Harry is suing Mirror Group Newspapers (MGN) for breaching his privacy. He claims that, between 1996 and 2011, the Mirror titles published some 140 articles about him based on information obtained using illegal means, primarily phone-hacking. Yet as MGN’s barrister Andrew Green KC observed in his opening statement: ‘There’s no evidence to support a finding that any mobile phone owned or used by the Duke of Sussex was hacked. Zilch, Zero, Nil, De Nada, Niente, Nothing.’

As spiked’s editor Tom Slater noted, the prince’s evidence proved that he was right about one thing: as Harry says, he really is paranoid about the press, which he blames for everything he doesn’t like. Under cross-examination, the prince repeatedly had to admit that information he claimed had been gathered illegally actually came from official palace statements, previous media reports, and even interviews with him or his mother, Princess Diana. None of that made the slightest difference to his wilful belief that he must have been hacked throughout his life. …

In a display of ignorant aristocratic chutzpah that was impressive even by his and Meghan’s standards, Prince Harry used his witness statement to give us a lecture on the shortcomings of democracy. ‘Democracy fails’, pronounced the duke, ‘when your press fails to scrutinise and hold the government accountable’. Thanks, your grace. Democracy will certainly be in jeopardy if we allow the ability of the press to expose the powerful and hold governments to account to be further curtailed at the behest of freedom-hating snobs and their princely poster boy.

[I was assured democracy died in darkness — so why is Harry trying to stop the light? Especially since he and his wife pursue the limelight with every fiber of their beings? — Ed]