British PR doyen Mark Borkowski believes that the British High Court’s decision to dismiss Harry’s claims against the Daily Mail should end his crusade to take on the red tops and, for his sake, find a new purpose in life.
‘There isn’t a laundry in the cosmos big enough to wash all of Harry’s dirty linen he has aired about his own family. For him to complain about his privacy being invaded takes not just the biscuit, but the whole tin. Poor Harry’ – former Daily Mail editor Paul Dacre.
In this week’s High Court verdict, 97 claims were dismissed, and a victory speech from Paul Dacre (see video below) delivered with all the quiet restraint of a gender reveal party should, by rights, be a full stop. Not for the Mail. For Harry.
The ancients got there first, as they tend to. Fame, Atticus warned, is a poison most would drink happily despite the label promising a slow and miserable death. Every generation relearns it the hard way.
Call this case what it was. Harry did not want redress from the Mail; he wanted to crush it as payback for years of hurt, real and perceived and he gathered around him a company of famous names who felt the same. Understandable? Entirely. Human? Completely. But is it wise?
The judgment runs to several hundred pages, but the answer can be summarised in one word. Grievance makes a rotten general. It picks the battlefield your enemy knows best, commits everything, and calls the ensuing carnage principle.
But Harry’s deeper problem is not the press. It is purpose. We all strive for purpose. We all, sooner or later, face the existential challenges that gnaw at purpose and happiness alike. His just happened to play out before an audience of billions.
Here is a man conditioned from birth for a life of service, the uniform, the duty, the institution larger than the self who no longer leads that life. Service first was the operating system he was raised on. It cannot simply be swapped out for the gilded Montecito (Santa Barbara) bubble, where the mission statement is wellness, the output is content, and the nearest thing to a regiment is a podcast production team.
The litigation, one suspects, filled the vacancy. A war is a purpose of sorts. A poor one. Which is why the age-old wisdom holds a harder lesson: pick your battles. Not every wound demands a war, and not every war can be won despite what my legal friends may suggest. The true mark of sanity is knowing when to stop fighting. To accept defeat. To reconcile. To build bridges rather than burn the last of them.
Perhaps this is where the real story now lies. I would argue Harry remains significant to the Royal household if only he could see how to make it work. Surely the door is not closed. It rarely is in families. Reconciliation would not be surrender. It would be the recovery of the one thing the Montecito set cannot manufacture: a role.
What he lacks, and has always lacked, is a critical friend. Someone in the room paid to say no. Someone to ask: what does peace look like and why does it frighten you less than losing?
His challenge is the one we all face: to renew and to respond. That human capacity, not the winning, is the mark of true greatness.
The rest is noise.
Mark Borkowski is an acclaimed PR specialist, writer, media industry commentator and a leading figures in the British communications industry. He is the founder and agency head of Borkowski. You can follow Mark on LinkedIn.
