JAN MOIR: Once, Meghan wanted to enrich the lives of millions… now, it seems she just wants to enrich herself

Quite a week for the Montecito Two, what with Meghan launching her podcast, her jams and her packets of pancake mix – or ‘flour’ as I like to call it.

And then with Harry flying into London on Air Angry to appear at the Royal Courts of Justice for the latest stage in his legal battle with the Home Office and RAVEC, the government body responsible for the protection of royalty and other VIPs in the UK.

This is over the matter of the level of taxpayer-funded personal security he should receive when visiting the UK after stepping down as a senior royal and moving abroad in 2020.

On both sides of the Atlantic, each Sussex separately served up some major drama – as ever.

During her Confessions of a Female Founder podcast, Meghan volunteered that she had suffered from postpartum preeclampsia after the birth of one of her children. 

She didn’t say which one because that is like, you know, super-duper majorly private.

Either that, or it is a precious, unpinned grenade of personal information to be publicly deployed at some point for maximum clicks or spends or sympathy votes. 

Plus, is there any way she can blame Kate? Asking for a friend who is even more cynical than I am.

Still, what a terrible and frightening ordeal for a mother to endure, especially when – as Meghan breathlessly told her podcast guest – ‘nobody outside knew what was going on’.

In London, we were given a startling new perspective on Megxit. 

Listen, forget what Prince Harry said back in 2020, when his official statement on Instagram described the Sussexes’ freedom flight to America as ‘an exciting new step’. 

He and Meghan felt ‘prepared to make this adjustment’ because they were boosted by public ‘encouragement’ and support. That was then.

The Court of Appeal heard a very different version of events this week. Lawyers acting for Prince Harry said it was not a choice but an imperative, a decision imposed upon the couple by circumstances.

You might have once thought Harry and Meghan were just a couple of peeved millennials smarting over not being given their first choice of tiaras or pick of country estates. 

Or maybe you had sympathy for a pair of refugees fleeing the tyranny of inherited wealth and privilege. 

But now we are being told that they never wanted to leave at all!

All through their wild days, their mad existence, the answer was here all the time, and so on . . . tra la la.

Lawyers acting for the Prince told the court that the Sussexes felt ‘forced to step back’ from their roles as senior working royals because they were ‘not being protected by the institution’.

Harry’s barrister, Shaheed Fatima KC, even said he had been ‘singled out’ for inferior treatment. Oh dear, that oh-so-familiar refrain which, according to Harry, is the story of Harry’s life.

It was interesting that Robert Palmer KC, for the Home Office, had said in written submissions that the Duke had ‘failed to afford the necessary measure of respect’ to the Home Secretary and RAVEC throughout this protracted legal case.

This doesn’t surprise me. For more than five years, allegations of high-handedness and bullying have followed the Duke and Duchess of Sussex around like a bad smell. These charges are always vehemently denied by the couple, but surely it does suggest, at the very least, a certain pattern of behaviour. 

Or perhaps they just assume a status in private that is misunderstood by those who work for them.

Certainly, reporters noted a testy moment in court when something displeased Harry, who threw down his pen in annoyance. 

Then he picked it up again to write a densely worded Post-it note and had it passed down to his lawyer, Miss Fatima.

I imagine it went something like this: ‘This is such RUBISH stop these bullies swots and CISSIES get them to just give me PROTEKSHUN, dudes SAY TO THEM TO stop fussin over BALDY big bro, I LOVED my Gan-Gan but what about noble brave ME, GET them to vibe ME for once or Megz will GO MAD.’

Speaking of Meghan, Meghan was speaking of Meghan under the guise of interviewing Whitney Wolfe Herd for the first episode of her new girlboss podcast.

I was looking forward to it! Miss Herd, 35, really is a remarkable woman. She helped launch the dating app Tinder, left it to launch the dating app Bumble and became a self-made dollar billionaire along the way.

She must be as tough and smart as all hell, but none of that came across in this vacuous witterfest, helmed by the Duchess of Drivel.

It sounded like two rich women delighting in their own specialness, rather than two she-entrepreneurs really trying to connect with and help other women get established in the business world.

Meghan droned on about being ‘consumed with packages, boxing and unboxing’ when preparing for the launch of her spectacularly mundane but nicely packaged As Ever food range.

