Is Prince Harry owed protection?

What a "tedious, expensive and miserable way to live", said Joanna Williams in The Times. Last week, Prince Harry was back in the UK, fighting yet another legal battle – this time at the Court of Appeal, where he is challenging the Home Office's decision to strip him and his wife Meghan of their round-the-clock, taxpayer-funded security when they stepped back from royal duties in 2020.

Ravec, the body responsible for the protection of royals and VIPs, decreed that, instead, the level of security offered to the couple would be decided on a case-by-case basis. Ever the victim, Harry claims he has been singled out for "unjustified and inferior treatment". Is there no limit to his sense of entitlement, asked Sarah Vine in the Daily Mail. Why should we "keep paying for him and the Duchess", when "they are no longer working royals and don't even live here"? Besides, if Harry really thinks he is at risk in Britain, said Kate Mansey in The Times, why did he fly 5,000 miles to a hearing he could have followed from his mansion in Montecito?

This case is "at the heart" of Harry's rift with his father, said Victoria Ward in The Daily Telegraph. He claims that he was promised that he could keep his protection at the Sandringham summit in 2020, held days after he and Meghan announced that they were leaving for California – and that the "Establishment" later reneged on that promise to "punish" them, and to try to dissuade them from leaving. Harry says the King could get Ravec's decision reversed – and that if he did, it would be "swords down" between the warring royals.

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up

It would also be the right thing to do, said Alison Phillips in The i Paper. Yes, Harry is a "self-absorbed" idiot who has repeatedly wounded his family, but he didn't choose to be a royal, and is as deserving of "proper security" on British soil as any other British VIP. Liz Truss is eligible for automatic protection, for goodness sake – and she caused far more harm in her 49 days as PM than Harry has done. Besides, imagine if he were to be attacked. It would be a national scandal; and it would have happened not because his wife was in "Suits" and now flogs jam, but because his father is King Charles III. "It seems churlish and unfair for the nation not to recognise that."