One of the more surprising moments in Sunday night’s ITV interview was when Prince Harry sought to defend Lady Susan Hussey, the late Queen’s former lady-in-waiting accused of racism. ‘Meghan and I love Susan Hussey,’ declared Harry, ‘[Meghan] thinks she’s great. And I also know that what she meant, she never meant any harm at all.’ The Duke also used the same interview to play down suggestions that his family were racist, attempting to distinguish between unconscious bias and racism with regards to alleged comments about his son’s skin colour.

Big mistake. Those comments have triggered something of a furore on both sides of the Atlantic among those who previously might have been found among the Sussexes’ staunchest defenders –especially among the anonymous Twitter trolls of the self-proclaimed ‘Sussex squad.’ Among those who actually tweeted their opinion under their own name was activist Dr Shola Mos-Shogbamimu. She was outraged at Harry’s explanation of race during the course of the conversation: ‘Prince Harry you’re WRONG,’ she typed. ‘There’s ZERO difference between racist conscious/unconscious bias & racism. Bias is presence of racism & the actions/words are proof therein [sic].’

Author Natalie Morris mocked ‘the way he [Harry] is scared to even say the word “racism”‘ while culture writer and Guardian contributor Jason Okundaye tweeted that ‘defending Susan Hussey was needless and undermines a lot of what Harry is claiming to stand for’ and that ‘he wants to condemn his family members so they can “grow”, but only wants to call it “unconscious bias” because calling it racism requires him to unravel the institution of monarchy itself.’

Looks like Harry still has a thing or two to learn about the progressive agenda.