<\/p>\n
R<\/span>eading the extract from Virginia Giuffre\u2019s tragic memoir in the Guardian this week<\/a>, I was struck again by the fate of each of those people involved in that infamous photograph taken at Ghislaine Maxwell\u2019s London house.<\/p>\n The teenage girl at the centre of the picture is dead, having taken her own life<\/a> at a remote Australian farmhouse earlier this year, unable to outrun her trauma. The person who took the photograph is dead, having somehow killed himself<\/a> in a New York jail while awaiting trial on charges of sex trafficking. The grinning woman in the background is in prison herself, exalting Donald Trump\u2019s impeccable purity<\/a> in the hope of getting moved to a nicer jail or even pardoned. And the smiling lunk with his arm round the teenage girl \u2013 who he denies he had sex with later that evening \u2013 is living in a 30-room mansion on a 98-acre estate<\/a> (which even his monarch brother reportedly doesn\u2019t know how he pays for), joshing away at family funerals, and just sort of \u2026 riding it out, each time another of his lies about this story is exposed. That, truly, is the royalty bonus. Don\u2019t call it a doghouse! It\u2019s a dogpalace.<\/p>\n Amazingly, even as I was typing that paragraph, a story dropped revealing that Andrew met the extremely senior Chinese Communist party official at the centre of the collapsed Beijing spy case at least three times<\/a>. Remember, the duke is already under fire for unwittingly hiring an alleged spy<\/a> as his representative in China. Is there anywhere he doesn\u2019t get? He\u2019s like the Forrest Gump of appalling decisions.<\/p>\n We are now, yet again, at the stage where \u201croyal watchers\u201d must speculate on what could be done about the endless slow-motion gilded-coach-crash that is the Duke of York \u2013 the possible sanctions that the royals supposedly still have recourse to. Wait, Andrew might get stripped of the chance<\/a> to attend the annual Order of the Garter lunch? OH NO NOT A DELUNCHING?! Wait, he might not be allowed to be a counsellor of state, one of the members of the royal family over the age of 21 who would deputise in the event of the king\u2019s incapacity, a lineup which currently comprises Camilla, Princess Anne, William, Harry, Andrew, Prince Edward and Princess Beatrice? (Can I just say \u2013 incredible sitcom, would absolutely watch.) But again: OH NO NOT A DECOUNSELLORING?!<\/p>\n All of these punishments are so absurd that they read like deliberate satires on the entire institution of the monarchy. As perhaps they should. We might as well be realistic about what \u201cloving the royal family\u201d has got to mean, philosophically speaking.<\/p>\n But we\u2019ll return to that later, as we\u2019ve got more Andrew denials and lack-of-denials to cover off. We know the Duke remained friends with Jeffrey Epstein after he\u2019d gone to prison for soliciting a minor for sex. We know Andrew flew to New York<\/a>, post Epstein\u2019s release, to spend time with this Tier 1 sex offender. We know everyone else knew he was a Tier 1 sex offender because when the pair got papped on a walk in Central Park, the celebrity.land published the picture with a front page headline even Andrew could understand: \u201cPRINCE & PERV\u201d. We know it took a few years and Epstein\u2019s unfortunate suicide before Andrew gave an interview to say that the pap photo (and four-day house-stay) was the last time he had any contact with the guy whatsoever.<\/p>\n And we now<\/em> know he is still lying about that, after an email from Andrew to Epstein surfaced, dated well after the event, and coinciding with the publication of the aforementioned photo of him with his arm round Giuffre. \u201cI\u2019m just as concerned for you!\u201d wrote Andrew<\/a>. \u201cDon\u2019t worry about me! It would seem we are in this together\u201d \u2013 well, you said it \u2013 \u201cand will have to rise above it.\u201d Well \u2026 you didn\u2019t do that. \u201cOtherwise keep in close touch,\u201d concluded Andy, \u201cand we\u2019ll play some more soon!!!!\u201d it was signed \u201cA, HRH The Duke of York, KG.\u201d Surely the world\u2019s naffest email signature, even counting the \u201cFounder\/Futurist\/Father\u201d crowd on LinkedIn.<\/p>\n Today, however, let us sign off by facing up to the big philosophical question. If you are going to have a royal family, and believe them unique and other, then surely you have to take them as you find them? It\u2019s deliberately the opposite of a meritocracy, after all. If you get into pseudo-managerial ideas about hiring and firing, then you just make it all sound like any other small business. Who cares about that? Britain is full of small businesses, despite the chancellor\u2019s efforts, and the royal family must be something different and special. Plus, business is the one thing we all realise that the rarefied royals know absolutely nothing meaningful about. The \u201cslimmed-down Firm\u201d we keep hearing about from Charles and William\u2019s courtiers honestly sounds like a week four task from The Apprentice.<\/p>\n Can Andrew be put in a black cab with his wheelie suitcase to tell the cameras that King Sugar has made a big mistake in letting him go? In the practical and philosophical interests of the monarchy, it\u2019s not at all clear that he can. And yet, it\u2019s very clear that there might be all manner of embarrassing revelations to come in a number of different areas. A lot of known unknowns, and a lot of unknown unknowns. Quite the bind for Charles and William. However richly deserved it would be, I suspect part of them fears that booting Andrew out of the tent is a slippery slope toward there being no tent at all.<\/p>\n