THE British monarchy hit a new low last week with the news that Prince Andrew, the Duke of York, had reached an out-of-court settlement with Virginia Giuffre, the woman who had accused the duke of sexually assaulting her on three occasions when she was 17 – accusations that he has repeatedly denied.
As details began to leak out of the alleged sum paid to Giuffre – widely reported as around £12 million – many wags took to Twitter to point out that £12m is a lot of money to pay someone you claim to have never met, despite that now-infamous photo of Andrew with his arm around Giuffre, with convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell grinning in the background. As soon as the settlement was announced, questions naturally began to be asked about how exactly the duke intends to finance the settlement. The Telegraph reported that the Queen was set to “help”, prompting the question of just how much of that help will be paid for by the taxpayer – given that it is us who ultimately props up the monarchy’s wealth and privilege.
The possibility of taxpayers’ money being used to pay a victim of alleged sexual abuse pales into insignificance when placed against the years of trauma Giuffre has suffered, as well as years of having her character called into question, something that still continues.
Even if taxpayers’ money isn’t used, what does it say about our head of state who is “helping” Andrew? Even among otherwise sensible people, the Queen has always been placed on a pedestal as somehow above the fray – allowing a convenient fiction of the Queen as benevolent matriarch who merely tolerates her odious family – to grow in the popular imagination. Her apparent intervention in helping Andrew reach a settlement with an alleged victim of sexual abuse and trafficking suggests that The Firm will tolerate it as long as it doesn’t upset her Jubilee party.
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But to say such things in Britain is apparently a severe case of lèse-majesté and beyond the pale. This is especially sinister when the UK Government is aggressively going after teachers who teach “biased” interpretations of British history by the likes of civil rights groups such as Black Lives Matter and Stonewall because apparently a nation where many people still think Churchill and the Blitz Spirit won the Second World War single-handed is obviously the sign of functioning historical literacy.
In the same way that much of UK society genuinely believes that British empire did no wrong, there is still a widespread cultural oddness in Britain that maintains that the Queen can do no wrong, or indeed, never has. A cynic might suggest standing lock, stock and barrel behind a son who was palling around with the paedophile Jeffrey Epstein, long after a warrant had been issued for Epstein’s arrest for sexual assault of a minor in 2006 shows – at best – poor judgement.
There is a sense even now among monarchists that the entitlement of the Windsors is a price worth paying because of … errr … tourism!
And as for the sort of entitlement that allows BBC royal correspondent Nicholas Witchell to suggest that Andrew could make a return to public life as an advocate for sexual abuse victims ... where do you even start with that level of delusion?
This isn’t the first time the British royal family have had – to be suitably medieval – their heads on the metaphorical block.
WATCH: BBC journalist makes bizarre claim on Prince Andrew's future
From the death of Princess Diana to the treatment of Meghan Markle, the royals are no strangers to being low in the public’s estimation. However, with each glossy photoshoot of Wills and Kate and their brood, or bitchy gossip rag “exclusive” about the “ungrateful” Ms Markle, they have always managed to wriggle out of whatever royal jam they find themselves in.
Perhaps it’s too optimistic to suggest that the Prince Andrew affair will prove terminal for such an outdated, ridiculous institution as the monarchy, and of course, the Queen is not to blame for the individual actions of any of her children.
But if love is blindness, then abuse is darkness, and no-one – not even elderly heads of state – should be above accountability for the role they play in helping those they love to avoid proper scrutiny.
This article was written as part of a collaboration between The National/Sunday National and City of Glasgow College in which we are seeking to find and support the journalists of the future
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