Clarkson is an idiot - let's get that out of the way first. He's built a reputation and a career on being the stereotype of the old-fashioned male. He likes driving fast cars, he's sexist, racist, speaks his 'mind' at all times and almost certainly does not eat quiche. He's a dinosaur, like James Bond and Piers Morgan, but like them, has enough of a following among his own kind to have built a profitable niche for media moguls to exploit, including gutter rags like The Sun. It sucks, but there it is until people grow up.

I was saddened and angry when I heard about his column, but by no means surprised. This is the sort of thing that he and Piers Morgan write or say when they think people are forgetting about them. To be a complete cynic, it's also a Hell of a way to get out of a gig you don't want to do any more without a lot of contractual issues coming up!

That said, he may well have overstepped the mark this time, and demolished his career. But it's long past the time when he should have retired, anyway.

Her Grace Meghan Markle Mountbatten, Duchess of Sussex (not Wales), has been, in the words of V for Vendetta "vicariously vouchsafed as both villain and victim" in this entire melodrama. Despite all claims to the contrary, she is the manipulated, not the manipulator.

It is often forgotten that, behind the easy charm and amiable appearance, Harry is a determined and ferociously intelligent man. His one aim since the death of his mother has been to escape the circus he holds responsible for her untimely death. This was the cause of his youthful escapades, his insistence on serving in the front line, his openly political espousal of the cause of veterans, and so forth.

Further adding to his discomfort are the persistent rumours that Harry is not, in fact, Charles' son.

Against this background, can it possibly be a coincidence that he chose to marry an American of mixed race? A needy and insecure woman who had had to fight against her background to build a career in the most fickle of sectors? A woman with a complex and fraught family history and relationships?

Meghan was, at first, universally adored by the public. She still has many adherents here. Her looks and vivacity made her a standout. Harry knew what he was doing. This was bound to arouse the ire of his sister-in-law. The then Duchess of Cambridge is a clever woman with an iron will and a clear agenda as to what the monarchy will become once her husband is King. Meghan had the potential to cast Kate into the shadow, and that was not to be allowed. It is easy to confuse and mislead someone not born and bred into Royal and aristocratic circles with the complexities of precedence, so that Meghan was pressured inot adopting a more passive, background role against which she was bound to chafe.

Palace staff, accustomed to stoic and compliant aristocrats, had neither the training nor the inclination to answer the needs of an image-conscious and anxious media personality, would have stumbled and bumbled. Easy for Harry to set up a pattern of misunderstanding that the staff would see as bullying and Meghan perceive as persecution.

Harry could rely on at least one family member - Princess Michael of Kent, probably - to raise the race issue. An issue to which Meghan would, of course, be sensitive and would react strongly about.

With the aid of careful leaks, Harry could rely on the red-top Press and social media to make these issues balloon into a full-on controversy and public debate. Once this was fully-raging, he could make his move. Everything since has been aimed at forcing the Royal Family to sever all ties with him. Once this is achieved, I am not at all sure what he will do. One can hope he has the decency to stand by Meghan and his children. But I worry that he will simply clear off and leave her to flounder.

I do feel sorry for Meghan. She's been caught up in a long-standing family conflict in which she's been used as a pawn. Her character and racial background have been weaponised in this conflict without her being able to take a stand for herself. She has become the modern equivalent of the late Duchess of Windsor, in that she herself has been allowed little or no agency in a process that has cast her as the villain of the piece.

Tragedy.