Sometimes you must carve the mould off the cheese, remove the worm from the heart of the berry, purge the boil, suck the poison, skim the scum – you get the drift.
But what if the black pip in the rotten apple is Prince Andrew – and he refuses to be squeezed out of the barrel?
It would appear that King Charles is trying everything to downgrade his disgraced younger brother and finally boot him out of his Royal Lodge, Windsor, residence. Yet so far, the King has been unable to shuck the fraternal oyster from his luxuriously appointed shell.
Why not? Principally because the Duke of York has no shame – and neither does his ex-wife, best friend and Royal Lodge co-habitué, Freebiana Fergie, the once and always Duchess of York.
This pair of liggers are not moving anywhere without a fight and so the siege of Royal Lodge rolls on. And it is giving the Royal Family – and all of us – a bad name in the process.
It is all so dreary and sordid, just like most family battles over homes and property.
In his latest and most aggressive move to date, Charles is withdrawing funding for his brother’s private security at the Lodge, which puts the Duke in a quandary.
When the arrangement comes to an end in october, Andrew will either have to foot the annual £3million bill for his ten-strong protection unit himself – along with paying for property repairs and upkeep – or leave the grand 30-room mansion in its rolling 98 acres of lush parkland and downsize to a more humble residence in keeping with his reduced status in public life.
Like where, exactly? The Castaway Camp at Windsor Legoland? The Holiday Inn in Slough? Sofa surfing with the friends he doesn’t have, staying with his relatives who don’t seem to like him very much?
Please, nobody mention jail. We are not at that stage yet, but Prince Andrew’s embarrassing rap sheet tells its own story of hubris, stupidity and catastrophic misjudgment, including consorting with a known paedophile, accused of having sex with a 17year-old, not admitting to this but paying her £12 million anyway and then ridiculed in not one but two major TV dramas after his disastrous Newsnight interview.
It is just as well Andrew is incapable of exuding perspiration, else he’d be sweating like a slice of salami on a pizza. Yet, instead of contrition and shame and acceptance, the royal blimp is rattling around the Grade II-listed Lodge, crying into his Sevres teacup and tying himself to the furniture with tasselled curtain cords.
Still, what clearer indication do we need that Charles has utterly lost patience with his discredited brother and would like him to move out, preferably to the more modest Frogmore Cottage on the Crown estate. Famously, this is the residence that was gifted by the late Queen to the Duke and Duchess of Sussex who spent £2.4 million doing it up, then relocating to America before the paint was dry.
However, if Prince Harry’s status and security as a royal had to be downgraded in the intervening years, then surely the same must happen to his errant uncle?
Frogmore Cottage is just over four miles to the north of Royal Lodge, but it is not a journey the Duke of York is willing to make any time soon. He apparently sees it is too much of a ‘demotion’ and is digging in for the long haul – or to see out his lease at least.
This says everything about Prince Andrew, about his entrenched sense of entitlement, about how he sees himself and his superior position in society – which he feels he deserves, the deluded fool.
Any man with a shred of decency and an ounce of morality would accept his fate of diminished status and slide down the property ladder without a murmur of complaint.
Meanwhile, most of us would be utterly delighted to move to Frogmore Cottage – mortgage free, no stamp duty, four bedrooms, no neighbours, lovely garden, can you just imagine? Yet the Yorks cannot see it that way.
They are so used to their privilege giving them a free pass in life that reality passes them by, like a puff of cloud on the distant horizon.
In an interview this week, the Duchess of York said she had no idea what was happening, property-wise. She told a reporter: ‘I don’t know. I take every day as it comes.’ And she takes every house as it comes, too – the bigger the better.
Sometimes I wonder who is best at dragging the Royal Family into the gutter – the Yorks or the Sussexes. It is a close competition. Almost impossible to say, like picking your favourite plague or choosing between high-risk pathogens – ebola or zika fever, what is it to be?
You’ve got your sulking Sussexes, with their perpetual veiled threats of more damaging accusations to come, then your Yorks with their misguided belief that they are still worthy of the nation’s respect and affection.
What a shame sending them all to the Tower is no longer an option. Yet King Charles must take a firm hand with this dread quad of frauds, who are so ghastly in so many different ways, but also so very, very alike in others.
Comments