Prince Harry strip pics leave newspapers feeling naked

Just when the Royal family was in danger of becoming boring and mainstream along comes a few photos of a naked Prince Harry playing strip billiards with girls in a hotel room in Vegas.

Prince Harry addresses a Walking with the Wounded press  conference

My questions about the latest Royal scandal appear to be rather different from anyone else's - being ..

1 What the hell is strip billiards?

2 Does it involve any balls being potted? (owch).

Personally I'm rather happy to see the Royals getting in a spot of bother. It seems so long since those pictures of Fergie having her toes tucked by her financial advisor, the Squidygate tapes etc. Even the Duke of Edinburgh is too sick to insult any foreigners these days.

In contrast Harry is keeping up the Great British tradition of making a mark in the United States. Like Hugh Grant without the mugshot.

Harry has a bit of a history of being a lad. In 2005 he showed up a friend's fancy dress party wearing a Nazi costume complete with a swastika arm band.

"Harry the Nazi," declared the Sun.

Usually when Royal scandals erupt there's the tabloid story and the erudite story - namely about how the tabloids have covered the issue. It was no exception this time. After the Leveson inquiry into press intrusion the newspapers heeded the Clarence House pleas for them not to use the pictures.

Then a day later The Sun made a sudden U-turn and published the pictures, painting itself as a champion of press freedom.

Today's front page "Heir it is," gave readers the "pic of naked Harry you've already seen on the internet."

The line is ironic because it's the foil to so many newspaper headlines that make much of how they are offering readers exclusive pictures before any other publication. Obliquely I wonder if this headline is a epitaph to the newspaper industry in the age of the internet.

You also have to wonder if the Royal Family has kept up with the times. Is there really any point if urging the official media not to publish pictures when anybody with a computer can access them on a myriad of sites?

The Sun's editor championed the public interest cause pointing out half of the world had seen the pictures on the Internet anyhow and its readers had a right to see them. I'm not sure if the public interest argument wasn't undermined by the fact most of its readers had probably already checked out Harry online.

To be fair these pictures weren't entirely tasteless. Personally I found images on The Sun's website of Celine Dion wearing a rabbit mask and dungarees adorned with stuffed bears and Kim Kardashian doing an impression of Diana Ross, considerably more toe curling.

Harry's hotel japes were the sort of thing soldiers do when they go on vacation. To pick a totally random name, entirely unconnected with Harry, it's the kind if cadish escapade you could imagine former Household Cavalry officer, Major James Hewitt engaging in.


The trouble is when you are third in line to the throne what happens in Vegas is unlikely to remain there.