Just a quarter of Britons have a positive view of the Duke of Sussex
Ahead of the launch of his autobiography ‘Spare’, Prince Harry has made many claims about his life and relationship with the rest of the royal family, including that he was assaulted by Prince William, that his brother and sister-in-law advised him to wear Nazi fancy dress, and that he killed 25 Taliban fighters serving while in Afghanistan.
While such revelations have certainly generated the intended media coverage ahead of the book launch, if the Duke of Sussex had hoped that they would also generate greater sympathy for him among the public, he was mistaken.
A newly released YouGov survey conducted on 5-6 January shows that just 26% of Britons have a positive view of Prince Harry, the lowest level since we started tracking in 2011. This represents a seven point drop since the previous survey in early December.
Currently, approach two thirds of Britons (64%) have a negative view of the fifth in line to the throne, up from 59%.
Even younger Britons, who generally tended to hold favourable views of Prince Harry, are now divided, with 41% having a positive impression and 41% a negative one. In December’s survey there had been a twenty-point lead, with 49% holding a positive view and 29% a negative one.
Attitudes towards King Charles, Kate Middleton and Meghan Markle remain unchanged since the December survey, but there has a drop in Prince William’s popularity. The number of people with a positive view of the new Prince of Wales has fallen eight points from 77% in December to 69% last week. At the same time the number with a negative view rose from 15% to 20%.
See the latest results here and the tracker results here
Photo: Getty
