Meghan and Kate fighting? Why we love the idea of feuding princesses

Not since the heyday of Diana and Fergie have Brits – and the tabloids – enjoyed the feuding of royal princesses. But today's royals are less detached and more adept at managing the press and problematic behaviour, reports David Barnett

Happy days? The current crop of royals have grown up in a social media world, and are more confident and assured dealing with the press than their predecessors (AFP/Getty)

One possible side-effect of the tub-thumping patriotic fervour which has erupted in some quarters since the Brexit referendum in 2016 is a rather unexpected one: we have princesses again in the UK, and they are feuding. Most of us, aside from the sort of people who wear Union Jack top hats made from cardboard and crepe paper and hunker down in a sleeping bag for three nights if there’s a whiff of spotting a royal, probably didn’t even notice the lack of princesses in our lives.

But now we’ve got them, specifically in the shape of Kate Middleton and Meghan Markle, we wonder how we ever managed so long without them… especially those among us who are tabloid newspaper editors. We always have princesses, of course, in some shape or form, but not princesses like Kate and Meghan, who fill a hole in our mundane, plebeian lives not seen since the heyday of 30 years ago when we last had proper princesses – Diana and Sarah Ferguson.

That Fergie – like Kate and Meghan, in actual fact – was a Duchess rather than a full-blown princess is neither here not there. She was a princess in that Hallmark Channel, young woman marrying into the royal family, newspaper think-piece fodder just as Diana was, and just as Kate and Meghan have become.