After Prince Harry’s settlement, let’s hope the onslaught on press freedom is at an end

Could it be that the heat of the Los Angeles wildfires has gone to Prince Harry’s head?

Or is it just that from a distance of almost 9000 km, it’s rather difficult to judge the mood in your home country?

Following a dramatic eleventh hour settlement in his long running privacy dispute with a newspaper group, the Duke of Sussex unleashed a furious broadside against the publisher, demanding yet more retribution for his supposed suffering.

In a statement read by his lawyer, he depicted his sudden decision to throw in the towel in his decades-long battle with Rupert Murdoch’s newspaper group as a “monumental victory”.

Listening to his extraordinary diatribe, you could almost see the Prince puffing out his chest. Far, far away from chilly reality in London, it is clear Harry thinks that the agreement he has reached with the newspaper group is a phenomenal triumph – and that this marks the moment that he finally reigns supreme.

Well, here’s a cold hard reality check for the Prince of Montecito: no aspect of his crazed vendetta against the media will make him any less unpopular with the British people. By extracting a public apology from News Group Newspapers, he might think he has scored a tremendous win, but here in the UK, we are all sick of his endless courtroom crusades.

Once upon a time, we thought we had a Prince to be proud of: a handsome; warm-hearted; supportive brother to our future king, and all round asset to the Royal Family. Watching him grown up, throwing himself into military life in the Blues and Royals and dedicating himself to an array of charities, we imagined a future in which he would emulate his late grandmother – putting others first.

Instead, his chosen stage is either the red carpet or the court house, where it appears his primary concern is not serving his country, but serving himself.  It turned out that the fifth in line to the throne is a spoilt, self-obsessed, self pitying attention seeker – and he just can’t stop reminding us.

Doubtless the Duke of Sussex has some grounds for gratification after securing “substantial damages” from the newspaper group. Had he struck a different note outside court today, some of his father’s subjects might have given him some credit for his long campaign over tabloid ethics – though anyone who has worked for any national newspaper since the phone hacking scandal in 2011 could tell him that the questionable journalistic practices he keeps banging on about died out decades ago.

The trouble is that he just cannot help overplaying his hand. Instead of banking this latest “win” in a dignified manner, acknowledging the radical transformation in the culture of tabloid newsrooms since the press hounded his late mother, he just had to go further: making wild demands for yet more parliamentary investigations into press standards. Seriously? Have we not already done all that, ad nauseum, with the ghastly charade that was the Leveson inquiry, way back in 2012?

One of the very few good things the last government did was to abandon plans for a totally unnecessary “Leveson 2”. Here’s hoping Sir Keir Starmer, who as Director of Public Prosecutions back in 2012, brought criminal charges against a number of journalists, dismisses the notion out of hand.

The last thing this country needs at this point – when voters are crying out for accountability over the grooming gang scandal and any number of other appalling failures by public authorities – is yet another monstrously expensive public inquiry into the press. As for all the whinging in today’s statement about “aggressive and vengeful coverage” of the case – give me a break! If he wants a quiet life, how about raising chickens in his backyard?

Standing next to the Duke’s barrister this morning,  old Labour bruiser Tom (Lord) Watson, a co-complainant in the case, paid tribute to Harry’s “bravery and astonishing courage”. The truth? Knowing he was about to settle the case, the Duke wasn’t even brave enough to show up and read his statement himself.

For his part, Watson went even further than the Prince, appealing to the Metropolitan Police to consider yet more criminal inquiries. Given the very real law and order crises this country faces, and how thinly our police are stretched, this crazed campaign against the press beggars belief.

Between them, HRH and this peer of the realm have just extracted the apology they craved, and pocketed a huge sum of money. Can’t they see it’s time to let go – and give the rest of us a break?