Instant Opinion: Harry and Meghan ‘could save the royal family’

The Week’s daily round-up highlights the five best opinion pieces from across the British and international media, with excerpts from each.

1. Sean O’Grady in The Independent

on royal responsibility

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If Harry and Meghan ditch their titles and move to Canada, they’d be saving the Royal Family – not abandoning it

“The Royal family enjoys its privileges, its role and its perks through the consent of the people who support it, financially, socially and politically. As the fate of Prince Andrew shows so chillingly, this can be swiftly and permanently lost. Their enemies may not understand it, but Harry and Meghan are actually trying to keep the institution useful and alive. If that means being a bit more woke, there’s nothing wrong with that.”

2. Camilla Tominey in The Daily Telegraph

on family planning

Prince Harry and Meghan's bid for freedom was long planned but still comes as a devastating blow

“The institution of monarchy has survived for centuries on a careful combination of tradition and modernisation - and since 1952 the Queen has been the epitome of this delicate balancing act. As sixth in line to the throne, I am not sure there will be much sympathy for the Duke of Sussex and his American wife trying to rewrite a royal rule book that Her Majesty has spent the last six decades steadfastly safeguarding.”

3. Piers Morgan in the Daily Mail

on damage limitation

Why the Queen must fire Their Royal Hustlers: Deluded Meghan and Harry should be stripped of their titles before this pair of grasping, selfish, scheming Kardashian-wannabes bring down the Monarchy

“What genuinely worries me now is that the very future of the Monarchy may be in serious jeopardy if these two renegades have their way and become effectively a pair of rival royals bestriding the globe acting like they're the big dogs, doing what the hell they like and using their royal fame to line their own pockets to the tune of millions like a pair of greedy, grasping hustlers, destroying the royal brand one grubby deal at a time.”

4. Stephen Bush in the New Statesman

on the next Labour leader

His Labour leadership campaign is off to a slick start – but the real Keir Starmer remains elusive

“He is the very model of an MP who has traded in a successful career for a stint in politics. The difference is that for him to be more than simply an effective candidate for the Labour leadership, he’ll have to do what most MPs who come to politics in middle age do not: acquire a definition outside their area of previous expertise. The great hope of his opponents, within the Labour Party and outside it, is that Starmer cannot acquire greater definition without losing support.”

5. James Kirkup in The Times

on nationalism

English identity can matter more than money

“People who value their Englishness are more likely than others to have voted Leave, more likely to identify strongly with their region or town and more likely to live in the poor and poorly connected places that gave the Tories their majority last month. As well as offering those people new bypasses, bridges and high-tech industries, the prime minister could usefully start a debate about England, the English and the way politics works for them. That might mean more devolution — working closely with English city mayors should be a priority for Boris Johnson — but this should be about more than policy responses. It’s about people’s ideas of themselves, nebulous concepts that need a cultural and intellectual response, not a bureaucratic one.”

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