Column: Prince Andrew – architect of his own downfall

Sarah Ferguson galumphed across the court of public opinion to hail him “a giant of a principled man, [who] dares to put his shoulder to the wind and stands firm with his sense of honour and truth.”

The last person to utter such tosh was Jonathan Aitken MP who vowed to clear his name with “the simple sword of truth and the trusty shield of British fair play” … and then marched straight to jail for 18 months. A perjuror who ended up bankrupt.

Both men came from a life of entitlement; a world so detached from reality they have zero concept of what it means to be held to account.

Andrew was so pleased with the way his BBC interview went he reportedly gave the production team a tour of Buckingham Palace.

All those thoroughly unpleasant links to that ghastly Jeffrey Epstein - millionaire tycoon and, oh, paedophile facing charges of sex trafficking under-age girls - had been jolly well dealt with.

It went so well, all his sponsors deserted him, and he was effectively fired from his vaguely defined job by his own family. His diary for 2020 is suddenly very empty.

That may only be the start of a very long, lonely year.

The medals and pointless honorary titles may yet end up back in the royal dressing-up box if he is further implicated in the perverted world of Epstein, a man whose personal 747 plane was dubbed the Lolita Express.

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Sympathy for the prince can be pitched at exactly zero. Throughout his interview he couldn’t find a single word, or thought, for the victims of Epstein whose ruined their lives –used and abused by men of power, privilege and money.

Asked if he regretted the friendship, Andrew said the opportunities it afforded him were “actually very useful” as if he’d just had a few rounds of golf withe an investor who turned out to be a bit dodgy – and he tried to explain it by saying he had “a tendency to be too honourable.”

Every word, every sentence, every bizarre, hugely inappropriate, downright weird piece of body language showed Andrew in his true colours - a privileged buffoon who looked the other way, saw no evil, heard no evil, and remembered absolutely nothing.

In an almost throw-away line –one of those well rehearsed ‘spontaneous’ soundbites which are the hallmark of most of these set piece interviews – Andrew said the allegations against him was “almost a mental health issue to some extent for me.”

His thoughts on the mental health trauma endured by the minors Epstein abused went un-recorded.

Right now Andy, the man who claims he doesn’t sweat, must be changing his shirt every hour.

He has effectively been ostracised by his business associates and his family, and, waiting in the wings, are the FBI and a possible interview under oath. He is the architect of his own downfall.

The absence of ‘friends’ trying to spin this interview in a positive light says it all.

It’s just him and Fergie.
And his conscience.