Whenever a certain word or phrase appears in different royal articles written by different royal reporters, my antenna goes up. I feel like I’ve gotten better at spotting the talking points, although to be fair, the talking points have gotten very obvious in recent years. Whether it’s Prince William shrieking down the phone at reporters that Prince Harry is “like a Kardashian,” or all of the rota using the exact same language to describe King Charles’s disinterest in all things Sussex, the royal courts are definitely leaving their fingerprints all over these talking points. So, weirdly, there must have been a new Buckingham Palace briefing over the weekend, all about Harry and the “peace summit,” not to mention Harry’s trip to Angola.
Apparently, everyone now believes that Harry is attempting a “reset” on his image. From Rhiannon Mills at Sky News: “…But with other headlines this week, I couldn’t help but feel like we could be looking at the beginning of a reset for Harry. Harry has worked with the Halo Trust for some time, and it’s clearly still a priority for them to highlight the dangers faced by those living with the potential dangers of landmines in Angola. But it also feels like part of a push to get Harry out on more public engagements.” Guess who else is talking about “Harry’s reset”? Celia Walden, aka Mrs. Piers Morgan.
The images were striking. The Duke of Sussex in a “HALO Trust” flak jacket just like the one his mother wore 28 years ago, walking down a path in an active landmine field in Angola. Harry made the unannounced trip last week because: “Children should never have to live in fear of playing outside or walking to school,” he said. Because he clearly feels a responsibility to continue Diana’s legacy and clear those last thousand minefields. But also, I suspect, as part of the general “reset” he seems to have embarked on – kicked off by that “peace summit” in London a fortnight ago.
I’m not accusing Harry of cynicism. Far from it. Nobody could dispute the personal passion he has brought to the HALO project, and watching footage of Harry setting off a controlled explosion with charity workers and talking to local schoolchildren reminded me how effortlessly he can interact with people in even the most stilted situations.
In recent years we’ve got used to him looking either tortured in public or like some AI-generated do-gooder – when in fact, like his mother, Harry was always a natural “people person”, his empathy never coming across as manufactured (unlike his wife’s). Then the blame game began, the bitterness set in, and the rest is history.
Reading a piece on Sunday about Harry’s repeated claims “that his mental health struggles were passed on through ‘bad parenting’”, I was struck by how hard it is to reconcile the determined victim, blaming every ill on his upbringing, with the brave, purposeful figure in those Angola pictures.
A lot of that bravery and conviction will have been passed down to him not just by Diana, but his father. Because taking your royal duties seriously and never once shirking responsibility is nothing if not brave. And yes, being a single prince will have been a little different to being a single dad, but Charles had the added challenge of raising an heir, and according to royal writer, Ingrid Seward – author of the biography, My Mother and I – the late Queen, for one, “felt her son had pulled himself together and done well with both William and Harry since the separation and divorce from their mother.”
…But if this really is a “reset”, he will now need to call time on pointing out his family’s failings, take responsibility for his own actions and do whatever it takes to heal that rift before it’s too late. He’s just walked down a path in an active landmine field. I’m confident he can find the mental strength.
I’m always sort of aghast when I read British royalists’ ham-fisted attempts to faux-psychoanalyze Harry within their narrow little worldview. They’re furious about so much involving the Sussexes, but one of their most bizarre furies is that Harry started going to therapy and it changed his life and he wanted to become a better man. The system in which they want to force Harry to come back to is a system predicated on Harry’s neglect, pain, punishment and suffering. They need him to stay screwed up so that he’ll stay stuck in there forever, without any kind of exit ramp, like Princess Margaret.
As for Harry’s “reset”… Buckingham Palace should tread carefully. And even more than that, BP should stop briefing about Harry. Whenever Harry and Meghan do anything at all, these people twist themselves in knots to convince themselves that the Sussexes are being conniving, that there’s some hidden Sussex agenda at play. Harry went to Angola because the timing was right for him, and I would imagine the trip was months in the making (The Halo Trust’s CEO was even on the ground for Harry’s visit).
Prince Harry has followed in his mother’s footsteps in Angola by raising awareness of The Halo Trust’s work to clear landmines.
Princess Diana visited the country in January 1997 seven months before she was killed in a car crash in Paris.
Read more ➡️ https://t.co/hxZaW6VYOj pic.twitter.com/LKHJwh7gpt
— Sky News (@SkyNews) July 16, 2025
Photos courtesy of The Halo Trust’s social media.
