Who can blame Harry for talking?

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Years ago, in another newspaper, my colleagues and I were talking about our families.

A woman made a comment that appalled me. She said she has two daughters, aged 12 and 10, and a son, aged six, and added: He’s my favourite.

Perhaps many parents prefer one child over another. Maybe they don’t admit it. But I would have thought they shouldn’t admit to people outside of their family, and never to the children themselves.

It would shake a child’s self-confidence terribly to hear that.

I never really liked the woman who said it afterwards.

I’m sure all good parents try to be balanced and fair to all of their children and show no favoritism whether they have a favorite or not.

Yet there is one family in this country where patronage is not just tolerated but institutionalised, the Windsors of central London.

I have always maintained that the monarchy should be abolished not only because of the amount it costs.

It is also because of the psychological harm it does to their limbs. And Prince Harry has suffered this pain more than most.

A YouGov poll last week revealed, disconcertingly, that most Britons over the age of 65 dislike the Sussexes any more than they like the disgraced Prince Andrew.

And there is a clear age-related dividing line between those who sympathize with the Sussexes and those who don’t, with younger people tending to be on their side.

It’s a bit like Brexit in that regard.

And just like Brexit, the argument will rumble endlessly.

As a middle-aged man, I find myself on the younger side on both issues. Harry may be rich but he’s had a really tough time, and we can’t blame him for saying that.

Consider growing up knowing that his tallest, handsomest, most educated brother is the special, the future king, and you are the replacement.

There has been speculation that Harry is actually the son of Diana’s lover, James Hewitt, and that explains his red hair. Even Charles joked that he might not be Harry’s real father. How did that make him feel?

And when Charles told the boys their mother was dead, they didn’t get a hug or even eye contact from her.

Then, aged 12, he had to parade publicly behind his mother’s coffin.

But the Windsors are a decidedly strange family. They spend most of their childhood being looked after by nannies. Prince Philip missed all of Charles’ first five birthdays.

Charles had to bow to his mother when he left a room, while the servants had to go out backwards, without turning their backs on her.

At meal times, everyone had to stop eating when the Queen did, even if they hadn’t finished.

This bowing and scratching is totally foreign to Americans. The United States has massive inequality, but the idea that meritocracy prevails because you are talented or hardworking is ingrained in their culture.

The strict pecking order within the royal family makes no sense to them.

So how was Harry’s American wife going to fit in?

The rigid hierarchy dictated that Meghan had to curtsy to Kate whenever she saw her. She was never going to take part in the Boxing Day filming because, like most Britons, she disapproves of killing wild animals for fun.

And she has always been interested in social issues. When she was 11, she wrote to Procter & Gamble, complaining that the slogan of one of their washing-up liquid advertisements was sexist.

He said: All across America, women are fighting greasy pots and pans. After his letter, they changed the women into people.

Years later, she said: It’s time to focus less on glass slippers and more on glass ceilings.

But royal wives are meant to stand behind their husbands in silence, with no opinions or anything interesting to say, just like Kate.

And so Meghan is subjected to vitriolic abuse for being herself and being mixed race, not just from Piers Morgan and Jeremy Clarkson.

When their son Archie was born, Danny Baker tweeted a photo of a couple walking out of a hospital, each holding hands with a chimpanzee. Public reaction caused it to be removed soon after.

There are those who believe Meghan lured Harry away from his family and his duty. But in an interview he gave long before he or anyone else had heard of Meghan, he admitted he wanted out of the business, as the family calls it.

Considering what he and his wife went through, I don’t blame him in the least.

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