Prince Harry: Much ado about nothing

PRINCE HARRY caused a bit of a media furore last week after being caught on holiday in Las Vegas with his trousers down - literally.

The 27-year-old royal - who is third in line to the throne after his father Prince Charles and his brother Prince William - was snapped playing a game of billiards naked, and perhaps unsurprisingly the photographs subsequently appeared online.

Pretty soon, all of the US news networks had caught up with the pictures but it looked as if none of the UK newspapers was going to publish them... until the Sun finally broke ranks on Friday.

The Sun's front-page headline was "Heir It Is" and, explaining its decision to publish, managing editor David Dinsmore said: "For us this is about the freedom of the press.

"This is about the ludicrous situation where a picture can be seen by hundreds of millions of people around the world on the internet but can't be seen in the nation's favourite paper read by eight million people every day."

That rationale immediately brought guffaws from some of the newspaper's biggest critics including former Deputy Prime Minister Lord Prescott, who is certainly no friend of the Murdoch press.

He said: "It is about money, money, money. And they know that by exclusively printing the pictures, assuming they are the only paper which does, they will get everybody buying the paper to see this."

On this point, Lord Prescott is probably right - though, as a croquet-playing, champagne-swilling politician - also a little hypocritical.

Far from standing up for press freedom in the light of the Leveson inquiry, this was a move to benefit the Sun only. 

But, then, it should be remembered that Britain's biggest-selling newspaper is a commercial operation and has a right to make money from information which had already been widely disseminated. 

Nevertheless, there has inevitably been some backlash to the Sun, and more than 3600 members of the public have now complained to the Press Complaints Commission.

However, the PCC confirmed that none of the complainants had come from the royal mouthpiece, St James's Palace.

The Palace had earlier released a statement which said: "We have made our views on Prince Harry's privacy known. Newspapers regulate themselves, so the publication of the photographs is ultimately a decision for editors to make."

In other words, it seems even the royal family have accepted that, with the pictures already so widely available, their hands are tied on this one.

Perhaps the situation was best summed up by London mayor Boris Johnson who said: "I think it'd be disgraceful if a chap wasn't allowed to have a bit of fun in Las Vegas.

"The real scandal would be if you went all the way to Las Vegas and you didn't misbehave in some trivial way."

Mr Johnson is correct. Prince Harry has done absolutely nothing wrong - you only live life once so it is only right that you should have a bit of fun every now and then.

However, nor the Sun done much wrong on this occasion either, and this whole episode will probably be recalled rather fondly and with some amusement when it all blows over.

It really is a case of much ado about nothing.