Just no excuse for aristo-brat Prince Harry It's not the first time a wellknown figure has been caught on camera borrowing a Bernard Manning punchline to describe an Asian.
Think back two years to the hurricane of hatred which blew around Jade Goody's head after she'd called her Celebrity Big Brother housemate "Shilpa f****** Poppadom."
The fury it unleashed was so wild that Gordon Brown felt the need to give this apology to India: "What she said is offensive. I want to reassure you that British people are proud of our reputation for tolerance and fairness."
When everyone had emptied their bile over Jade and the storm subsided, her career was left in tatters and her name a byword for bigotry.
Yet what happened this week when Prince Harry was caught on camera calling one colleague a "Paki" and another a "Raghead"? Brown went public again, only with a different sound bite: "I think the British public should give him the benefit of the doubt."
Really? Then why didn't he give it to Jade?
After all it was the swastika wearing Prince, not her, who had the racist track record.
It was his relatives who'd been heard calling foreigners "Huns", "Wops" and "Dagoes" (Queen Mum) or "slitty-eyed" (Prince Philip), not hers.
Why did the nation delight in crucifying a young woman who admitted her mistake and flew out to India to apologise, yet forgive a young man so readily?
It's claimed Harry used "Paki" affectionately (although Ahmed Khan's dad doesn't agree). But what about "Raghead", deviously passed off by royal spin doctors as a jibe against the Taliban enemy, when it was clearly a slur on all Arabs.
Was "Raghead" said with affection?
No. Is it any less offensive than Poppadom? No. Was he provoked into using it? No.
Don't forget, Jade was living in a pressurised goldfish bowl where conflict is encouraged by ratings chasing TV bosses, Harry wasn't.
Yes, but Harry's racism was done with humour, they say.
So how come humour is no defence when Spaniards black-up in front of Lewis Hamilton.
Yet when the First and Third in line to the British throne casually refer to Asians as "Sooty" and "Paki", it is?
I don't know if the Royal Family is more racist than any other but I do know that the massive privileges that go with their job mean they have a duty to unite not divide the British people.
And the massive amounts of money thrown at their "breeding" means they have little excuse when they fail.
We're told to ignore Harry's remarks because they were made three years ago and he's since matured. Where's the evidence?
Despite all the PR films from Afghanistan and the staged charity work, he's still an arrogant 24-year-old aristo-brat who breaks wind on the Buckingham Palace balcony during Trooping the Colour and arranges for his brother to pick him up in an RAF helicopter en route to a drunken stag weekend.
But back to Jade. Why was a girl from a devastatingly-deprived background savaged for being a vile racist, while the Royal Prince was excused as an officer simply joshing with his men?
Because once again, in Britain, it's all about class. In a modern Asian context, one's a Slumdog, the other's a Millionaire.
Twas ever thus.
Why did we crucify Jade and forgive the Prince so easily?
Mirror
