I have deliberately stopped writing about politics and news, because it is too depressing, but I wanted to say a few words about the interview with Prince Andrew on BBC last Saturday.
Andrew is the Queen’s second son and third child, and has been involved with convicted and now dead financier Jeffrey Epstein. The interview was to clear the air about the various sexual and other allegations against the partying prince, set the record straight etc I assume.
But this article from GQ magazine says virtually all of it in a much better way than I possibly could, and I commend it for your attention.
There are, however, a couple of other things I would say.
Saying he could not remember something, as he did several times, is no proof that it did not happen. To me, one possible reason for not remembering something is that it happened so often that the event did not stand out, it was run-of-the-mill. Andrew himself said exactly that. Asked, why did he remember going to Pizza Express in Woking, he replied that it was “a very unusual thing for me to do” that he remembered. But sex with someone was not?
He also did the classic thing. Asked several times about events at the nightclub Tramp he kept calling it “Tramps”. It’s the old ‘look I am so innocent I can’t even get the name right’.
It was interesting that Andrew said he hadn’t bought anyone a drink at Tramps (sic). That tells you something about their lifestyle. I really don’t imagine any royal treats normal people to things. In fact, don’t the royals famously not carry cash? At a club or wherever, faced with the prospect of buying even a minor royal a drink for a bit of toyal attention, I am sure many would jump at the chance.
People were quick to praise Emily Maitliss for her questioning. But she just had a list of questions and was clearly ticking them off as she went. I did wonder if Andrew and his team had seen them before hand and had worked out answers. If so, that makes the car crash nature of the whole event even worse. Even if they hadn’t, the questions would have mostly been predictable…