Welcome to Court 76 of the London High Court, a location that has recently transitioned from a hall of justice into a high-end rehabilitation center for the bruised egos of the ultra-wealthy. On one side, we have Prince Harry, the Duke of Sussex, a man who has managed the impossible feat of becoming a professional privacy advocate while simultaneously narrating his own frostbitten appendages to a global audience for a nine-figure payout. On the other side, we have Associated Newspapers, the parent company of the Daily Mail, an organization that has spent the better part of a century convincing the British public that their neighbors are secretly working for the KGB while the nation’s moral fabric is being unspooled by the sheer existence of carbohydrates.

This isn't a legal trial; it is a parasitic symbiosis reaching its inevitable, screeching crescendo. The claim is that the Mail used illegal means—phone tapping, private investigators, and perhaps the occasional carrier pigeon—to excavate the sordid details of the lives of the rich and famous. This would be shocking if we lived in a world where anyone actually expected a tabloid to behave with more ethics than a starving vulture in a graveyard. Instead, we are treated to the spectacle of a prince who claims to loathe the limelight but finds himself physically incapable of existing outside of it, suing a newspaper that claims to defend British values while arguably doing more to erode them than any foreign adversary ever could.

Joining the Duke in this crusade of the aggrieved is a collection of figures that looks less like a legal coalition and more like the VIP guest list for a 1997 dinner party that went on far too long. Elton John, David Furnish, Liz Hurley, and Sadie Frost have all lined up, ostensibly to protect their 'privacy.' It is a fascinating choice of words for a group whose entire livelihoods have been predicated on the strategic management of public attention. There is something fundamentally nauseating about the concept of 'notable figures' demanding the right to be ignored only when the narrative isn't being carefully curated by their own publicists. It’s the ultimate celebrity entitlement: the desire to be a public icon from 9-to-5 and a ghost whenever the consequences of their choices become inconvenient.

The inclusion of Doreen Lawrence in this motley crew is the only element that provides a flicker of genuine tragedy, yet even her presence is weaponized by the surrounding circus. Her son Stephen’s murder was a stain on the British legal system, and her inclusion here serves as the necessary moral shield for a group of people who are otherwise just annoyed that their voicemails were intercepted back when Nokia was still a relevant brand. It is the classic 'human shield' tactic of the celebrity class: find a legitimate grievance and wrap your own narcissistic complaints inside it until the two become indistinguishable in the eyes of the law.

For nine weeks, the High Court will be bogged down in the minutiae of who hired which private eye to look into whose bank records. We are told this trial will have 'profound effects' on the UK media. This is the kind of hyperbole journalists use when they want to pretend their industry isn't a decaying carcass being picked over by lawyers. If Harry wins, the tabloids will simply find more sophisticated, legal ways to be terrible. If the Mail wins, it will be a victory for 'press freedom,' which in this context means the freedom to be as intrusive and ghoulish as possible for the sake of ad revenue. There is no moral high ground here; there is only a trench, and both sides are currently digging it deeper.

The sheer exhaustion of this ordeal is perhaps the most honest thing about it. We are witnessing the death rattles of two ancient British institutions: the Monarchy and the Fourth Estate. One is a hereditary pageant that no longer knows its lines, and the other is a printing press fueled by the bile of a vanishing middle class. They deserve each other. They are locked in a death embrace, rolling around the floor of Court 76, while the rest of the world wonders if we can just lock the doors and forget they ever existed. In the end, the only winners will be the solicitors charging four-digit hourly rates to explain why a prince’s feelings are more important than the public’s right to know which actress was having dinner with which producer in 2005. It’s not justice; it’s a high-stakes vanity project funded by the remnants of a dying empire.