Sixty years ago, in the aftermath of one of the twentieth century’s most salacious scandals, the former MP John Profumo took on a role as a volunteer at the East End charity Toynbee Hall. The unpaid and distinctly unglamorous job, which saw Profumo serving meals to the homeless and cleaning toilets, became a kind of penance for the former secretary of state for war. In many people’s eyes, the gruelling charitable work eventually redeemed him for his tawdry affair with Christine Keeler. The penal reformer Lord Longford subsequently said that he felt more admiration for Profumo than anyone else he had known in his lifetime.
Andrew has shown little awareness of the embarrassment he has caused, let alone contrition
Should Prince Andrew – heaven forbid! – suddenly meet with a tragic accident, it is doubtful that he would engender such warm and compassionate responses. He has been mired in controversy and scandal for years, which shows no signs of abating. The latest stories about his involvement with a member of the Chinese intelligence services shows all of his flaws in microcosm: poor judgement in friends, a base need to be flattered and, of course, an unseemly eagerness, amounting to greed, as far as money is concerned. At the end of a truly terrible year for the royals, Andrew’s humiliating antics have managed, somehow, to make matters worse.
It is therefore unsurprising that it has been made clear through well-placed courtiers and ‘royal insiders’ in the media that the Duke of York is under considerable pressure not to attend any of the set-piece royal events that are planned for Christmas. The Firm certainly has form in this kind of ruthlessness when it comes to optics: those with reasonably long memories may remember that Andrew succumbed to a suspiciously well-timed bout of Covid ahead of the Queen’s Jubilee celebrations in 2022, preventing him from being on show. Now it has been made clear, via the newspapers, that not only will Andrew not be welcome at the family’s pre-Christmas lunch on Thursday (an event that he would, in any case, be expected to enter via the side door, to avoid unwelcome publicity) but that his presence at the traditional royal Christmas walk to church on Christmas Day at Sandringham would be seen as a very poor idea indeed.
But while barring the Duke from lunches and church processions may be a useful way of indicating his family’s disapproval at his antics, it does not go far enough. Ever since his notorious Newsnight interview – the subject of not one but two humiliating dramatisations this year – Andrew has shown little awareness of the embarrassment he has caused, let alone contrition.
He declined to apologise to an incredulous Emily Maitlis during his interview, and has since refused to give any public indication that he understands what he has done wrong, or that he regrets the calumny that he is responsible for. Leaving aside the question of whether any of his actions have strayed from the realms of the distasteful into the illegal, though strenuously denied – and whether they will eventually have the same consequences that any man who was not born the son of the late monarch would face – some genuine remorse for what he has done, illegal or not, would have been highly welcome. And still we wait.
Apart from his ex-wife Sarah Ferguson, by far his most loyal public defender, and, presumably, his daughters, the Duke is a man without friends. Many of those who might have once talked of the classic British virtues of fair play, innocence until guilt proven, not hitting a man when he’s down, etc, have seen Andrew for what he is – a busted flush, and a public embarrassment to boot – and quietly left him to his own disgrace.
Of course he should absent himself from the royal celebrations this year, and, presumably, for many more years to come. But if he is to have any chance of redeeming himself, this most high-handed and grand of figures should take a leaf from Profumo’s book and get scrubbing in some benighted part of the country, which might indicate that, finally, he has got it. Otherwise, there will be variants on this story until the day he dies. When that comes, the obituaries – and subsequent judgement on him – will, I fear, not be kind.
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