My thoughts today are obviously about poor Prince Andrew. He’s lost all of his titles, except that of being a prince and all those well-deserved medals he always wore to public events. And for what? Being best friends with a convicted paedophile and paying a woman he claims not to have had sexual relations a mere £12 million. I mean, who hasn’t paid a woman they don’t know £12 million for not having sex with her? Before you say, “Of course, I haven’t”, if your best mate was a nonce with a criminal record wouldn’t you hang out with him? Well, I wouldn’t, but that’s just me.
Joking aside – and I think I need to set the joking aside since the real victim of this tawdry event, Virginia Giuffre, killed herself in tragic circumstances – it is quite clear that Prince Andrew is a wrong ‘un. Apart from a brief spell during the Falklands War when he flew a helicopter around the South Atlantic, I can’t think of a useful thing he has ever done.
What I find totally appalling is that apart from losing what are basically a bunch of ceremonial titles, there are no other consequences. Unlike the rest of us who fuck up in real life, he gets to live in luxury for the rest of his days. No awkward trips to the Job Centre in order to prove he is actively seeking work and being compelled to take the first job that becomes available. “Hmm. Mr Windsor … have you ever considered working with elderly people, many of whom have dementia, in a care home? If you don’t take it, we’ll stop your benefits.” Sex pest Andrew can carry on as before, being waiting on hand and foot for doing absolutely nothing. Nice work if you can get it.
It is the association with a convicted paedophile I can’t abide. Perhaps I am old fashioned, but I regard such people as being beyond reproach, the lowest of the low and cannot imagine any circumstances in which I would associate with one. In our village, we actually have one, a man who committed offences long before we arrived over 30 years ago. I have never once spoken to him, never will and here’s why.
If you are sexually attracted to children, you will always be sexually attracted to children. It is who and what you are. Barring chemical castration – and apparently the paedo across the road had exactly that done – what you did was unforgivable.
The arrogant and thick Prince Andrew turned out to be the very worst of us. Cocooned in his little world of unlimited wealth and privilege, he was at the very least a bystander to a serial paedophile’s sick life and at worst an active participant. Yet, incredibly, there are few real world consequences for him. He gets to keep his luxury pile, where he lives with his ex wife and fellow Epstein apologist, the ghastly Sarah Ferguson, you and I will foot the bill for all of it. It’s almost as if he has been rewarded.
As for the royals themselves, their brand has been trashed and frankly they don’t deserve to recover. King Charles, clearly a very sick man. heads a diminished ‘firm’, with only his sister, Anne, son William with his sick wife Kate Middleton and the runt of the litter Edward carrying out royal duties, which in general mean waving at and shaking hands with people. They are not all tainted by the shadow of Epstein but I’m afraid they are tainted by the shadow of Prince Andrew.
All I can think about are the young girls who were trafficked and abused by Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell, while Andrew was sometimes literally in the room. Epstein may be dead and Maxwell in prison, but the lifestyles of the rich and famous go on and on and by next week most of this will be forgotten about. Some things will never change.
