Dictating popular opinion...

While the media was having a feeding frenzy at Prince Harry's expense, life carried on for much of the world today. People continued to be killed in Gaza, countless people continue to suffer while Mugabe plays at running a country he has ruined. In the Sudan, the Congo, and many other parts of Africa people try to save their own lives and those of their children by fleeing so-called "freedom fighters". People are still being sold into slavery, countless people are living in abject poverty and totalitarian regimes still inflict abuse and misery on their people. And this is as well as the international fiscal problems that are affecting so many peoples' lives.

Meanwhile, the press think that the ignorant remarks of a young man are the main topic that should be on our minds. This story is clearly more newsworthy that the latest antics of various soap actors and actresses that tend to fill the front pages (even of the so-called "quality" papers). But it seems to me that there is more to this story than meets the eye. Clearly the Prince has matured since he uttered these remarks, after all the tape is three years old - why has it taken so long to come to light? Did someone suddenly think they could make quite a lot of money out of it? Did someone make a lot of money out of it?

I don't condone what Prince Harry said three years ago at all - it was ignorant, and not what we would expect of someone in his position. But I tend to think, when the press claim there is a "furore" over some one's behaviour that it is a furore engineered and manipulated by those who are trying to sell more papers. Newspaper editors often claim to be only printing what their readers want to read, but as we are not given editorial control before publication who do they think they are kidding. It seems to me that there is always a story behind the story we read in the newspapers and sometimes I would think that that story is far more interesting. Glasshouses and stones come to mind.

Meanwhile, in Gaza, the Sudan, the Congo, Zimbabwe and elsewhere..............