So Prince Harry's being withdrawn from Afghanistan, after last night's leak that he was there on the front line. Top brass in the army, I heard on the Radio 4 News, took this decision after considering "the implications for the prince and his comrades."
The prince and his comrades? Excuse me? Princes don't have "comrades", surely. Not after what Comrade Lenin's comrades did to Harry's late relative and last Tsar of the Russias, Nicholas II.
Harry's apparently referred to his active service as "mucking in with the lads". This use of language I think we can consider just about acceptable. Embarrassingly hearty, yes, redolent of condescension, certainly. But the prince is young. Moreover, royalty-hating communists don't call each other "lads". At least not when they're on duty, as it were.
And while Harry, being royal, is certainly some sort of national institution, he's not the same sort as the BBC. Paradoxically, the BBC is more of a guardian of the Queen's English than her own grandson; he doesn't write the news for a living, though he may occasionally be quoted in it. So get it together, Auntie Beeb.
Though, to be fair, I can't see anyone referring to soldiers as "colleagues"...
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