If Prince Harry feels trapped, at least he can escape | Barbara Ellen

Do William and Harry genuinely consider themselves to be modern-day princes in the tower? By which I don’t mean detained, to be slaughtered at a later date by a wicked throne-craving uncle (though, personally, I’d keep an eye on that Andrew after he’s had a few).

Rather that they’re stuck in a royal-themed Guantanamo, with stately piles instead of orange jumpsuits, but still no hope of escape? Is this what Harry was alluding to when he gave his Newsweek interview, saying that no royal (including William?) wanted the crown, but that “duties would be carried out” when the time came? To which one possible response could be: “Now don’t go putting yourself out, love,” while others must remain unprintable.

As it happens, I have some sympathy for multi-kazillionare feudal landowners William and Harry. They didn’t ask to be princes, they didn’t go on a television talent show and belt out some Mariah Carey number to win Being Royal. It was their (tainted) birthright. The relentless intrusion must be foul, and Harry makes a fair point about how he (and by extension, William) shouldn’t have been put through walking behind his mother’s coffin in front of the gawping millions – which, in retrospect, does come across like a grotesque, nationally-sanctioned form of child abuse.

However, the gist of Harry’s interview, implying that he and his brother are trapped in their roles, doesn’t stand up to serious scrutiny. You don’t have to go that far back in history to come across a king who decided that the crown wasn’t worth the faff, and legged it.

Perhaps, in a quiet moment, the princes could ask nana Liz just how her father, George VI, came to be king after his brother, Edward VIII, fell for an American divorcee and abdicated. (The Queen could leave Uncle Eddie’s admiration for the Nazis, and the mysterious stiff salute he taught her as a child, for another time).

The point being that no one is forced to remain tied to the monarchy. Harry could dial back his royal duties, including all those tiresome-looking pool parties and extended holidays, and get himself into full employment. William could refuse the throne, saying that he wishes to pursue his dream of helping with the Middletons’ online party supply shop (“I have an idea for a Nicholas Witchell piñata!”).

The ensuing constitutional problems would be dramatic but, frankly, after Brexit, no biggie. There’d be plenty of time to deal with the succession during Charles’s reign, even if it did come down to Camilla standing in the grounds of Buckingham Palace, yelling through a megaphone: “Come on, who wants the gig next? It’s a drag visiting factories, and the smell of new paint makes you gag, but it pays well.”

All this facetiousness leads to the point that, away from the red-carpeted navel-gazing of the princes (Less “Who am I?” than “Who is one?”), there are many ways for far less affluent, connected, celebrated people than William and Harry to feel truly trapped in this world. There are people trapped in poverty, with ill health, in abusive situations... the list sprawls on. People who, even in this developed nation, genuinely feel that they have no options, no way out at all. And while it’s incredibly sad that people feel this way, the real tragedy is that, in this era of welfare cuts aimed at even the disabled, they’re probably right.

It’s a feeling of hopelessness that even extends to the young, some of whom may genuinely feel that their only chance is to go on a television talent show and belt out some Mariah Carey. That’s why, even though few of us would wish to swap lives with the princes, they’ll never be as trapped as some.

If, as they seem to suggest, they’re existing in a gilded cage, then at least the door is always open.