Harry and Meg school-run fiasco shows they’ll NEVER stop bleating until they get their security – paid for by YOU

TWO days. That is how long Prince Archie and Princess Lilibet lasted at their English prep school before their parents pulled them out. Archie is seven, his sister five. They arrived in pristine uniforms on the Monday and were gone by the Wednesday, which is not even long enough to lose a jumper. Harry and Meghan face fresh questions over security after kids Archie and Lilibet were pulled from their English prep school after just two days Credit: Alamy Meghan Markle’s online snap of her and Harry out walking in the Cotswolds last weekend Credit: Instagram / Meghan Markle “Security” was the first word out — leaked by a not-so-mysterious figure close to Team Sussex. It made the television news. Sign up for The Sun newsletter Thank you! Then the story developed. By the time it reached glossy mag Hello!, the villain had become the traffic, the distance, the impossible school run. What actually happened, we later learnt, was that the convoy carrying the kids had simply become separated in busy traffic. READ MORE OPINION FROM THE SUN The exclusives were handed out — by Team Sussex or a source close to them — like Meg’s sprinkles to a few sympathetic outlets, mostly not on the record. We have been here before. In May 2023, the couple’s spokesman announced a near-catastrophic car chase through Manhattan — a relentless pursuit lasting over two hours, at the hands of highly aggressive paparazzi. It led to bulletins on both sides of the Atlantic and invited the Diana/Paris comparison, which was the point. Most read in The Sun Meghan is happy to share pictures of Archie and Lilibet with millions of followers while warning newspapers they must never photograph her children Credit: Instagram At the other end of the family, the Wales children have gone to school for years without a single bulletin once term started — no convoy, no pictures Credit: AFP The tale fell apart within a day. The NYPD logged no collisions, no ­injuries, no arrests. The then-Mayor of New York, Eric Adams, said he found claims of a two-hour, high-speed chase in his city hard to believe. The cab driver who had them in the back, Sukhcharn Singh, would not call it a chase at all — ten minutes, and he was never in danger. Two hours thus became ten minutes, and nobody “close to Team Sussex” who had spun this nonsense ever explained the gap. That is why the school story matters. This is the Meghan and Harry tale repackaged. We all worry about our kids and nobody minds this family being protected. Harry has spent years taking on newspaper groups over the publication of photographs of his children and issues around their privacy Credit: AP Harry and Meghan won’t stop bleating about security until they get what they want from Ravec – paid for by you Credit: Getty But it is equally clear Harry and Meghan will not stop bleating about their security until they get what they want out of the royal protection service, Ravec. Cute pictures one day, the same children revealed to have been pulled from school the next. Both can be true. The Sussexes are worried parents and, at the same time, a cynical pair with a firm eye on the outcome. Media lawyers sent a letter insisting the children were private and must never be photographed. Those same children then appear on a social media account with millions of followers. Notices go out about their privacy, from Press regulator IPSO, and days later the media is briefed that the kids are no longer at their school. Revealed by a newspaper, it is intrusion. Revealed by the family and set to a pop soundtrack, it is a moment. You don’t need Einstein to see the play, from a prince who has spent years taking on the newspaper groups over all this. Let’s be clear about one thing. Nobody wishes these children any harm. Not this trade, not the readers, not anyone. They are seven and five and they didn’t choose this life. But they have been used, and not by the photographers. They have been used by the two people whose job it was to keep them out of all this. We should take the fear seriously, though. Harry’s mother died in a car that was chased into a tunnel 29 years ago last month, driven by a man over the drink-drive limit — and the Prince has said ever since that the photographers killed her. The world has moved on. Harry hasn’t, and it is hard to blame him. For years, photographs of his children were arranged so we never quite saw their appearance — hoods adjusted, faces turned. Then comes footage of them running through long grass in the sun. And the next moment, their school has lost them. At the other end of the family, the Wales children have gone to school for years without a single bulletin once term started. No convoy. No pictures. Strip it back and this is about armed officers, paid for by the public, being permanently assigned. Protection is not something you decide you are owed. It is provided when the danger warrants it. There is an obvious answer — and it isn’t new. Hire retired royalty protection officers. They retire in their mid-fifties, fit, word-perfect on the drills, fluent in the radios and the rhythm of a school gate. Harry’s own father did exactly that for Camilla before they married — two full-time men, privately funded and not a penny of public money spent. Ravec has written to Harry. A board has been convened and a review is under way, now that he and his family are living here. The ground has shifted and it is right that officials look again, weighing the threat and nothing else. Experts put private cover at around £2.3million a year. That is 30-odd constables who could be on the beat instead. If it gets the nod, there will be a backlash, and by then it will be too late to walk it back. The Palace won’t comment. Neither will the Home Office. Ravec has never publicly discussed anything ever. Meanwhile, the rest of us cope. Every school day, millions of parents must find their young kids’ shoes in the morning, get the breakfast cereal down them and still get to work. If a household with its own protection team cannot foresee traffic in the first week of term, who can? Here’s an idea. Set the alarm three-quarters of an hour earlier. Unless there is a shortage of alarm clocks in their local shops — in which case, Harry, I will send one free of charge. Robert Jobson is author of The Windsor Legacy 2 comments2