In defence of Meghan Markle

If we were still living in Tudor times, Meghan Markle, the heavily pregnant Duchess of Sussex and triggerer of idiots across the nation, would be in what was known as her "confinement" by now. And the aforementioned idiots would be over the moon that she was out of sight and out of mind, spending the final months of her pregnancy cooped up indoors, drinking brews of questionable medical efficacy, her staff on the lookout for the slightest sign of labour in between prayers being said for mother and child.

But thankfully times have changed and Meghan is going about her business as what is hilariously known as a "working royal" with her bump on display for all the world to see. And this is causing so much offence, as if she should leave the foetus in the car when she dares to step out in public.

A quick trawl through the sadder recesses of the internet reveals an especially tragic, creepily obsessive underbelly of cretins whining about Meghan putting her hand on her bump (as if she is the first-ever pregnant woman to reflexively, instinctively be protective of the growing contents of her uterus), being too showy with her choice of stylish maternity wear (as if the world of style needs a return to the dire days of billowing maternity dresses cut from acres of fabric that would not be out of place on a nursing home sofa) or faking the pregnancy (as if it's impossible that a healthy, attractive, wealthy couple would easily conceive despite most likely having all the sex or accessing the very best fertility care available). There have even been especially absurd sad cases accusing Meghan of being involved in a plot to stop Brexit.

Of course, when Meghan isn't being too overtly pregnant or making devious political plots, her pathetic army of haters will find other things to pick on. The other day, she was slagged off for not wearing tights while signing a book of condolence for the victims of the terror attacks on the Christchurch mosques and holding her husband's hand in public as they emerged from the car.

Jesus H. Christ on a two-wheeled perambulation device, would you people listen to yourselves? Do you know how ridiculous you all sound moralising about tights and public hand-holding? You're all one royal engagement away from demanding that table legs in the presence of duchesses are covered for fear of outraging public decency.

Then there are the critics who don't like that she is the "woke" duchess, the one who dares to use the f-word - "feminism" - in public when talking about her pregnancy. When she wrote messages of support on bananas for homeless women, people carried on as if she stripped naked and used the bananas like dildos in front of Buckingham Palace. Sure, it was a bit cheesy (and is there a fruit more comical than a banana, I think not...) but so what?

If telling women who have fallen off the lowest rungs of society's ladder that they are important and valued means that people might just look at these women as important and valuable, why is that a bad thing? Just try and answer that question without sounding like an arsehole.

The same people who were moved to tears by Diana simpering to Martin Bashir that she wanted to be the "queen of people's hearts" (show me to the vomitorium...) are often the same people condemning the sometimes schlocky but generally well-meaning words of Meghan. Diana was a fine actress, someone who knew exactly what she was doing when she teased the media, but when someone who has worked as an actual actress marries a royal, the old nose-in-the-air tropes about princes and showgirls rear their tedious heads.

Indeed, it is Meghan rather than Kate who has picked up where Diana left off, with the genuinely good work she did in raising awareness about issues such as land mines and acceptance of patients with HIV and AIDS. It is Meghan who has thrown herself into causes, both fashionable and unfashionable, since becoming a duchess, while it took Kate months to work out what causes she might support so that she had a purpose beyond breeding.

A lot of the hatred towards Meghan is rooted in jealousy, prudishness, snobbery or, at its most sinister, barely concealed racism.  There are grown women (and it is mostly women, sadly) out there, walking among us, who seem to think Prince Harry would have married them, if only this stunning, smart, caring woman hadn't stood in the way. The mere fact that she is American is a trigger, as if she deliberately deprived a British woman of her rightful royal husband. Watch these titwits clutch their pearls at the revelation that Meghan and Harry had a date camping under the stars in Botswana very early in their relationship. STOP THE PRESSES! THEY PROBABLY HAD SEX OUT THERE WITH ALL THAT WILDLIFE ROAMING ABOUT!

These envious, venomous, intellectually bankrupt women are generally perfectly OK with Kate Middleton, the Duchess of Cambridge, citing her as an example of "class" while Meghan is slagged off as "tacky".  "Class" is often a racist dog-whistle here, for what they are really saying is a white Englishwoman is an "appropriate" bride for a prince, while a mixed-race American woman is not. Whenever someone is obsessed with "appropriateness", it is almost always a cue to mentally cross them off any future party guestlist because you know they will be about as much fun as a yeast infection, as is the way with bigoted dullards.

