AFTER all those years of denials, rumours and allegations, in the end the fall of Mr Andrew Mountbatten Windsor came with an act of total moral clarity by his brother, the King.
Let there be absolutely no doubt — King Charles III is on the side of the victims of the paedophile billionaire, Jeffrey Epstein.
Charles has placed what is right above the ties of blood.
Just 109 words. The brevity was devastating.
But the King’s statement on Thursday night ensured Andrew’s final fall from grace.
In the end, after all the years of accusation and obfuscation, those 109 words sent Andrew into unequivocal and humiliating exile.
“Their Majesties wish to make clear that their thoughts and sympathies have been, and will remain with, the victims of survivors of any and all forms of abuse,” the statement concluded.
Two weeks after Andrew gave up being the Duke of York plus some titles most of us have never heard of — Earl of Inverness, Baron Killyleagh — he is no longer a prince.
He will no longer live rent free in his 30-room residence, the Royal Lodge in Windsor Great Park.
Andrew continues to deny all the allegations against him. He continues to deny ever meeting Virginia Giuffre — who took her own life earlier this year — after she was trafficked by Epstein as a teenager.
He denies having sex with her three times when she was 17.
He implied to interviewer Emily Maitlis that the famous photograph of Virginia, then 17, and Andrew, then an overweight 41-year-old, was almost certainly fake. Andrew denies everything. But who believes him?
When Fiona Bruce paused the filming of the BBC’s Question Time to announce the breaking news of the King’s statement, the audience — always a mixed bunch on that show — burst into spontaneous applause.
And that is the mood of this nation.
Andrew is a selfish, spoilt sleazeball who was best pals with a rich, twisted creep who saw vulnerable girls as playthings to be tossed aside when his fun was done.
Even as the two most beloved members of the Royal Family — the King and Catherine, Princess of Wales — performed their public duties while fighting cancer, Andrew’s presence left a stain on his family, the monarchy and this country.
Arrogant slob
Good riddance to him. His long and sleazy friendship with Jeffrey Epstein has done real and lasting damage to the monarchy.
Thank God Andrew was not the first-born son.
Thank God this thick, entitled, arrogant slob is so far from the throne — incredibly, Andrew remains eighth in the line of succession, despite his public disgrace and exile — that he will go to his grave before he gets anywhere near it.
Why now?
Twenty-six years after Andrew first met Epstein, why has it taken this long to press the ejector button on this royal waste of space?
The clear distaste that Prince William feels in the presence of his toxic Uncle Andy is another factor.
Tony Parsons
A combination of factors. Charles being heckled about his brother on this week’s visit to Lichfield Cathedral feels certain to have played a part.
The clear distaste that Prince William feels in the presence of his toxic Uncle Andy is another factor.
And the quiet, behind-the-scenes opinions of those two strong women — Queen Camilla and Kate — will have played a part.
But it is the King who has acted.
Charles had the will to say — enough.
And we needed the King to act. Whatever hurt and humiliation Andrew now suffers, it will be nothing compared to what was endured by the countless innocent victims of Jeffrey Epstein.
HARRY’S BORED GAME
DID any human being ever look as bored as Prince Harry at that baseball game in Los Angeles?
The blank, faraway eyes, the slack jaw, the little blue LA Dodgers hat that looks as though it has been placed on his head by an insistent wife . . .
Everything about Harry’s bored, witless expression at the baseball screams: How much longer of this?
Good question, H.
In baseball they keep playing until someone wins. At the end of the ninth innings, if it is a draw, the teams play an extra innings each until one side finally racks up more runs.
Theoretically, a baseball game could go on for ever.
And judging by Harry’s miserable expression – one just did.
ASYLUM MUGS
FUTURE historians will see the story of Hadush Kebatu as evidence that we are the biggest mugs in the world.
The Ethiopian arrived in the UK illegally in a small boat on June 29.
By July 7 he was a resident at Epping’s Bell Hotel and under arrest for sexual assault on a 14-year-old girl.
He was convicted on September 4 of two counts of sexual assault. Kebatu was accidentally released from HMP Chelmsford on October 24.
Two days later he was arrested in Finsbury Park, North London, then he was deported this week – but only after being handed £500 of taxpayers’ cash when he threatened to make a last-minute asylum claim.
No wonder they keep coming.
A STORY OF PRU LOVE
PRUNELLA SCALES, who has died at the age of 93, featured in two great love stories that will live for ever.
Fawlty Towers is impossible to imagine without her as the perfect scowling foil to John Cleese’s gloriously henpecked Basil.
Prunella was brilliant as Sybil Fawlty and, half a century later, she was heartbreaking in the Channel 4 series Great Canal Journeys.
The series was meant to document the love she and her husband Timothy West had for canals. Instead, it became a moving testimony to her battle with dementia.
For five years we learned what it means to fight dementia. We saw the pain of old age and witnessed a marriage that would survive anything – illness, indignity and even death.
Prunella lived a life defined by love. John Cleese remembered talking to her when she was first offered the role of Sybil. “But why did they get married?” Prunella wanted to know.
She saw something that even Cleese had missed. At some point this battleaxe was the love of Basil’s life.
We will remember Prunella as the fictional wife of Basil Fawlty, and the beloved wife of Timothy West. And for those two love stories at either end of a lifetime.
BET ON KILLJOY LABOUR
LABOUR’S war on betting is conclusive proof it has lost all connection to the British working class.
And as rumours swirled about Chancellor Rachel Reeves’ plan to whack up taxes on betting by as much as 138 per cent, my thoughts drifted back to the family of gamblers I grew up in.
Littlewoods pools every week. Greyhound racing – “the dogs” – at Southend.
And my beloved nan, being so keen on the horses that she even had a bookie make house calls. My nan – who favoured legendary jockey Lester Piggott and Australian rider Scobie Breasley – once pulled me to one side to give me some sound advice that I would carry with me like an ace up my sleeve for the rest of my life.
“Never bet on the horse,” hissed my nan in my five-year-old ear. “Bet on the rider.”
And now Labour are going to kill the British betting industry in their Budget from hell.
Don’t the hatchet-faced comrades get it?
Low-stakes, low-cost gambling is a bit of harmless fun for millions of working-class Brits.
But then Labour don’t do fun.
NO TIME SOON FOR A SYDNEY 007
“I’VE always been a huge fan of the franchise,” Sydney Sweeney says coyly of James Bond, doing absolutely nothing to quell rumours that she may feature in the next 007 film, to be produced by Amazon.
But Sydney has no ambition to be the new Pussy Galore. She says: “I think I’d have more fun as James Bond.”
A female Bond? It is not impossible – 007 has already been a woman (Lashana Lynch in 2021’s No Time To Die).
But will it really happen?
My guess . . . there will be a female James Bond around the same time that Daniel Craig takes his ground-breaking role as Catwoman.
DON’T blame it on the sunshine, don’t blame it on the moonlight, don’t blame it on the good times, blame it on the Brexit!
Chancellor Rachel Reeves, left, blames our crumbling economy on Brexit, suggesting Labour still secretly pine to get the UK back together with Brussels. It will never happen as the EU doesn’t like us very much.
Starting from October 12, Brussels began inflicting its new Entry/Exit System (EES), on Brits entering the EU, requiring us to register our fingerprints and facial images. Expect lengthy queues.
But EU passport holders are free to breeze into the UK in the same fast lane as the locals. Because we treat citizens of the European Union as our neighbours. While the EU treats us like illegal aliens.
Since we dared to leave in 2016, the EU has shown us nothing but petty spite. And that is why the UK and EU are never, ever getting back together.
