Prince Harry's 'bombshell' BBC interview

Sir Geoffrey Vos's judgment last week "was delivered politely and calmly", said Hugo Vickers in The Independent, bringing to an end a years-long legal battle over Prince Harry's security. The Court of Appeal judge found that the decision to downgrade Harry's police protection after he stepped back from royal life in 2020 was legally justified – though he said he understood Harry's fears and his "sense of grievance".

Harry had lost, and at this point, anyone else in his position would have retreated to quietly nurse their wounds (and pay their significant legal fees). But not Harry, said Rebecca English in the Daily Mail. Instead, he gave a "frankly extraordinary" interview to the BBC in which he described the decision as a "good old-fashioned establishment stitch-up", and claimed it wasn't safe for him to bring his wife Meghan and their children to the UK. He even set hares running over the health of the King, who is battling cancer, saying: "I don't know how much longer my father has. He won't speak to me because of this security stuff."

As Harry tells it, said Sarah Vine in the Daily Mail, he and his family "are victims of a massive conspiracy", perpetrated by an "utterly ruthless organisation called 'the Royal Household'". "They" are trying to kill him by removing his police protection; "they" use security to control members of the family. "On and on it goes, an endless litany of perceived injustices" – wilfully ignoring the fact that Harry deliberately chose to step away from royal life and all its trappings, including security.

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After firing off those "missiles", said Roya Nikkhah in The Sunday Times, Harry then had the gall to say he hoped for "reconciliation" with his family. He still doesn't get it, does he? To go on the attack just as the royals were about to commemorate VE Day "goes to the very heart of what he keeps getting wrong".

"The interview was awful, slick with entitlement and ignoring the harm done by his own hostility," said Libby Purves in The Times. But Harry is clearly suffering, and the magnanimous thing at this stage would be for his brother and father to grit their teeth and try to welcome him back into the fold (though of course, with his history of spilling royal secrets, they would have to watch what they said).

The King should accept his "wounded" son's appeal for reconciliation, agreed Peter Hunt in The Observer. If not, this family sore will continue to "fester" – casting a shadow over Charles's reign. According to Harry, his father once implored: "Please, boys – don't make my final years a misery." The King should avoid turning that prophecy to reality