I RECENTLY spent a week in one of the poorest parts of Africa and it did me the world of good.
To see people in the Angolan bush living in mud-brick huts with few possessions outside the ragged clothes on their backs, little to eat other than the one maize crop they try to grow in landmine-riddled fields and no medical help, yet be filled with such resilience, was beyond humbling.
It made me realise that every one of us who moans about our lot when we have no reason to, should be teleported there for a lesson in perspective.
Because it’s only when you see fellow humans, through no fault of their own, being born into such abject poverty that you realise the vast majority of people in our country were holding a winning lottery ticket when the midwife pulled us into this world.
And no people more so than those who were born into, or married into, the most indulged family in British history, the Royal one.
I’m a lifelong critic of the pampered Windsor lifestyle we bankroll, but I was taken aback at the self-pitying outbursts from a privileged couple who visited the same African backdrop as me, yet chose to step out of the Range Rovers they’d had specially flown over to do a TV broadcast bleating about the awful hand life has dealt them.
A couple who, through no innate talent or graft, had the titles Duke and Duchess of Sussex and all the trappings that go with it, bestowed on them. A life that includes taxpayers being forced to spend £2.4million on doing up their 10-bedroom mansion.
The ITV documentary was called Harry and Meghan: An African Journey. But it turned into Megharry: A Life of Joint Misery.
Having sworn solidarity with the impoverished local women, the Duchess whined about the “struggle” of being a royal which no one else “can understand” due to her having a bit of bad press caused mainly by a row with her estranged father.
How can a titled woman, married to a man worth countless millions, who never has to work again to enjoy a life of utmost luxury, be so lacking in self-awareness that she tells the world as she stands before mud huts: “It is not enough to just survive something. That’s not the point of life. You’ve got to thrive.”
How can you be so detached from what’s going on around you, not just in Africa but back home in Britain, where young people are sleeping on the street and families exist on foodbank handouts?
This couple claim to be modernising the monarchy but they’re taking it back a generation. Because their demand to be allowed to dictate their state-subsidised role exclusively on their terms, while openly whinging about the downsides of their goldfish-bowl existence, means Megharry are Princess Margaret resurrected.
They see themselves as victims who shouldn’t have to buy into the monarchy deal as they’re not going to end up on the throne, thereby deserving more leeway.
They’ve even decided, in true Margaret style, they now need a six-week break so they can wind down before their Christmas holiday.
As a taxpayer I’m livid. But as a Republican I’m doing cartwheels.
