What they want now is to keep the airs without the consequences and obligations.
Here are the facts. The police operation that attends a genuine royal visit is no longer theirs to command.
Joint appearances will be rare, by their own account — because, again by their own account, Ms Markle’s priorities run to family, then business, then the acting career, with charity fitted in around the edges. Read that list again.
Then read some headlines calling Thursday a “return to public duties,” and ask yourself who is being served: the charity, or the brand.
Ah, the brand. The lifestyle label bound for Britain, the scripts being read, the slow, expensive laundering of a reputation.
None of it is illegal. All of it is commerce. But commerce dressed in the borrowed robes of duty cheats the public, which the headlines invite to take a photocall for an official visit and a marketing schedule for public service.