On Tuesday night, the photos and videos of the Duke and Duchess of Sussex in Jamaica began coming out on social media. As soon as the video of Harry and Meghan warmly greeting Prime Minister Andrew Holness came out, I knew we would be in for a complete sh-tstorm in the British media. Holness will always be famous in royal media circles as the prime minister who called Prince William and Kate into his office in 2022 and fired them live on camera, without even offering them a seat. He kept them standing as he told them that Jamaica was “moving on” from the Windsors’ colonialist sh-tshow. That side-by-side, of Holness firing W&K and then warmly greeting the Sussexes two years later, will live rent-free in the Windsors’ heads for eternity. Since the One Love premiere, the British media has predictably gone crazy, screaming and crying about Harry & Meghan’s easy soft diplomacy and charisma. Well, the Guardian’s Nels Abbey had a fantastic column about just how badly Britain f–ked up:

A popular Nigerian adage says “the cow never knows the value of its tail until it is chopped off”. In many tragic ways, this speaks to today’s Britain. From EU membership, to competent leadership, to low inflation, it seems necessary for Britain to lose things to appreciate their importance. This week, look at Prince Harry and Meghan being feted in Jamaica. See the soft-power skills they carry with them, and think about that Nigerian adage.

In much of the British media, Harry and Meghan are all-year panto villains. But around the world, they could not be more loved – often for the very reasons they are despised in the British media. They are the soft power we could have enjoyed with the increasingly dominant, increasingly self-confident non-white world, especially the Commonwealth.

It’s not just that they are royals. Prince William and Kate headed to “no problem” Jamaica in 2022, and encountered problems aplenty. As their PR fiasco unfolded, they were derided for shaking hands with Jamaican children through wire fences, and for motoring viceroy-style through crowded streets in a fancy Land Rover. At the nightmare’s end, Jamaica basically handed Britain its P45, informing the royals of its intention to be a republic, to “move on”.

And it’s not just that Harry and Meghan are famous. David Cameron’s 2015 visit to Jamaica as prime minister was seen as another giant clunker. But then he did self-sabotage there, swatting away reparations requests, urging Jamaicans to “move on” from slavery and offering to fund the building of a prison to house the Jamaican-origin criminals whom Britain didn’t want. As a figure of renown, and, of course, a descendent of enslavers, he could have handled it all better.

Still, Harry has something the royals he left behind and the likes of Chillax Cameron can never have. He has familiarity, an ease with difference – and he has Meghan. In 2012, he also had the love of the UK press and public. He was praised for his warm embrace of the then Jamaican PM, Portia Simpson-Miller, and was photographed larking about with Usain Bolt. “He has shown himself to be a natural ambassador, a diplomat in a very real sense – one hug from him has (at least partly) dissipated the bad feeling of generations … It is inconceivable that any other royal could have pulled this off quite so effectively,” gushed the Mail on Sunday.

But that was then, before the British media’s own version of Orwell’s “two minutes hate” became a thing. Now, much of the press sees Harry and Meghan glad-handing and being glad-handed in Jamaica, surfing the love at the premiere of the Bob Marley biopic, and they don’t much like it. “Meghan and Harry pose next to anti-royal Jamaican prime minister who wants to ditch the monarchy and warned Wills and Kate they’ll never be king and queen of his nation – as Charles undergoes prostate surgery and the Princess of Wales recovers in hospital,” thundered the Mail. “The hubris of Harry and Meghan’s Jamaican photoshoot,” snorted the Spectator. “Crown fools: ‘Provocative’ Harry & Meghan spark royal row as they meet Jamaican politicians plotting to oust Charles as head of state,” jeered the Sun.

Britain understood Harry’s value and soft power in 2012, so what changed? Answer: Harry fell in love with, and married, a Black woman. That could have been a boon for this country, here and abroad; instead it’s a might-have-been. And what might have been to our reputational benefit is what has been happening in Jamaica.

The UK headlines and sour grapes tell you one thing: we messed up and we know it. Meghan was, and remains, soft-power dynamite, and all we have now is the soft-power kryptonite of Wills and Kate and the Windsor “firm” that spurned her. Still, that’s us: we never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity.

[From The Guardian]

On Wednesday, I wrote: “I wonder what it feels like for the British royal reporters to lose this badly, and have to narrate their own pathetic irrelevance.” Well, at least one Guardian columnist is admitting as much. “Meghan was, and remains, soft-power dynamite, and all we have now is the soft-power kryptonite of Wills and Kate and the Windsor “firm” that spurned her.” You might even say that Meghan was “spurned” in the first place because she was so good at the job, because she was so beautiful, charismatic, effervescent, intelligent, diplomatic and hard-working. It’s not like Britain didn’t understand that Meghan would be/could be such a great ambassador for Britain – they understood it and they were mad that a Black woman overshadowed their royal saltines. Anyway, we should totally start calling them “soft-power kryptonite Wills and Kate.”

Photos courtesy of Instar, Cover Images, Backgrid.