Sunday 19 January 2020

megxit

Though still the duke and duchess of Sussex, Prince Harry and Meghan Markle will no longer be styled his and her royal highness and remit the public funding that had gone into renovating their chosen residence and forego future tax-payer support in light of their decision to step back from their public duties and spend part of the year in North America.
This month—with quite a few days on balance remaining—has already been quite a year already so there was precious little bandwidth available for these developments on top of everything else. It is difficult to forecast what this semi-abdication means for the couple and for their family—seeming untenable that one could partially recuse oneself and equally fought to be a gainfully employed private person without commercialising one’s name. It is also quite incredulous that this news and the intrusive and racist way it unfolded is taking sufficient oxygen out of the room so that there’s far more acute fatigue over Brexit and the Johnson cabinet’s commitment to withdraw from the European Union at the end of the month.