Moralizing Over Andrew and English Double Standards

Thomas Macaulay, the great political sage of the Victorian era in 19th century Britain, should be living at this hour.

Every school student of 19th century English political history has learned his famous 1830 aphorism: “We know no spectacle so ridiculous as the British public in one of its periodical fits of morality.”

From moralizing to true accountability

The latest revelations about the ex-Prince Andrew will dramatically fuel the intense moralizing mood that Britain is gripped by.

At the same time, the Andrew episode — and the decades-long cover-up by all the forces that traditionally shield the House of Windsor, both inside and outside of it — presents a serious challenge for a country that has always held itself out as an international example of probity and correctness.

Many serious questions will not only need to get asked, but answered. None more sensitive than obtaining an answer to what die the King know and when did he know it?

The fate of the House of Windsor could very well be at stake.

Will transparency fit for a 21st century democracy be suppressed yet again?

It is hard to imagine that the British public’s demands for more transparency and accountability can be suppressed yet again. This is, after all, the 21st century and Britain is a parliamentary democracy.

It can no longer buckle under the diktat of royal secrecy. The odds are that, at a minimum, British royalty will finally have to change significantly.

Andrew’s arrest and temporary detention are a first for any British royal in over 370 years. The only senior royal to be arrested and taken away in London was King Charles I in 1649.

His case involved British parliamentarians rising up against the divine right of Kings to make laws and command obedience from their subjects. His detention only lasted a few days. He was taken out and executed opposite Downing Street in Whitehall.

Just too many royals

London does not know what to do with all the royals who have grand titles and could call the late Queen Ellizabeth “Granny”.

The key point from the vantage point of the British public is that they do not earn a proper living and instead live off the giant wealth of the British royal family’s land holding and bank accounts — not to forget transfer payments from the British taxpayers.

Spare Royals’ pretensions

“Spare Royals”, as was the case with Andrew, are given international ambassador roles for such areas as trade, sport or Commonwealth links.

When I was a Foreign Office minister I was responsible for relations with the Far East China, Japan, Korea. To my surprise, I was asked in the summer of 2002 if I would like to go to Seoul for the opening match of the FIFA World Cup being jointly hosted by South Korea and Japan.

The job should have fallen to Prince Andrew who was president of the Football Association. I was told he had demanded a private plane to fly him out to and back from Seoul. He also wanted to sit in the special FIFA box reserved for the Emperor of Japan and President of Korea and would have to leave at half-time to go back for a golf game in England.

The Foreign Office could neither meet his expensive travel costs nor his arrogant expectation to have the status of head of state. So they asked me to represent Britain ahead at the opening ceremony and match of the 2002 World Cup.

Burden or benefit?

Being a royal trade envoy helps perhaps to move British exports along a bit. For British Ambassadors, having a Royal in town fills the embassy with local influencers and business leaders.

The UK Government briefings Andrew would have received as UK Trade Envoy are hardly national state secrets. Generally speaking, their contents can be read in the business pages of most national newspapers as well as trade journals.

Andrew sending them to a ghastly pedophile pimp in Florida, who is reputed to have had the best address book of anyone in America filled with the names of the super-rich in the business world, may be the breach of rules but it probably does not rise to the level of constituting a threat to national security.

A disaster for the royal establishment

Nonetheless, Andrew’s arrest and detention in a police cell reserved for common criminals is a disaster for the royal establishment in London.

King Charles, at 78, is rapidly aging as the best doctors in England manage his cancer. He has never been popular in England after he betrayed his first wife, the popular Princess Diana, to live with the wife of an army officer, whom he later married.
 
William and his brother Harry, today exiled in the United States with his Afro-American wife Megan Markle (after courtiers at Buckingham Palace asked if his children would be “colored”), share one feature with Charles.

No more class acts by the Royals

Neither of them has managed to attract the affection of the English people that was enjoyed by Queen Elizabeth.  The late Queen and her husband Philip, a Greek immigrant prince, wore the uniform of the British Army and Royal Navy in World War 2. 
 
They were restrained and self-controlled, nicknamed “Brenda and Brian” by England’s upper-classes and aristocracy.  They were worlds away from the self-indulgence and open adultery of their two sons Charles and Andrew.
 
Greedy, unfaithful, self-indulgent

Now the British Royal family has lost all its glory and mystery as it is revealed to be greedy, unfaithful and self-indulgent. Andrew’s fall constitutes a major crisis for the British establishment.

It is of no help that the UK as a nation has become visibly poorer in economic terms and weaker as a global player.

British politicians of all hues are staying away from the Andrew scandal. There are no votes in seeking to make excuses or cover up for the lazy venality of the royals and in Andrew’s case close association with the world’s no. 1 pedophile pimp.

The BBC: Complicit? Or just out of sorts

The BBC has refused to cover many details of the Andrew affair or the King’s treatment of Diana or his indifference to his mixed race grandchildren exiled in America.

But not even the defensive shield the BBC always throws around its reporting of the British Royals can stop them being hit very hard.

Daily reports from the U.S. with calls by Epstein’s victims that Andrew Mountbatten Windsor must go to Washington to testify in full about his long relationship with Epstein and who he knew to be in Epstein’s intimate network 20 years ago will not go away.

The Epstein network, beyond top U.S. politicians of all parties as well as the financial and business elites who availed themselves of the services Epstein provided, of course also includes Donald Trump.

That connection alone makes the BBC’s TV presenters hyper-nervous. They appear instinctively cued to jump to Trump’s and the royals’ defense at any moment. That is a strange attitude for a major global news operation.

Next to no support in Parliament

For the first time in British history, there is no Royal party in Westminster. That does not mean Britain is becoming a republic, but Europe has seen the abolition of the Greek monarchy.

There is also the case of King Juan Carlos of Spain. He was forced to retire into exile in a Gulf state in order to let his son become King because Spaniards could no longer take his money-grabbing, sexual hypocrisy and the assumption that he did not have to live by the rules and norms of republican Spain.

What”s next for Charles and Andrew?

King Charles will be 80 in two year’s time. No one would be bothered if he decided to retire.

As for his brother, Andrew, assuming he does stay out of prison, he can always find a villa in the Gulf where royals still matter. Or perhaps he can see out his days in a far-away tiny ocean island.