And, of course, as an American divorcee, the tedious comparisons with Wallis Simpson pop up, as if Meghan too is a Nazi sympathiser, as if she is somehow going to undermine the institution of royalty.

Never mind that this deeply undemocratic institution has survived not just Edward's abdication but the affairs of Charles and Diana, the subsequent divorce of Charles and Diana, the death of Diana, the remarriage of Prince Charles, the Duchess of York's toe-sucking debacle, serious questions over Prince Andrew's alleged sexual peccadilloes and those of some of his awful mates, Princess Michael of Kent generally being a terrible human being, issues surrounding the taxation arrangements of the royal family and their estates, taxpayer-funded palace renovations, security and clothing, rumours currently fizzing away on Twitter about Prince William having an affair, and Prince Phillip's casual racism and bad driving - apparently, if you're an intellectually bankrupt hater, it will be Meghan Markle that will bring the whole damn house down.

Spoiler alert: if the royal family comes to an end, it won't be because of the saucy, woke wife of the guy who is sixth in line to the throne.

Photography by Genevieve/Flickr

The real purpose of royal weddings

Now the bunting has come down and the prosecco bottles are consigned to the recycling, it has become abundantly clear what royal weddings are for - they are a national (and international...) form of catharsis, a global opportunity to be as rude as we wish we could be at actual weddings.

Let's be honest - only the truly saintly among us have never snarked at a wedding. Whether it's speculating from behind an order of service about how long the marriage might last, telling a bride she looks beautiful when you secretly think the dress looks like a feral shower curtain, or judging the choice of a Celine Dion track for the first dance, we've all been there. Sometimes snarkers aren't even subtle - I was told I was "brave" for not wearing a white dress, as if getting married in silver and black was heroism on par with rescuing orphans from a burning building.

But when it's a royal wedding, on telly for all of us to see, we let loose. The white lies and good manners that lubricate the wheels of polite society dry up. This is not new, despite social media.

When Charles and Di got married back in 1981, Princess Anne's omelette-like hat and the crush-fest of a wedding dress attracted much low-tech snarking. Indeed, this was immortalised in Sue Townsend's The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole, Aged 13 3/4, with Adrian reporting that the princess wore a "dirty white dress". In the TV adaptation, Bert Baxter, the curmudgeonly OAP, said: "I know a wrinkle when I see one!" as everyone watched Diana enter St Paul's Cathedral looking like she was dressed in the handiwork of the Andrex puppy.

And with Twitter and Facebook, snarking went into overdrive as soon as the guests started arriving at St George's Chapel on Saturday. In between people expressing delight at the simple elegance of Meghan Markle's wedding dress, plenty declared they were bored by the dress, as if she got dressed solely for their entertainment, as if she owed the world a riot of sequins, itchy lace and a big old arse bow.

During the wedding service itself, collective pearls were clutched during the lively sermon given by the Reverend Michael Curry, the African-American primate and presiding bishop of the Episcopal Church. This was hilarious (such as the starched fart faces of certain people in the congregation) and a bit disturbing - an angry online mob of white people complaining that a black bishop is talking for too long is somewhat unseemly to witness. Of course, when I dared point this out on Twitter, a bunch of white people landed in my notifications to tell me I am racist and that they really didn't notice the bishop was black.

Apparently, 14 minutes of airtime was more than some people were prepared to deal with, even though it was the most entertaining and memorable part of the whole damn wedding.

The Venn diagram of people who have ever screeched "Britain is a Christian country!" and those who felt the need to complain about Reverend Curry going on a bit would probably overlap quite significantly. How many of these supposed defenders of the Church of England against threats, real or imaginary, regularly attend church?

Fourteen minutes is by no means an epic sermon, as anyone who goes to church can attest. The eminently forgettable sermon at William and Kate's wedding ran for about eight minutes but both wedding ceremonies lasted about an hour in total - the Book of Common Prayer marriage liturgy can be a wordy, time-consuming thing, especially when you add hymns to the mix. Give me a lively 14-minute sermon over a couple of dirgy seven-verse hymns pooped out of an arthritic pipe organ any day. 

