As I sent my column last week, a funny feeling came over me.
A pang that I’d been a bit Mean Girls about Meghan Markle and that she has, frankly, enough haters without me wading in to denigrate her new Netflix show.
A couple of days later, this feeling cemented when, during an interview with Lorraine on her ITV show, the commentator Bryony Gordon said this: “Meghan is just a mum who likes making her own bath salts.”
I felt bad. Really bad.
Maybe she is just a mum who likes to make pretty things.
Maybe she has the privilege to do that while most mums are chasing their tails and hoovering, but so what?
How much of the backlash has a touch of envy at its core?
Mind you, not liking the Duchess of Sussex for trying to tarnish the reputation of the royal family is valid.
Not liking her for being false – well, we don’t know her to make that call, surely.
There’s also evidence of bullying – but is it evidence? Real evidence?
It’s a heck of an accusation and if true will no doubt come to light at some point.
The outpouring of nasty comments under nasty articles in other parts of the media sits uneasily.
As I say, I’m changing my mind.
‘Calming antidote’
Bryony said something else. That the world is so full of bad, terrifying news.
With Love, Meghan is a cathartic and calming antidote to the hysteria, she says.
I think she’s right.
Headlines scream of Donald Trump waging war with a different country every second day and nuclear weapons with the power to create Armageddon.
We’ve got Keir Starmer taking so much tax it’s hardly worth our while to work.
So if Meghan wants to pass a Victoria Sponge off as something radical and new, and potter around a kitchen, in cricket whites, why not?
Whatever blows her hair back. Maybe we need to be soothed. Or at least have the option to be.
And so, after years of not writing about the royal, I’m writing two columns in a row about her.
But the point is bigger and it’s not really about Meghan.
It’s that we should be allowed to change our minds. To apologise and admit, that after taking other views on board, we’ve changed our viewpoint entirely.
Sticking to options no matter what can only lead to a viewpoint that is dated if it doesn’t ebb and flow with time and reflection.
Not changing our minds leads to wars, it leads to family feuds with no end – and it leads to a certain bitterness allowed to fester and grow.
Diehard beliefs
Look at the way we support political parties.
Some will listen to a broad spectrum of options and decide who to support at the next election depending on what they hear and observe.
But many more have a diehard belief ingrained that their political colours are like a football strip that must always be worn.
A loyal person should always support – no matter the sport – their team of course, through thick and thin.
It shows loyalty and a backbone that they are part of something, a collective belief, and will be there through the good times and bad.
But why should it be so for politics?
Why, if the SNP is being investigated by Police Scotland for alleged fraud can’t a staunch backer say “enough”?
Why can’t the most fervent Labour backer look at Sir Keir’s broken promises and decided he simply can’t be trusted?
There will always be a core group of people who don’t allow even a thought that they’d support anyone else, no matter what their party does.
The slightly trickier question could be: Is there any politician worth voting for?
And when such depressing questions pop up, maybe we need a preppy kitchen tutorial that won’t change the world but won’t harm it either.
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