In an interview to be broadcast at 10.30 GMT tonight on BBC News 24, Royal photographer Arthur Edwards says that Prince Harry’s increasingly erratic behaviour is becoming embarrassing.

“He should be behaving a lot better,” Edwards insists. “I think Prince Harry is dangerously becoming an embarrassment to this country. He knows that if he goes to these nightclubs, paparazzi hang around. It’s par for the course.”

The 22-year-old has been training as an Army officer for deployment to Iraq next month. He will become the first Royal in 25 years to serve in a war zone.

Meanwhile, after girlfriend Chelsy Davy cancelled her stay in England, and amid talk of a rift between them, Harry flew to Barbados to spend three weeks with her before going to Iraq.

The Prince also faces a dressing-down from his senior officers after unseemly pictures of him, apparently falling into a gutter, appeared in the press.

To be in one doghouse may be seen as careless. To be in three at the same time is way over the top.

Harry says he wants the Army to be his career, but his recent antics must have seriously jeopardised his hopes of significant promotion.