Royal family caught up in Nazi row (Guardian)

An unfortunate headline: The royal family weren’t so much ‘caught up’ in a Nazi row as they were causing it.

Up to now, I’ve been fairly supportive of Prince Harry, because I think that any young person caught up in the paparazzi, for example, would have difficulty not getting fed up with it and lashing out. And he is unfairly criticised for underage drinking: When the majority of young people in the country do this, it’s wrong to single him out in the way that the tabloids have.

But wearing a Nazi uniform to a party is taking this one step too far. For me, it’s nothing to do with the fact that Prince Harry is third in line to the throne: I’d disapprove of anybody being so very insensitive, especially in the run-up to the memorial day at Auschwitz. The unfortunate thing for Harry is that this will haunt him for a very long time to come, far more so than the other minor indiscretions that have been highlighted in the past. He’s unlikely to ever live this one down.

If we accept that he’s third in line to the throne, a more worrying problem occurs to me: What the heck was he, and the second-in-line to the throne, doing attending a ‘Natives and Colonials’ fancy dress party? If ‘Natives and Colonials’ isn’t a perjorative theme for a party, I’m not entirely sure what is.