Time to ditch toxic prince
THE Queen has approved a teenage student’s “simple but ingenious” logo as the emblem for next year’s Platinum Jubilee celebrations.
Her Coronation Crown is drawn using one continuous line, representing Elizabeth II’S unbroken service to the nation.
But there are many twists and turns on its course. And as the widowed monarch battles through a terrible year she must be praying 2022 unfolds much more happily.
The entire nation wishes it for her, too. But her favourite son and grandson are threatening to turn her 70th year on the throne into another annus horribilis.
Prince Harry’s imminent tell-all memoir looks set to trash her family and attack the institution she has upheld for seven decades. But it’s the stupidity and arrogance of the Duke of York which could unravel everything.
His ill-judged relationship with convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein and the car-crash “explanatory” interview on Newsnight forced him out of public life.
Yet Andrew, who denies any wrong-doing, thought the whole nasty business would eventually go away and then he could waltz back into the Firm.
Just look at the way he popped up after Prince Philip’s death, getting himself in front of the cameras again by eulogising “the grandfather of the nation”.
But this spoiled, entitled egotist underestimated the resolve of a woman who wants her day in court. So now Virginia Roberts Giuffre – whom he denies ever meeting – has lodged a civil lawsuit in New York accusing him of “rape in the first degree” and sexual abuse.
This has led the Met Police to review the claims as Commissioner Dame Cressida Dick says: “No one is above the law.” Meanwhile, Andrew and his ex-wife Fergie are on holiday with the Queen at Balmoral. And, as I write this, the Duke has made absolutely no comment.
He obviously shouldn’t do it in person because he’ll just dig himself a deeper hole.
But what the hell are his legal team doing?
If Andrew has nothing to hide his lawyers should be hitting back at the dreadful allegations that are blackening his name and threatening to drag the monarchy through the mire. Princes Charles and William both fear this sordid affair will tarnish the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee.
And palace insiders think it will drag on for years, weakening the Crown in the last years of her reign. Andrew has become a dead weight on that long, unbroken strand, so it’s time to cut all ties.
He must be stripped of all his military titles and abandon any hope of ever returning to the Firm. This must be the end of the line for Andrew.