Why Harry and Meghan need to close Archewell immediately

I’m glad Harold has got all that off his chest. Better out than in, as they say, and I only hope that, after unleashing another torrent of grievances on his family and country with two big promotional interviews followed by the publication of his blame-all autobiography, the Duke of Sussex woke up feeling lighter.

That team of LA therapists and wellness coaches he thanks so profusely in Spare? The “energy practitioner” who helped him reconnect with his mind and “create a state of flow” that might allow him to heal; the yoga guru; the acupuncturist; and the therapists he’s had on speed dial for years (the ones his wife was nonetheless denied access to): he’s done them proud. He’s “owned his own story”, as he told ITV’s Tom Bradby on Sunday night, and, in doing so, I fervently hope found some degree of catharsis.

I mean that. After all, we’re not talking about Kevin the Angry Teenager from a Harry Enfield sketch but a man of nearly 40 who, whatever you may think of him, has been through the unimaginable pain of losing his mother at the age of 12; a father-of-two whose hatred for “the British press” – as he kept repeating in a curiously robotic manner throughout the 90-minute interview, as though he were not himself British – is understandable. If only you’d left it there, Harry, and not debased yourself with onslaughts of petty vitriol on the subject of torn necklaces, broken dog bowls, Willy’s lamentable follicle count and Meg’s tiaras. Airing those grievances is your prerogative, of course, and I’m glad you’re putting your mental health first. But now that all is said and done – please God let that be all – you have one very important duty left to do before you get on with your day and your life as a free spirit, and that’s to shut down Archewell. With immediate effect.

Drop the charade, cut the pretence and, if you have even a shred of conscience left, close down the non-profit charity you and your wife set up in 2020; the one whose “core purpose, is to uplift and unite communities – local and global, online and offline – one act of compassion at a time”.

I’d say Harry’s made a mockery of “compassion”, but that would necessitate understanding the meaning of the word – something he cannot possibly grasp. Not when he’s thrown everyone under the bus, from his father (who was “never quite ready for parenthood”), stepmother, brother and sister-in-law, to the military colleagues the former army captain has imperilled by bragging about his “kills” in Afghanistan.

I’d refer Harry to a piece on the Archewell site – “What is compassion?” – if I thought it would make a dent. “We believe that compassion is at the core of all culture and connection in this world.” So true. 

But the sermonising doesn’t stop there. “To us, compassion means more than the dictionary definition. It means listening with open ears to the suffering and celebrations of communities and people beyond ourselves.” Ha! “It means taking the time to understand their perspectives, experiences and needs based on what they say, rather than assuming what they need.” 

Worse than laughable, these words have been rendered empty by the charity’s founders – and Archewell to all extents and purposes defunct.

You cannot head a vegan fashion convention dressed from head to toe in the hide of an endangered species, or host an AA meeting while drunk. For that reason, preaching compassion, trading on it, is now impossible for the Sussexes – their supposed “mission” dead in the water.

This won’t be a great loss. After all, last year American tax returns revealed that Archewell raised less than $50,000 in its first year – less than their charities spent on legal fees. Less than the Ty-Nant Cat Sanctuary near Port Talbot in South Wales did that same year. Less than Devon schoolboy Max Woosey raised for his local hospice by sleeping in a tent in his back garden night after night between 2020 and 2021. Less than the Surrey and Hampshire Canal Society and the French Porcelain Society, according to the Charity Commission’s records. On the plus side, maybe ditching the Emperor’s New Clothes of charities alongside every lofty moral purpose it claims to uphold will liberate the Prince still further? Leave him free to be his true self. But what does that self now look like? Harry’s cashed in every resentment, aired every “truth”. All he really wants now, he told Bradby, is a “reconciliation”. He wants his “father back”, his “brother back”, and he “genuinely believes” that achieving that may “have a ripple effect across the entire world”.

“Maybe that’s naive,” he concedes. I don’t think it is. I think it’s delusional, pompous and narcissistic to a chilling degree – and proof that compassion isn’t an emotion he’s currently capable of feeling, let alone selling.