There can be no doubt that editors at the News of the World knew exactly what they were doing when they illegally acquired and published a young army officer’s private and fairly mundane video record of his day-to-day experiences in the forces.

In it Prince Harry (who made the video) described one of his platoon, a friend and colleague, as “our little paki friend, Ahmed”, and the paper leapt at the chance to pile in and give him an almighty kicking – yet again.

Have a look at it on the Screws “family” website, if you can be bothered, and you’ll see it’s absolutely clear from the way the term is delivered that there is no malice, no implied racism, nothing to which the Pakistani soldier himself could or wanted to raise any objection.

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