saying, see, we can do both. And I remember that line to the late Queen saying the rebuttal, anyone can live a life of service.

22:14And I think that's kind of what they're showing now. And as Hannah pointed out, these quasi-royal tours in which their spokespeople after will quite openly say that through, you know, this will be a half in, half out situation. This can be, this can work, this format can work. So it will be really interesting, as I said, whether this will be a rival court. And I mean, we have the source quotes from today, which suggested, you know, don't expect a lot of handshakes. They don't have that same responsibility to do that kind of thing anymore. That was a source quote ahead of today. And what did we see when they arrived?

22:49You know, they were late into the appointment because of how many handshakes, the walk about, it looks like a royal away day. It's the fifth in line to the throne with his wife, meeting members of the public before they go and visit three charities. What about that doesn't look like a royal away day. To go back to what I said at the beginning about feeling confused, this is what I can't quite get straight in my head is what I am looking at here. Because in this country, we do celebrity. Of course we do. When actors leave the theatre, there's always a queue of people with books waiting to get signed, right?

23:18But we're not like America, where we have a sort of aristocracy of talent and beauty. But it feels like they're trying to do that here. They're both trying to be royals and also American style celebrities. And there's a bit of me and maybe it's parochial and mean-spirited and English that just thinks, you're now just a man and a woman. You're very good looking, maybe very talented, but I'm not sure why, as someone for whom royalty is kind of part of my existence because I'm English, once you step outside of it, I'm not quite sure what I'm looking at anymore. If you're an ex-MP, I no longer have to listen to your opinions on things.

23:57And likewise, I don't know who these people are. And I don't know why people are showing up to shake their hand. Well, I think you might have hit on the crux of it, because this has been the issue while they're in America. So they began, they departed England as members of the royal family. They were so enmeshed, you know, the headlines at that time were extraordinary, the back and forth between the Sussexes, recollections may vary. They were always the Queen's grandson and granddaughter-in-law. And over the years that has faded, and in America they have become celebrities and they've had a lot of projects that have failed.

24:30So they become failed celebrities. And so there is a sense certainly out there that they've needed to reestablish their connection with the British royal family to remind the world and their audiences as they are now exactly why they should be interested in it. And I think this is what we are seeing. This is a reminder to people in America and back home of, oh, yeah, look, we're royals. We can still do it. You've literally just hit the nail on the head. It is that reminder of the connection to royalty. They need that proximity to the monarch and to the crown in general for relevancy. We've seen that over the six years they've been away in the US.

25:03That is how they have marked their career as celebrities or failed celebrities. It is their raison d 'etre. It's their calling card. So without it, what are they? And it's, as Hannah pointed out, kind of a series of failed projects. I mean, as ever, maybe not. And she's going to launch that soon here. So we'll see how the jam sells in the UK versus in the US. And we'll see how her acting career takes off. It doesn't seem to look good so far if the gentleman sort of for all Ray was anything to go by. But it's a blueprint that is sort of trailblazing in a way. No one's done this in the royal family.

25:41Yeah. The jam is also quite expensive. It's sort of it's in competition with petrol now. It's in competition. India and Hannah thank you both very much we will be back tomorrow for the weekend tea at 9am that's with Michael and Poppy and on Sunday there will be a showdown between Camilla and Chris Bryant

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