PLATELL’S PEOPLE: Is the royal show over for Meghan and Harry?

Devastating news for the Duke and Duchess of Sussex that neither they nor their children Archie and Lilibet are reportedly invited by King Charles to commemorations marking the first anniversary of Queen Elizabeth’s death.

Given that Harry and Meghan’s only currency is being members of the Royal Family, the snub must feel especially bitter. It also suggests the King has finally found his mettle.

We all despaired that the royals didn’t fight back after the extraordinary allegations hurled at them by Harry and Meghan while the late Queen was still alive.

Now it’s payback time. And for that we should all cry ‘Three cheers for the King!’

The message is clear: they are not welcome here. Quite right, too — the rebuff will mean the couple won’t be able to take advantage next month of the most poignant royal ceremonies since the Queen’s death, for their self-serving documentaries.

Adding insult to injury, even the disgraced Prince Andrew and his ex-wife Sarah are invited to the family gathering at Balmoral on September 8.

And Harry and Meghan can’t claim their absence is down to conflicting diary engagements, as the next day they will be a stone’s throw from Britain in Dusseldorf, Germany, launching the Invictus Games. They’ve already left Frogmore Cottage in Windsor — meaning they have no home in Britain.

Now they’re being publicly shunned by the royals. It must be dawning on them that they could be staring at a bleak future. Perhaps this explains why we’ve seen a very different Harry and Meghan in recent public appearances together.

Before, they would hold hands and gaze into each others’ eyes.

But in their vainglorious video this week, thanking winners of a youth technology award they fund, they never made eye contact or touched one other.

And in pictures of them celebrating Meghan’s 42nd birthday in Montecito on Wednesday, she walks directly out of the restaurant ahead of a miserable-looking Harry.

No hand-holding, no back stroking. Is the royal show over for the Sussexes?

Millions of us dearly hope so.

Amanda’s racy revenge

Much outrage when Amanda Holden was mum-shamed by misogynist influencer Andrew Tate on Twitter after posting a picture of herself in a bikini.

Tate said: ‘You are a wife and a mother and you’re past a teenager.’ Amanda, 52, then shared this even racier picture — while he still awaits trial on charges of human trafficking (despite being released from house arrest yesterday).

Revenge is sometimes a dish best served hot.

Much outrage when Amanda Holden was mum-shamed by misogynist influencer Andrew Tate on Twitter

When TikTok star chef Thomas Straker proudly posted a snap of the, mostly young, staff at his successful London restaurant Straker’s, he was hit by a volley of abuse online because they are all-white, all-male and lacking diversity.

Crikey, when did young hard-working white blokes with jobs become a target for derision?

Ken is the Greatest

Readers may think I write my column listening to Rachmaninoff and other highfalutin’ tunes from the BBC. Sorry to break the news but I’m a Ken Bruce fan and — along with a million others — have abandoned the Beeb and followed him to Greatest Hits Radio. 

Yesterday Craig Crouch was sentenced to life for murdering his 10-month-old stepson Jacob. 

The baby’s mother Gemma Barton was found not guilty of her son’s murder but given 10 years for causing or allowing his death. 

Half of the sentence will be served on licence, so she’ll only be in jail five years. I can’t help wondering why the mother, whose duty is to protect their child, is so often let off with a lesser charge in cases like this? 

Yesterday Craig Crouch was sentenced to life for murdering his 10-month-old stepson Jacob

Singer Lizzo hits back at a lawsuit from three of her ex dancers, containing allegations of sexual harassment, bullying, and fat shaming. She denies the claims, saying they are ‘gut wrenching’ — a choice phrase given her famously plus-sized girth. 

Broad appeal 

England cricketer Stuart Broad is in talks to be a contestant on Strictly Come Dancing. Famous for his white headband and intoxicating masculinity, the 6ft 6in ace scored a six with his last shot, and took a wicket with his last ball, in his final Test before retiring. 

Can’t wait for Broad in crotch-hugging, sequinned trousers and clingy shirt open to his navel. Pass the smelling salts! 

Bin Barbie . . . not the boyfriend

A new TikTok craze encourages young women to dump their boyfriends if, after seeing the Barbie movie, the men don’t embrace its core messages of female empowerment and the evils of patriarchy. 

Only a Barbie brain could be that moronic. As for the dumped boyfriends, I’d say it’s a lucky escape.

A new TikTok craze encourages young women to dump their boyfriends if, after seeing the Barbie movie, the men don’t embrace its core messages of female empowerment and the evils of patriarchy

Meanwhile the website Bairbie.me — which transforms real people into their Barbie or Ken image — produces this Ken version of no, not Brad Pitt, Ryan Gosling or Jude Law, but Boris Johnson. 

Whoever said Barbie didn’t have a sense of humour?

Strictly judge Shirley Ballas posts pictures on her sunshine holiday in Portugal where she is enjoying ‘four juices a day, colonic irrigations, yoga, long hikes, spin classes and gym workouts’. 

As her fellow judge Craig Revel Horwood might say, that sounds ‘absolutely dis-as-strous darling’ — and the kind of holiday that would get nil points from me. 

Freddie Mercury’s lifelong friend Mary Austin has put his treasured possessions up for auction, including a cat waistcoat featuring his favourite felines on it. 

Freddie wore it in his final video with Queen. 

Had to break it to my moggie Ted — who thinks it’s the cat’s whiskers — that, at £30,000, another one bites the dust where his wishes are concerned. 

Westminster Wars 

Junior doctors are ‘very angry’ that Rishi Sunak blamed their strikes for the increase in waiting lists, now reaching 7.47 million. 

Yet it’s hard to deny the facts when NHS England’s own figures show more than 600,000 hospital appointments have been affected already due to their walkouts.

Surely it is time we reviewed the legal system, given that the lawyers of the man who murdered Tory MP Sir David Amess in front of witnesses in his constituency surgery were given £100,000 in Legal Aid — even though the self-confessed jihadist admitted he stabbed this lovely man to death.

How can it have taken cops two hours to even realise that Greenpeace protesters had invaded the Prime Minister’s Yorkshire home and five more to arrest trespassers? Does it have no security? Were lazy cops caught napping? 

Had it been the U.S., they’d have been arrested on sight — or possibly shot.

Junior doctors are ‘very angry’ that Rishi Sunak blamed their strikes for the increase in waiting lists, now reaching 7.47 million

Melania Trump is nowhere to be seen as The Donald appears in court again, nor has she been seen campaigning with him. 

Meanwhile, his fiercely loyal legal spokeswoman Alina Habba defends him tenaciously outside the courtroom. 

Melania must surely be happy to see her husband in such safe hands — as any devoted wife would be.