WASHED AND READY TO EAT

In the middle-class suburbs of London, where I grew up, people had a name for girls with a penchant for getting their kit off in the open air. And believe me, it wasn’t princess. Amid all the debate about privacy and the hullabaloo about the recent antics of Harry and Kate, we shouldn’t lose sight of the reality. In the real world, respectable blokes don’t cavort around naked in $5,000 Vegas suites with hen parties, much as they might secretly like to. And respectable young women keep a lid on their exhibitionist tendencies, confining striptease to the bedroom. Yes, I’m afraid I take the old-fashioned, clearly outdated, liberal view of people’s personal lives. I’m generally pretty tolerant of what people choose to do in private. But the overlooked grounds of some French chateau are not private, if you’re a figure known on the world stage. And your luxury hotel room is no longer private when you open the doors to your minders and a bunch of starstruck party girls with mobile phone...

Does Prince Harry's little game of strip billiards with a Vegas 'bachelorette' troupe really matter? His friends in the media have been quick to offer all kinds of bizarre justifications for his behaviour. The most ludicrous of these - which I read quite soon after the news of his escapade first broke - was that His Highness needed some R&R after the Olympics. Err... excuse me? Was he actually involved in the competitions? I don't remember his challenging Mo Farah for the tape in the 10,000 metres, do you? In which case, we're talking about the need to recover from a succession of jollies, where he lapped up the sporting action from the best seats in the house. Poor diddums. It must have been tiring. The next argument is that he's an army officer and about to ship out to Afghanistan shortly. If we had to fight the Taliban like him, so the argument goes, we too would be spending thousands of pounds a night on a luxury suite and inviting an excitable he...