Whitney told her that entrepreneurs should ‘think outside the box’, so that was useful. The Bumble boss also bumbled on about why businesswomen should ‘cut through the noise and be vulnerable’ and they should ‘bottle your essence’.

Near neighbours in Montecito, the women called each other ‘beauty’ and told listeners how they bonded very quickly, even though they met only a few years ago. ‘She is one of my closest friends,’ said Meghan. I’ll bet she is, beauty.

And so this is where we are. Five years ago, when Meghan and Harry were supposedly driven into exile by your-guess-is-as-good-as-mine, they relaunched as a couple who wanted to change the world and enrich the lives of millions.

There are still glimmers of their kindly potential and global goodness. 

After his London trip, Prince Harry travelled to Ukraine to meet with wounded military personnel and civilians, part of his ongoing work with injured soldiers and the Invictus Games.

This is certainly the best of him, although sometimes this altruism gets lost in the blizzard of flower sprinkles, celebrity jams and arguing over personal bodyguards. How has it come to this?

Camilla’s Arctic reality check 

She’s brave, she’s fit, she’s posh. But was Camilla Hempleman-Adams in too much of a hurry to let the world know of her recent achievement?

The 32-year-old travelled across 150 miles of Baffin Island in the Arctic Circle on foot and by ski while pulling a sledge in temperatures as low as -40C.

Her expedition took two weeks and, really, well done, Camilla. Yet her excited claim that she was the first woman to make a solo trip over Canada’s largest island were met with outrage by members of the indigenous Inuit population.

Not only did they criticise her ‘privilege and ignorance’ for making such an assertion, they said their local women had been travelling the same route for generations, sometimes in worse weather, sometimes when pregnant. And that it was no bloody big deal.

Is Camilla just another entitled adventuress – she is the daughter of explorer Sir David Hempleman-Adams – who thinks it is all about her?

Is she guilty of ignorant and racist behaviour? Or is she merely guilty of overstating her case?

If she had described herself as the First British Woman to make the trip, that might have been just about okay.

Although First Posh Nepo Baby From Wiltshire would have been more accurate.

It’s time to stop the Carnival carnage 

Cher Maximen, 32, was with friends and her daughter at the Notting Hill Carnival last year when she got caught up in a fight involving multiple men. 

Cher was an innocent bystander, but she was stabbed in front of her child and died in hospital six days later.

On Wednesday at the Old Bailey, a 20-year-old called Shakeil Thibou was convicted of her murder and will be sentenced at a later date. 

Another terrible knife crime in the capital, another blemish on the Carnival. When will Mayor Sadiq Khan address these issues?

It is a disgrace that the Carnival is still held in a residential area, as opposed to in a park which could be secured with knife arches, exit and entry points and a safe perimeter, instead of the carnage that happens every year.

The Met Police described Cher as a loving mother who went to the event to enjoy a carefree day in the company of friends and her young daughter. ‘In stark contrast,’ they said, ‘Shakeil Thibou went to Carnival not to be part of the celebration, but to engage in violence. 

‘Why else would he have arrived armed with a large knife and seeking confrontation?’

Why indeed? Don’t bother asking the mayor. He doesn’t have any answers at all.

Are you thinking what she’s thinking?

Queen Camilla says that the secret to a happy marriage is ‘friendship, laughter and getting on with life’. Well, good for her.

In Rome for an official visit this week, she and King Charles certainly looked incredibly happy together – even after all this time.

Their relationship hasn’t always been easy and there are those who will never forgive them for their betrayal of Princess Diana. Perhaps even Prince William and Prince Harry are among their number.

Yet as time passes, it has become more and more obvious they were meant to be together all along. Must we still punish them for the sins of the past?

Liz defies nature at 60 

The sun is shining, the birds are singing and Elizabeth Hurley has just posted a photograph of herself in a bikini. 

What further sign do you need that spring has well and truly arrived?

Liz was wearing one of her own Beach range Paradise bikinis (£150) as she skipped along the shoreline.

‘The most glorious sunset in the glorious Maldives,’ she said, as she enjoyed the sunshine and recuperation following a recent taxing holiday in Jaipur.

Liz will be 60 years old in June but, wow, she looks incredible. 

She remains a one-woman force of nature and a testament to what discipline, exercise and five raisins a day can achieve.