Yes, Virginia, Andrew is a bad boy

With apologies to Jane Austen, it’s a law universally acknowledged that the likelihood of a man being sued for sexual assault is directly proportionate to the man’s wealth.

Those female chancers are easy to understand: what’s the point suing if the mark has no money? That’s why Virginia Giuffre must be commended for her common sense and a feel for arithmetic. She saw an opening and went for it.

Having said that, I could have done without her sanctimonious lies about wanting only justice, not money. She must have inhaled the zeitgeist through both nostrils and the words floated onto her lips as if by themselves. Justice for what exactly?

For Andrew having had sex with her 20 years ago when she was 17? So fine, that was under the age of consent in the US at the time. That cut-off point is now 16 in most states, so if Andrew had kept it in his trousers until 2018, when the change happened, he could then have had all the 17-year-old American lasses he wanted without any risk of prosecution.

It’s useful to remember yet again the difference between malum in se and malum prohibitum. The former is an act that’s bad in itself, such as murder, theft or burglary. The latter is an act that’s only bad because it’s prohibited, such as not wearing a seat belt, driving in a bus lane – or having sex with a 17-year-old girl well-versed in the amorous arts.

Let’s face it, Virginia wasn’t a daisy-fresh virgin taken advantage of by an old lecher. She wasn’t Katyusha Maslova to Prince Nekhlyudov in Tolstoy’s Resurrection. She was a regular visitor to Jeffery Epstein’s dens of iniquity, where she was passed from guest to guest like a relay baton.

Now she’s out for all she can get, which is money and ‘justice’. I’m sure if the first is right she’ll be happy to compromise on the second.

Andrew meanwhile has lost his HRH title, along with all his other honorary entitlements. He has been cut off from the royal family, and his life has been more or less ruined. That, in my view, should have happened a long time ago, Virginia or no Virginia.

In common with his ex-wife, late sister-in law and nephew Harry, Andrew belongs to the royal coterie seemingly committed to destroying the monarchy. Unlike, say, his elder sister, to say nothing of his parents, he doesn’t realise that his life isn’t entirely his own.

He was born to privilege, but also to a lifetime of duty – duty to his family, the dynasty and ultimately his country. Accepting the privilege while reneging on the duty is fundamentally dishonest and, in every other than the legal sense, treasonous.

Cavorting with the likes of Epstein and, much worse, Nazarbayev, swapping the door-opening power of his name for all those yachts, private jets and lavish parties with ladies of easy virtue was vulgar, louche and irresponsible. It was letting down his mother and her realm.

Andrew may not be the sharpest chisel in the box, but a man figuring in succession to the throne doesn’t have to be either an intellectual or a Mastermind contestant. He must, however, be a man who never forgets his mission in this world.

Andrew is among those few royals who seem to suffer from amnesia when it comes to that mission. He probably doesn’t even realise the damage he has done to the royal family and hence our constitution.

I hope the Queen doesn’t come to his rescue at pay-off time. Let him fend for himself, see how he gets on without his hand in her piggybank.

He and Virginia deserve each other. Too bad she’s already married – they could make such a lovely couple. A girl who used her body to get ahead in life and a man who did the same with the position to which he was born.

I only wish our papers stopped catering to the voyeuristic, onanistic instincts of their readers on the current scale. Their coverage of Andrew’s saga is worse than Page 3 in The Sun, featuring topless Playboy-type lovelies. At least those photos don’t encourage hypocrisy and self-righteousness.   

7 thoughts on “Yes, Virginia, Andrew is a bad boy”

  1. I for one find it disgusting that the British press, encourages the British public, to hate a man for doing something that is perfectly legal in Britain. Now that acceptance of homosexuality is enforced, the prigs reserve all their bile for anyone deemed to be a ‘nonce’

    As for the royals, I daresay once the Queen departs it’s time the institution was abolished. I’m not an ideological republican, it’s just that the cognitive dissonance engendered by the continued existence of the monarchy will, I believe, lead to fatal levels of toxicity in the body politic.

  2. The body politic is already at war with itself. A medical analogy would be multi-organ failure which is indeed fatal. If that were true, it would be the ultimate re-set because, with humans gone, God would be able to start again with a clean slate.

    1. I don’t know about God. But I really do feel major constitutional change would be desirable for the country as a whole. Surely it’s better to do away with moribund institutions (however cherished in times past) rather than keep them on life support forevermore as some futile gesture of conservatism.

      1. I don’t know about God either, but the warring tribes will never agree on a constitution and we will all go down the drain. God is our only hope but may be inclined to let Lucifer have a go first.

      2. Tony Blair, who saw nothing in Britain’s constitution he couldn’t hate, tried to get rid of the post of the Lord Chacellor — only to find to his dismay it was impossible. Too many synapses of constitutional governance came together in that ganglion for it to be dismissed. That’s just the Lord Chancellor. Now try to imagin the constitutional mayhem of going republican. Can you? I can’t. In general, I’d recommend caution in such matters — there have been very few successful revolutions in history. So few in fact that I can’t think of any offhand.

    1. He was far too conceited and sure of himself not to realise that he does not get everyon e’s full support. He thinks other people will see things his way.

Leave a Reply to Marto Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.