Why is Dan not wild about Harry?

Bingeing ginger bullet magnet Prince Harry had our news commentators in a tizzy. When the story broke they were swept along on the wave of instinctive approval at our newest pin-up boy cleaning up Afghanistan. By the weekend they were coming to their senses and wondering who was now a target for extremist sympathisers. Harry? All the royals? The government? Oh heck. One of those commentators is a broadcaster who many readers may not know. A great sage and philosopher, Dan Murray broadcasts only in Gaelic.

He can be heard on Coinneach Maciomhair on the BBC’s Radio nan Gaidheal. Hosted by veteran motormouth Kenny Maciver (no relation thankfully, he probably says), his show is where the news is regularly dissected by a panel of Gaeldom’s finest. No surprise that outspoken Dan is a fixture. Whatever the former boxer and oilyard worker thinks, he says. A left-leaning member of what we used to call ‘Tommy Sheridan’s SSP’ before the ructions, Dan is, how shall I put this, a welcome contrast to the meek politeness of your average common five-eights Gael, which is how he describes himself.

I thought I could hear Dan’s brow furrowing, his eyebrows knitting together and the bristles of his beard twitching when Big Kenny brought up Harry the Hero. Dan was obviously about to let rip denouncing those no-marks of snooty privilege. But no tirade came. Instead, Dan heaped praise on the ginger binger for going over there to face up to the telly van, sorry, the Taleban. If Dan ever chanced upon Harry emerging from a club at 4am, he pledged he would whip out his own half-bottle and give him a swig. I shook my transistor in disbelief.

Harry endangered his own life and, more importantly, the lives of other soldiers and goodness only knows who else by being at the centre of an ill-conceived stunt. Everyone back-slapping our best-spoken ned made me think the world was suddenly jumping with lunatics. An absence of talent at the top of the Army let Happy Harry go to Afghanistan when, in fact, he should not be allowed to fire a cap gun. Few critics properly analysed the threat of reprisals at first. It was the daftest royal stunt since Prince Edward thought he fancied the Marines.

Screeds of sycophantic claptrap will only briefly bolster the dire reputation of the formerly Swastika-plastered playboy prancer with the Charles Kennedy expression. It was all about a puff for a guy who no-one wants to admit has what nowadays we are only allowed to call issues. Unless Harry and his snobbier big brother change their ways, a grim future awaits tainted by denial of drink problems and the disdain of underwhelmed subjects. Binge-drinking and smoking, of course, are proven to cut the chances of having offspring. Yes, I know that could be a good thing in their cases. We already realise we deserve better. Having reportedly smashed through ranks of murdering Taleban guerillas, how soon after Half-Cut Harry arrived back in Blighty till he was smashed in a pricey club? He is as out of place as a national hero as a Free Presbyterian in the Vatican.

Had he known they were thinking of banning him from the front line, Harry claimed he would not have ‘dragged his sorry ass through Sandhurst’, the military college. Tugging apologetic donkeys through military establishments always makes headlines. Top brass like Air Chief Marshal Sir Jock Stirrup, the Chief of the Defence Staff, reasoned it could help get recruitment figures back up. So Harry was despatched with huge media entourage in tow for 10 short, silly weeks of posing. Once the media had what they wanted, it was time to fire off that e-mail to the Drudge Report website. By that time, all the smiley pictures sent to the UK media were ready to go. Now people are finally realising that it just made targets of us all.

Having won over Dan who has now made such a generous on-air offer to slake his thirst, maybe Harry will phone him up to go on the razzle in Stornoway. May I suggest the Crown Hotel? The pair could wander upstairs to the Prince of Wales Lounge where Harry’s father, then aged just 14, created a stooshie in 1963 for buying cherry brandy. A reporter saw it and the yarn made headlines around the world. Charles’s own penitent mule is thought to have been soundly thrashed by the headmaster of Gordonstoun School. Once favoured as a tipple for those out shooting on cold days, cherry brandy is a foul bowel-troubling tincture which cured Charles’s longings for too many nips. I think the responsibility is now Dan’s to ensure the wayward war hero is also put back on the right path. Mr Murray, your country needs you.