BUCKINGHAM Palace’s decision to bury a report into allegations of bullying by the Duchess of Sussex could be down to a desire not to ‘poke the bear that is Harry and Meghan’, says the Daily Mail’s Royal Editor Rebecca English.
Officials announced this week that the result of the investigation into the allegations – firmly denied by lawyers for Meghan – will never be made public
‘There’s been a suggestion made to me that the palace have really done this because they don’t want to poke the bear that is Harry and Meghan,’ Rebecca tells Palace Confidential. ‘And they seem to want to keep the peace with them, possibly at the expense of their workforce.
‘I suspect the Palace are willing to take a flurry of bad headlines and television reports on the chin over the next few days in the hope that after that, the whole issue will quietly wither away.’
The Firm’s decision to ‘sweep things under the carpet’ has created an ‘extraordinary’ situation, argues The Mail on Sunday’s assistant editor Kate Mansey.
‘I’ve never been at a briefing in my 20-plus years of reporting experience where something has been so comprehensively swept under the carpet,’ she says. ‘It’s extraordinary that these allegations can be made at such a high level and the public might never know the result of the review that’s been carried out.’
It’s the wrong move, says the Daily Mail’s Diary Editor, Richard Eden, as now even Meghan doesn’t get a chance to properly clear her name.
‘I think it’s terrible for everyone that’s been left hanging. You could argue that it’s very unfair to Meghan,’ he says. ‘What worries me greatly is it just seems like the Palace are falling over themselves not to upset Harry and Meghan. They seem desperate not to upset them and I think that’s a mistake.’
The panel also discuss the revelations that Prince Charles accepted carrier bags of cash totalling £2.5million in donations to his charities. And while there is no suggestion of wrongdoing on the part of the prince, we ask whether the family should change their approach to charitable activities following a number of negative headlines and the cash-for-access scandal.