SARAH VINE: While Harry thinks the world is out to get him, all he’ll achieve is second homes for his lawyers

Prince Harry was back in town this week, visiting his favourite people, aka his legal team. I don’t understand that man. His father has just had cancer, one of his oldest friends got married last weekend – and yet he apparently had time for neither, heading straight from court to Ukraine, where he met wounded soldiers and civilians in Lviv.

No one could ever question his dedication and admiration for those on the frontline. Despite everything, the Invictus Games remain a great achievement. And none could be more deserving of his support than the victims of Putin’s war.

But there is something telling about Harry’s apparent ability to connect more with total strangers than his family. It’s not that he can’t do emotion – like his mother he’s a deeply compassionate, caring person. It’s just that he seems to struggle with complex relationships.

Prince Harry speaks to Ukrainian war veterans during his visit to the Superhumans rehabilitation centre in Lviv on Thursday

Prince Harry attends day two of a Court of Appeal hearing at the Royal Courts of Justice on Wednesday

We all know that feeling. Sometimes it’s easier to talk to someone who doesn’t really know you because you can edit out all the gnarly bits about yourself which you’re not entirely proud of, the bits that your family and friends won’t let you gloss over.

There’s no baggage: everything is just so much more straightforward. It’s a form of emotional transference, a way of keeping the real feelings at arm’s length.

In my experience, this is often the case with damaged people, men especially. They can do affection in the abstract, at a safe distance. They can do the grand gestures, but it’s the everyday minutiae that matter most they struggle with. They can be closed and often, as in Harry’s case, all that repression translates into destructive behaviours. They start to think the world is out to get them. They attribute motives to others that aren’t real. We’ve seen this with Harry in his wilful misinterpretation of his family’s approach to his marriage, and also in his assertion this week that his police protection was withdrawn to prevent him and Meghan leaving Britain to start a new life.

On leaving the Royal Courts of Justice, where his case against the Home Office is on appeal, he said: ‘We were trying to create this happy house.’ He added that he was ‘exhausted’ and ‘overwhelmed’, which is understandable. So why put himself through it? Why not just sit with his father and have a grown-up conversation about it all? King Charles is not an especially difficult man, nor is he an unreasonable one. And he loves his son. Where there’s a will, there’s always a way, surely.

Apparently not. Harry runs away rather than confronts difficult truths. If he doesn’t like something, he just turns his back on it.

He’s done with his role as a royal, his connection to his homeland and the Press, and his relationship with his family. He deliberately erects barriers and then accuses people of shutting him out.

He is allowing his anger and his resentment to isolate him. It’s rather sad. But that doesn’t make it any less ugly. I don’t know how much this legal case is costing the taxpayer, but I don’t imagine it’s cheap, and at a time when we can ill-afford to waste a penny.

All because Harry is acting out what has every appearance of being a personal vendetta. What else was the King supposed to do? Keep paying for him and the Duchess, though they are no longer working royals and don’t even live here? If he thinks that, then I’m sorry but he’s delusional.

Harry chose to go and chose the manner in which he went. He did not go quietly and did not go kindly. He left as much scorched earth in his wake as he could. And it looks to me as if he tried his best to take down the institution of the monarchy, along with individual members of his family. He failed, it seems clear, not just because a lot of it was simply not true, but also his viciousness showed him in a whole new light and surprised even his staunchest supporters.

Until Harry learns to master his resentment and rage, he will never truly move on. He will always find himself drawn back to the traumas that drove him away in the first place. He needs to learn to let go, otherwise he’ll spend the rest of his life endlessly going over the same old ground – and achieving very little save buying second homes for his lawyers.

Prince Harry at the Superhumans rehabilitation centre in Ukraine, alongside representatives from the Invictus Games Foundation

For now, he faces life as an Instagram husband, holding the camera for the Duchess of Sussex as she flogs overpriced jam to her followers. Perhaps that’s all he wants – who’s to say? But it sure doesn’t look like it’s making him happy.

And one thing is certain: he can’t have his shortbread cookie mix with flower sprinkles – and eat it.

Kemi Badenoch tried (but failed) to explain the difference between a documentary and a drama when BBC Breakfast asked about her ‘failure’ to watch Adolescence on Netflix. Most MPs would spout platitudes. She argued the unpopular, correct response. That’s why I like her.

It’s lift-off for big cleavage

Katy Perry and Lauren Sanchez at the 2025 Vanity Fair Oscars Party in March

Jeff Bezos’s fiancée Lauren Sanchez and pop star Katy Perry, plus US TV anchor Gayle King, are preparing to blast off into space aboard Bezos’s ostentatiously shaped Blue Origin rocket.

They won’t be there long – but their trip could yield vital data for future space missions, namely the effect of G-force and weightlessness on (alleged) breast implants and face fillers. One small step for man, one giant leap for big cleavage.

What on Earth were Surrey police thinking when they arrested a mum-of-two for confiscating her children’s iPads? Vanessa Brown, a teacher, was taken into custody, searched, photographed, fingerprinted and held for seven hours following a tip-off by someone who had it in for her, probably.

It’s hard enough being a parent these days, fighting the constant tide of tech nonsense without the police undermining your authority. Now whenever she tries to limit screen time, they’ll just laugh in her face and threaten to call the cops.

On track for a nap… 

I confess I have some sympathy for NHS boss Sir Jim Mackey, caught snoozing in front of his laptop on the train from London to Newcastle having earlier railed against government inefficiency in the House of Commons.

I find it almost impossible to stay awake on a train, even when I have the most pressing deadline. There’s something about the rhythmic rumble of the tracks and the soporific view of passing countryside that sends me almost instantly to sleep. It could have been worse: at least Sir Jim wasn’t dribbling.

The aviation industry has announced it’s to do away with boarding passes and check-in, replacing the system with a ‘digital journey pass’. What if you don’t have (or want) a smartphone? Does this mean you won’t be able to fly? What will happen to children or old people who don’t own phones? It’s already the case that you can’t park a car without an app. Yet another step towards a totalitarian digital dictatorship.

I’ve been dolled up by AI, too

Sarah Vine used ChatGPT to create this doll version of herself

It seems the world has been ‘jumping’ on the AI trend of asking ChatGPT to create a doll version of themselves.

Not wanting to seem a Luddite, I gave it a go. A remarkably reassuring experience. First, my name is not Samantha and ChatGPT knows this. Also, I told it I have two dogs, not three, plus a tortoiseshell cat, and that is clearly a tabby. And I would not be seen dead in a pair of nun-like courts. Perhaps AI is not ready to take over the human race. Either that, or it’s trying to lull me into a false sense of security.

Search for Alas Vine & Hitchens on Apple, Spotify and wherever you get your podcasts now. New episode released every Wednesday.