And here's the inconvenient truth for those who thought the reverend's sermon was too long or too over-the-top or both - if you are genuinely concerned for the survival of Christianity in the UK, you might want to congratulate black British people for doing their bit to keep churches open. The British Social Attitudes survey documented from 1983 to 2014 a steady decline for the Church of England and a slight decline for the Roman Catholic church but a substantial increase in "other churches", many of which are dominated by people of African and Caribbean heritage. Between 2001 and 2011, white Christians declined by 18%  in London whereas black Christian growth was at 32% over the same period. The growth in church attendance is fuelled by black and ethnic minorities, not white Brits.

And if that means lively sermons are getting bums on pews, anyone who has panicked about the decline of church attendance in Britain should celebrate these extra bums regardless of the colour of the cheeks.

The Meghan Markle conundrum

Here's the thing about the royal family - even though their lives are far removed from ours, we still feel like we know them. Based on their limited, highly controlled interviews, absurd magazines and the occasional tell-all from a "palace insider", we reckon we have them all figured out.

Hell, I have Kate and William pegged as a nice but dull couple, the kind of people you'd trust to feed the cat while you're on holiday - but you wouldn't give them the task because then you'd have to invite them over for dinner and that would be excruciating. But Zara and Mike seem fun so I'd happily give them the house keys while I was on holiday. And - this is my controversial opinion - I think Camilla would be a right laugh too. She can pop over for a cheeky G&T.

We know them on first name terms even though we're supposedly meant to address them by ludicrous titles. And as of this weekend, Meghan and Harry will gain their very own ludicrous titles as they embark on married life and attempt to carve out their place in the world.

And speaking of places in the world, with the bizarre news that Prince Charles will walk Meghan at least halfway up the aisle today, in the absence of her ailing father - and despite her mother being in town - plenty of wags have suggested that finally after nearly 70 years on this planet, the hapless Charles has found something to do. The poor bugger has spent his entire life resembling a slightly beside-the-point Quentin Blake illustration.

Of course, the past week's who-will-walk-Meghan-up-the-aisle TMZ-fuelled brouhaha meant everyone felt the need to share their views on the whole notion of men giving brides away. Let's be honest - "giving a bride away" is hardly a feminist statement but when I got married at the ripe, old age of 34, Dad, a man who supports me in all I do, walking me down the aisle was lovely

That said, now we all know Prince Charles is doing the honours, opinion is divided, again as if we know the royals personally and have been privy to all the behind-closed-doors discussions. Did Meghan really ask Prince Charles to do this or was the Kensington Palace statement fake news? Is it a nice way to welcome her to the family? Is it sidelining Doria Ragland, the mother-of-the-bride? Surely the bigger story is sweeping homeless people off the street and not putting on a bunch of hog roasts for the people allowed into the castle grounds? Is it all just a bit weird for a father to give a woman to his son?

My first reaction was "Ick!" but I suppose the most charitable interpretation is that, even in the face of extreme awfulness by Sarah Vine, below-the-line Daily Mail commentators and other assorted racist, snobbish prudes, Meghan Markle is being supported by her new in-laws. Hell, there is a really awful sub-culture on Twitter of women who hate Meghan - they are racist, jealous and generally angry. Their comments in regard to the colour of her skin are not so much racist dogwhistles as honking great bullhorns.

For what it's worth, I like her - she comes across as fun, caring and a bit saucy. Anyone who upsets racists, snobs and prudes is fine by me. They are probably the same people who are, as I write this, whining about the multicultural BBC royal wedding coverage team - although I don't want to ruin my Saturday by going onto Twitter to see if there are idiots who are genuinely angry about the very presence of the gorgeous Naga Munchetty at Windsor Castle.

At the end of today, Meghan Markle will be the Duchess of Sussex - she has had to convert to the Church of England faith, if she has any children with Harry, they will join the in-line-to-the-throne production line and it is all part of an institution that is not based on merit, has only become moderately less sexist with the changes to primogeniture rules and could easily be thrown into confusion if an heir to the throne turns out to be gay. Her life will no longer be her own and everything she says, does and wears will be scrutinised for the rest of her life. I have no doubt that she will do what she can to continue the path of modernising the creaking old institution of the monarchy - and will probably be much quicker about choosing the causes she will support than Kate Middleton was.

Good for her and all that. Only a person with a truly rancid heart would wish Meghan and Harry a miserable marriage. Even a cranky old republican like me can smile at the sight of two people in love. If Meghan somehow brings down the monarchy, as the haters think she will, I would not be upset. But chances are, she won't cause the fall of the House of Windsor - and that will really annoy the haters.

Photography by Last Night of Freedom/Flickr