Are there any toys left in Prince Harry’s pram? Seems to me they’ve all been thrown out. And the timing of the latest to have been hurled aloft with petulant rage is regrettable, to say the least.

Still reeling from the death of her beloved husband, the bleakness of her first Christmas alone and a year in which she has been forced to deal with dirty laundry-airing of the most deliberately damaging kind, the Queen was last week forced to make one of the most painful decisions of her long life and strip her “favourite son” of his HRH title and honorary military titles, in the wake of a US judge allowing a civil sexual abuse case involving the Duke of York to move to trial.

At which point, Prince Harry, sucking on his CBD-infused iced matcha latte on a poolside recliner in the grounds of his £11million Montecito home, thought to himself: “I know what I’ll do! I’ll sue the UK government – Her Majesty’s government – over its decision to remove my police security… in a country I have visited twice in the past two years. Because now just feels like the right time, you know?”

No, Harry, I don’t. In fact, outside the Californian A-list bubble that specialises in promoting altruism to others while indulging in the most searingly selfish behaviour themselves, nobody will understand or condone this move – at this particular moment.

But with the Sussexes’ self-absorption and narcissism now flagrant enough to be tiresome even to their most tireless critics, I’m more interested in a few choice lines of the legal statement issued by a representative on Saturday. One which reminds people, among other things, that “while his role within the Institution has changed, his profile as a member of the Royal family has not” and warns that: “In the absence of such protection, Prince Harry and his family are unable to return to his home.”

Actually, it’s not a line but a word that recurs three times in that brief statement that intrigues me: “home”. Because this is the biggest indication that the Duke still considers the UK his home since he stepped down from royal duties two years ago to pursue a private life in the US – in the full glare of Oprah and Netflix’s cameras, on stadium stages across the country and at lucrative JP Morgan summits, when he’s not writing “tell-all” memoirs.

Far from having exiled himself forever, Harry (whisper it) still envisages a future here; still wants a future here. He’ll be back.

As much as our peevish Prince has portrayed this country as antagonistic, archaic, racist and dangerous to live in, his legal statement seems at pains to remind us of his birthright – “he remains sixth in line to the throne” – and that he didn’t simply represent the UK for many years but fought for it, serving “two tours of combat duty in Afghanistan”. Reading between the lines, I’d go further. I’d say that he misses his country. And who can blame him?

As golden as Harry’s life in Californian exile looks from the outside, I always suspected that the reality would prove different. That a place where you’re judged not on who you once were or even what you accomplished last week but your currency at that precise moment in time might quickly start to lose its appeal.

Sure enough, his primatologist friend Dr Jane Goodall admitted back in the summer of 2020 that Harry was already “finding life a bit challenging”, while others have since claimed that he has been “struggling” and “at a loss, without any structure in his life”. Before Christmas, one close source confirmed to me that “he has lost touch with many of his friends in the UK”.

I’ve spent enough time out in California and interviewed enough Citizen Kane-like celebrities in luxurious gated communities to know that unless you find like-minded people to engage in “inappropriate” banter with over “inappropriate” drinks in the nearest thing you can find to a pub, it can be one of the loneliest places on earth.

But as Harry lies back by that Montecito pool thinking of England and the hostilities he might encounter there on future visits during the year of the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee, he should remember that the place he calls “home” would most likely still welcome him back with open arms. That rightly or wrongly, the love we feel for our monarchy isn’t too far off the kind parents feel for their children – with a few notable exceptions. Because it’s not quite unconditional. So no more toy-throwing, OK?