DAN WOOTTON: Why is Meghan Markle not telling Prince Harry he’s making a fool of himself?

Often a partner’s most important role is that gentle whisper into the ear – or sometimes a knowing glare, gentle punch in the ribs or harshly honest private conversation ­– insisting: Just stop, now!

Since the beginning of the year, Prince Harry has entered self-destruct mode.

Having thrown virtually every blood relative under the bus and cut himself off from most close friends from his pre-Meghan era, it would seem the only person in the world who can save him from himself is his wife.

But, barring their seriously misjudged joint statement on the ‘near catastrophic’ New York car chase that wasn’t, the Duchess of Sussex has chosen to completely withdraw from her husband’s public business.

And the missteps of his kamikaze mission are spiralling out of control, destroying what little credibility the Sussexes had left.

Now Harry has the indignity of having to admit under oath in court that he has no evidence of phone hacking by Mirror Group Newspapers

The horrific consequences of his autobiography Spare continue to stack up, from being shamed for revealing private conversations with the late Queen to having his American citizenship questioned in a US court, with the threat of deportation even a possibility because of his revelations of extensive illegal drug use.

And now the indignity of having to admit under oath in court that he has no evidence of phone hacking by Mirror Group Newspapers, despite going through the palaver of becoming the first senior royal to give evidence in 130 years claiming just that.

This was all so painfully inevitable.

What has been needed more than ever was the woman who claims she puts Harry’s best interests first to step in.

‘H,’ Meghan could have said, ‘none of this is worth the toll it’s taking on our lives. You don’t have the proof to win this court case – you look stupid, it’s damaging our business interests and making it almost impossible to create the happy Californian utopia we envisioned.’

Instead, she left him in the hands of a ghostwriter who has helped him destroy every family relationship Harry had left and the Hacked Off cabal, a rabid group of the rich and powerful mixed in with attention-seeking reformed phone hackers who have been on a decade-long mission to bring down the British Press.

The consequences of all of this have been, just as King Charles warned, a ‘suicide mission’ in terms of credibility.

Harry’s two days in the witness box were a mortifying spectacle, as the dim Duke became aware with the world watching that the vast majority of articles he had been assured just must have come from phone hacking were already in the public domain.

The victimhood woe-is-me narrative that Harry believes can save him from any tricky question when challenged by woke pals like Oprah Winfrey and Tom Bradby didn’t work when presented with actual facts by the Mirror’s sharp KC Andrew Green.

And, while no one belittles the pain of losing his mother in front of the world as a youngster, we’re all just exhausted by now of a man born with every imaginable privilege in the world constantly moaning about his lot in life.

It’s hard to pick the most ludicrous moment of Harry’s evidence, but I think for me it’s his claim that the only reason he became a prolific drug user and playboy prince was because the media reported on his activities.

He whinged: ‘I ended up feeling as though I was playing up to a lot of the headlines and stereotypes that they wanted to pin on me mainly because I thought that, if they are printing this rubbish about me and people were believing it, I may as well ‘do the crime’.’

Oh, come on, surely even his woke mates aren’t swallowing that baloney.

The victimhood woe-is-me narrative that Harry believes can save him from any tricky question when challenged by woke pals like Oprah Winfrey

The horrific consequences of his autobiography Spare continue to stack up, from being shamed for revealing private conversations with the late Queen to having his American citizenship questioned in a US court, with the threat of deportation even a possibility because of his revelations of extensive illegal drug use

In fact, I think the inclusion of that statement alone in his witness statement proves Harry doesn’t have the right people looking after his best interests.

Prince Harry should also work harder to protect his marriage, which has come under increasing pressure in recent months, writes DAN WOOTTON

I fear that, in Meghan’s strategic mind, the worse things get for Harry the better positioned she becomes to take the lead in their relationship.

What else explains his solo meltdown this year?

If Meghan were a responsible wife, not attempting to lean into Harry’s extreme if, at times, understandable paranoias, she would have spoken to him about the reality of the media.

After all, just like Harry’s mother Diana, before Meghan entered the Royal Family she was one of the many celebrities who used journalists and photographers on a regular basis to promote her image, meeting with showbiz columnists to ask them to print stories about her private life and arranging paparazzi to be available to shoot her when arriving at certain locations.

But Harry should also work harder to protect his marriage, which has come under increasing pressure in recent months.

There’s nothing positive to be gained from focussing so incessantly on a romantic relationship that ended over a decade ago.

Harry’s ex Chelsy Davy has moved on; she lives a happy life out of the public eye with a devoted husband, gorgeous child and successful businesses.

But for Harry, the woman who his friends considered to be the love of his life will always be the one who got away.

And, because Harry believes he lives a blameless existence, it will never be his own immature behaviour, including those visits to strip clubs, that precipitated the split, but rather the media coverage Chelsy had to endure.

So, as a result, Chelsy was named in his witness statement 118 times, while Meghan received just five mentions.

Now, of course, Harry would say that’s because the Mirror’s apparent bad deeds were going on during his relationship with Chelsy and not Meghan.

But isn’t that the point about why it’s time to move on now; this is all ancient stuff.

There’s a real toxicity in Harry’s constant desire to rewrite history and right wrongs that often didn’t exist in the first place that might make Meghan reluctant to step in.

But someone has to now.

Because Harry is wallowing in victimhood and unhappiness in an aimless battle that will end up helping no one, certainly not himself.

Meghan might think Harry’s campaigning against a free Press will burnish her political ambitions and keep him busy, but I think the consequences will end up being far more destructive to him as a person and their marriage.

Not to mention the awful position in which it continues to put King Charles and Prince William, who is increasingly encouraging his father to take a harder line against Harry, perhaps finally stripping him of his formal titles.

For the sake of Harry’s health and happiness, Meghan needs to stage an intervention and assist her husband in focussing his energies on a positive cause.