Prince Harry is a tabloid hero - and not just because they're going to plaster him across the front pages

As part of a deal with the media, Buckingham Palace has revealed he served in Afghanistan. Helpfully, they provided some quotes about his affection for The Sun

Prince Harry, or just plain Captain Wales as he is known in the British Army, at the British controlled flight-line in Camp Bastion (John Stillwell/PA Wire)

Brace yourselves for the headlines. Cry god for Harry! Our man in the ‘Stan! War Hero Harry!

Tomorrow is a doubly good news day for the tabloids. Not only do they get to cover their front pages with their favourite war hero, as the media blackout over his latest tour of duty is lifted, the hero himself has also confessed to being an avid reader.

“Of course I read them,” he admitted. “If there's a story and something's been written about me, I want to know what's being said. All it does is just upset me and anger me that people can get away with writing the stuff they do.”

It is for these reasons, partially, that the blackout is required in the first place. Some commentators suggest it is about propaganda, about managing information. The Ministry of Defence claim it is for his own safety, and for the safety of those around him. It is ungenerous not to take them at face value.

Among the many facts that emerge from the third in line to the throne’s recent tour of Afghanistan, after a lengthy media blackout, is the quiet admission that his life is now even more markedly different from that which the rest of us are ever likely to lead. The Prince has taken a life.

“Take a life to save a life,” he shrugged, when interviewed. “That's what we revolve around, I suppose. If there's people trying to do bad stuff to our guys, then we'll take them out of the game, I suppose.”

He has done no more or less than is expected of any member of the armed forces, and despite the ‘gawping’ while queuing for his dinner at Camp Bastion, he is, he claimed, “far more comfortable as Captain Wales than he has ever been as Prince Harry.”

“Don't read it'. Everyone says, 'Don't read it, because it's always rubbish',” was the advice he said his father had given him with regard to the papers. It’s advice he might finally take. If not, he has a hell of a lot of column inches to get through tomorrow, not for his skill or rather the lack of it – at strip billiards, but just for doing a rather grizzly job.