The Cambridges have kept their heads down and kept their dignity, while the Sussexes have lost their grip on the US. Photo / AP
OPINION:
We spent the weekend – if not the past weeks and months – waiting for this speech. How would she strike the right note in these perilous times, we wondered? One that was both realistic and optimistic. One that would manage to bring together our fractured country and give the nation what it has long craved: a sense of leadership. One that would banish the cobwebs built up over the course of this scorching, limbo-tastic summer and promise us a brighter dawn?
Yes, a lot was riding on Meghan Markle's keynote speech at the One Young World Summit in Manchester, and it was with bated breath that young leaders from more than 190 countries gathered to hear the 41-year-old former Suits actress' words of wisdom. Because unlike Liz Truss, who a few hours earlier channelled her inner DHL woman in her prime ministerial acceptance speech and vowed to "deliver, deliver, deliver" on energy, the cost of living crisis and other (peripheral) challenges faced by the country, Meghan knew that what was foremost in our minds as we teeter on the edge of a global recession was… gender equality. Let's not forget that the Duchess of Sussex has been working tirelessly on the Greater Good since she was old enough to write (a letter to Procter & Gamble about a sexist advert, rolled out as proof of her innate superiority at any given opportunity).
As our self-anointed moral arbiter took her place behind the podium, you might as well have handed her a shovel, sat back… and watched as she dug herself in deeper with every sentence.
If there is one word every public figure would do well to look up at this precise point in history, it's self-awareness. The underrated and long forgotten ability first to know where you (and your litany of First World woes and joys) stand in relation to everyone else, and then to tailor your actions and pronouncements accordingly. Self-awareness is particularly useful when visiting another country, as William and Kate are set to prove in December when they head to the US for their first official visit in eight years.
"Roll out the royal red carpet!" clamour the US press, as excitement ramps up about the Cambridges' trip to the second annual Earthshot Prize awards ceremony in Boston, where they will give speeches about the (again, lesser) issue of saving the planet.
The event is set to act as a springboard, we're told, for a larger trip that will take them "across America in service of their various charities", and over the weekend British news outlets all posed variations on the same question: "Are William and Kate about to steal Harry and Meghan's US crown?"
As someone who has divided her time between the UK and the US for the past 15 years and spent a proportionate amount of time in nail parlours from New York to LA, I'd like to think I'm well-placed to answer this. Like British bus-stops, you see, nail parlours will tell you everything you need to know about a country's consciousness.
It's because of the chatter overheard as I agonised over whether to have my talons painted in Big Apple Red or Bubble Bath that I knew Trump would win in 2016. Because of that chatter (remember that unlike here, US nail salons are populated by every demographic, male and female, aged four to 100), that I know how folk really feel about foreign policy, economic policy, Kim Kardashian's latest love split, the prospect of Trump in 2024, Ron DeSantis and the increasingly popular Gavin Newsom. So I can tell you this with some confidence: you can't dethrone a couple who were never enthroned to begin with.
I don't need official stats to corroborate the national perception of Meghan, summed up by a New York Post headline last week as a "toddler in a tiara", or a recent poll to confirm that "Kate is now twice as popular with the American public as Meghan". As they flicked through their copies of US Weekly, real, manicured Americans have been telling me that for years.
Disrespecting the Queen – who is adored to a touching degree Stateside – was the Sussexes' first mistake.
That Oprah interview – with its carefully choreographed dig at Kate – the second. Yet 18 months on, as they bring their alternative royal circus to Britain and continue to stir up division wherever they go, the Sussexes still don't seem to have understood that their narrative is failing them. That by ditching their royal statuses and then airing their dirty laundry in public, they have disqualified themselves from every lofty, glossy position once available to them – certainly the A-list they so desperately want to be a part of.
What have the Cambridges done, meanwhile? They've kept their heads down, they've kept their dignity and they've kept their credibility. So that US crown? It's William and Kate's for the taking.