More nights at the Oprah? The hitman and her make a royal fortune by targeting their family and the hands that feed them…

Meghan and Harry have again declared war on the royals and the media – the two institutions that guarantee their futures. Their highly-anticipated Netflix series has hit our small screens, with the first three episodes of the six-part docu-series moping and moaning through our sound bar. King Charles and Prince William are set to respond.

The thoughts below appeared first at this time last year… but Meghan and Harry are still shooting anybody they think could earn them more airtime…

Meghan Markle’s so-called win against The Mail on Sunday last year was not a victory for the man on the street who doesn’t want his dirty washing aired in public. Neither was it a boost for the rich, the powerful or the famous who want to keep their peccadilloes well hid.

Her shallow win is simply another insidiously dangerous bloating of judge-built restrictions on free speech and the right to expose the truth to the world.

‘News is something somebody doesn’t want printed; all else is advertising’ … so the great saying goes. And I agree with it entirely… I have exposed many people over the years for their secret lives, celebrities who abused children, bent businessmen, lying cheating influencers, politicians, racists and thugs.

We are working on three exposes as I write this. One day soon they will appear. And we will tell the truth about how people with power and money enough to protect themselves have worked tirelessly to stop these stories coming out.

Why? Because they will be shown up for the dishonest uncaring people they are.

But WAIT! That isn’t to say that Meghan Markle is a criminal – of course she isn’t.

No, she’s just a poor little rich girl who wants to be able to control what the media says about her and her balding lapdog.

Appeal Court judges have ruled that the newspaper’s decision to publish half of a letter from Meghan to her father had indeed been a breach of her privacy.

Yet her ‘win’ was simply created by the use of laws built by judges themselves over the past decade or so.

And these self-serving laws, in so many ways, are nail after nail after nail in the coffin of human freedom of expression – and the right of newspaper people in particular to publish and be damned.

Don’t forget about freedom of information, truth and law either. These ‘new’ laws were applied after a ‘summary judgment’, meaning without a proper trial where the facts and evidence could be scrutinised.

Now, more than ever, in a time when a little sticky bug identified as Covid is chomping away at our natural freedoms like a disease-ridden Pacman, surely, those at the legal fundamentals of our human life should be leaning in favour of free speech, not their own personal values.

Long live the Reputation Lawyers and their disregarded for day-to-day victims, eh?

And so the rich and famous have had their legal arsenal boosted again by a woman who has celebrity and fame, money and power and courts publicity every chance she gets while protesting about the nasty world of media all the way to the bank.

Newspaper in particular, you see, look at the hypocrisy of public figures. This is often called lampooning, a joke, taking the p*ss … it can be funny, hurtful, outrageous and telling. But it has a purpose.

And that purpose is the scrutiny of people with influence.

Amnesty International – no great lover of the media – says people in publicshould tolerate more criticism than private individuals. ‘So defamation laws that stop legitimate criticism of a government or public person, violate the right to free speech’.

Amnesty also says journalists and bloggers ‘face particular risks because of the work they do. Countries therefore have a responsibility to protect their right to freedom of speech. Restrictions on Newspapers, TV stations, etc can affect everyone’s right to freedom of expression’.

But our judges, instead, act on the old mantra that ‘what is of public interest is not to be confused with what interests the public’.

So being interested is no longer a human right?

Truth is no defence to a privacy claim and the cost of fighting an action is a serious deterrent to exercising the ‘right’ of free speech.

Airtv International – Free Family Safe Worldwide Television

#leighgbanks #airtvinternational #sundaymail #ukcourts #judges #meghan