London ? Prince Harry, No. 3 in line to the British throne and No. 1 royal target of the country’s tabloids, has been called a lot of things in recent years: a pothead, a drunk, a brawler, a thug, a posh rebel without a clue.

He must be thinking those were the good ol’ days.

On Thursday, Britain’s newspapers, television stations and radio talk shows were all about “Harry the Nazi,” after the prince, now 20 years old, somehow thought it a good idea to dress in a Nazi uniform at a private costume party with 250 guests — and one of the other partygoers thought it a good idea to snap a picture of him and sell it to Britain’s largest-selling daily newspaper.

“Harry the Nazi,” read the headline on the tabloid Sun’s front page. And there was Harry, in a tan desert Nazi uniform, holding a drink in one hand, a cigarette in the other. Wrapped around his left bicep was a red Nazi armband with black swastika.

“This behavior by the prince is inexcusable,” said Ian Davidson, a Labor party member of Parliament from Glasgow, dismissing the prince’s written apology as inadequate. “He is posh, thick and a bit of a thug.

“This raises substantial issues about the royal advisers because it’s demonstrated they’re either incompetent, negligent, neo-Nazis or a combination thereof.”

There is, in fact, no evidence that anybody other than Harry dreamt up the costume. Nor is there evidence that anybody connected to the royal family knew of his choice of dress except, perhaps, his brother, William, the good prince, who was also at the party. William reportedly dressed as a leopard.

But if Prince Harry has been deemed mature enough to dress himself these days, that was not based on his past behavior.

He seldom goes long without satisfying photographers from the tabloids here. Pictures of him stumbling out of bars are practically a running newspaper feature. He has admitted to smoking marijuana, for which his father, Prince Charles, sent him to a rehabilitation center.

Britain's Prince Harry is making headlines after wearing a Nazi soldier's uniform to a costume party. The grandson of Queen Elizabeth II apologized Wednesday night after The Sun printed the picture. Prince Harry, the second son of Prince Charles and the late Princess Diana, is gaining a reputation as a royal troublemaker.

As the prince most likely has learned, there’s never a good time to dress as a Nazi, particularly in this part of the world, where his grandmother, now Queen Elizabeth II, endured with her mother the bombing of Britain during the Blitz.

But his timing was particularly bad and particularly embarrassing for his family.

Prince Edward, one of Harry’s uncles, is to lead a delegation to the Auschwitz death camp in a few weeks to commemorate the 60th anniversary of its liberation while his grandmother, the Queen, welcomes Holocaust survivors to Buckingham Palace.

“I am very sorry if I have caused any offense or embarrassment to anyone,” the prince’s written apology said. “It was a poor choice of costume and I apologize.”