In common with, I suspect, many of those writing most censoriously about it all, I have no idea whether the Duke of York has done anything wrong. So far, the charges against him are that he is friendly with a convicted sex offender, and that he has met Saif Gaddafi and given lunch to the son-in-law of the then president of Tunisia. The first accusation proves nothing against him, but the newspapers are trying to hint, without stating evidence, that the Prince himself may have committed sexual offences. The other accusations prove even less: the Duke is this country’s informal trade ambassador, and he met people with whom the British government happily did business, so he was performing his official role. These people may well have been disgusting, but that is a question above Prince Andrew’s pay-grade — an unfair phrase, actually, since, in this role, he is unpaid. His mother, in her time, has had to confer an honour upon Ceaucescu of Romania and be nice to the mass-murderer Robert Mugabe.
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