Former Prince Andrew has just been arrested in Norfolk

Some posters should stop pretending that A’s mother was just like all other mothers. She was head of state first and foremost and if she couldn’t hack that, she should have abdicated . She also had huge personnel resources and access to information about what A was up to. She protected and enabled him and bankrolled him. She was a poor mother and a poor head of state. What exactly is her legacy? This current shitshow?

Yes, Andrew had a longstanding friendship with Ghislaine before that, he had apparently kept in touch with her since the early eighties.

Casdon

Yes, Andrew had a longstanding friendship with Ghislaine before that, he had apparently kept in touch with her since the early eighties.

The more people try and excuse A’s behaviour for whatever reason , the more they weaken the argument for a hereditary family from whom the head of state emerges. Had Charles died, A would have been next in line.

I’m just stating the facts, not excusing anything.

Casdon

I’m just stating the facts, not excusing anything.

So how is GM relevant or SF to understanding A’s behaviour?

I was responding to 25Avalon’s suggestion that the introduction of Epstein was through Sarah Ferguson. I don’t need to justify my response, given I was only providing factual information.

Tuliptree The point I was making is that the RF have not behaved any differently than usually happens when a group/family/ institution has a member in it who is a liability and/or a very useful member. Think of the BBC and Jimmy Savill,

I had reason to follow Robert Maxwell#s career from early on and even though ordinary people who came across him recognised him as crook and a cheat. governments, ministers, business people continually turned a blind eye to everything he did that was crooked until the last denoument, when he died and the hankerchieves fell from around everyone's eyes.

It is no different with AMW, his family wanted to contain him but at the same time not admit to just what a liability he was.

Have you no experience of families with uncontrollable adult children. First the family try to stop the deviant behaviour by tying to hold the person close and make them feel included and then when that doesn't work, you distance yourself but try and hide the dissident behaviour because you are ashamed with it, finally people do not want to admit that things are as bad as they are. I have dealt with families like this . The RF are humans like us and react as we do. They have reacted just like other people when dealing with AMW.

Monica but they are not any family are they? That’s the whole issue of the nonsense of a hereditary family from whom the head of states comes. . They claim this nonsensical unjustifiable privilege and then at the same time bleat about being a mother/ son etc. They don’t just have ridiculous unearned privileges but are exempt from various laws and taxes that the rest of us are subject to. They really want it every which way. I don’t care about the fact that there are other dysfunctional wealthy families like the Maxwells - none of them are heads of state surrounded with mystique and deference. The RF are not like us. Everything they experience they experience differently through the prism of being royal and that includes how they’ve been able to protect and shield A from facing upto his responsibilities and hide the truth from us . If they were a private family, I’d expect this, but they are not. They disgust me

The Royal family are comprised of human beings. Anyone who thinks they are not entitled to the same level of concern, care and privacy as any other human on this planet has me very concerned. In their official duties they are subject to criticism for not carrying those out as expected, but in their private lives surely they're no different to any of us? Those that would impose stricter rules in those circumstances are either hypocrites or ignoramuses, choose your category.

You are fortunate, Tuliptree, that your life, public and private, is not open to the scrutiny presently directed at the royal family. The whole family is being held accountable for Andrew's behaviour, way beyond their control, as though he were a recalcitrant teenager, when incidentally he was serving his country, instead of a wayward middle-aged man.

Action has been taken but certain elements are attempting to turn these shameful events into a witch hunt from which no-one emerges with credit.

Well said Eazybee
The RF have wealth and privilege but with that comes responsibility and a distinct lack of privacy as well.I wouldn’t want their lives I know that much.

Elegran

Sons do not always tell their mothers every detail of their private life, particularly if is disreputable or illegal. Not even when they are in trouble and need financial help from mother to pay gambling debts or blackmail demands.

My late mother in law didn’t know her favoured son had two families.

It rarely ends well, when there is a golden favoured child in a family.

"Serving his country" and serving himself.

How could the family not know what he was doing? They are not like us, slipping out the back door. Everywhere he went he had security. They knew alright.

Security for Andrew had to escort many Mrs Windsors being escorted in to Buckingham Palace or so it’s reported. If security didn’t have the names of this stream of visitors, neither did the rest of the RF.

ronib

Security for Andrew had to escort many Mrs Windsors being escorted in to Buckingham Palace or so it’s reported. If security didn’t have the names of this stream of visitors, neither did the rest of the RF.

But nobody wondered why he was "involved with" a steady stream of visitors? really?

Not my brother’s keeper? If Andrew was in need of certain services, his brothers and sister will hardly monitor him.
It’s not for a security team to bar the number of people turning up, of their own will. Why a register of visitors wasn’t used was a security breach but the RF must have felt comfortable with this arrangement.

The Parliamentary cross party business and trade body will begin its own investigation into AMW , as it is claimed that he pushed for more involvement in our overseas' trade negotiations.

Guardian online just now

Individual members of the RF are entitled to some privacy. AMW lived at Buck House at the time and having a stream of sexual partners, assuming all are of age and there willingly, is not a crime.

His preference for a stream of women rather than one may be a deplorable deed in the eyes of some people but he is no different to many men in this country from the poorest to the richest.

In fact AMW's antics with women, apart from the possibility that one or two may have been under age in one jurisdiction or another are the least of AMW'S 'sins.

His real crime is the one he was arrested and uestioned about yesterday - that he sold national secrets - which is what that privileged commercial iformation he had was - to a foreign power. In this case to an American who was in a position to us it to the UK'sdisadvantage. If that is not treason I do not know what is. I beleive that is the one crime you can still be executed for.

His more 'provable' crime is the one he is currently charged with.
There may be more 'real' crimes hidden in the murky maze of the Epstein Files.

I agree MOnica with your 'Treason' label.

M0nica, Britain signed the agreement with the ECHR, so no longer do we have the death penalty for any crime.

Not sure of timelines ronib, but it has been said that Epstein and Maxwell visited the Palace while the Queen was elsewhere.
If that is so, why would he have to 'sneak' them in. What was he aware of, even then?
I know, an unanswerable question, but throwing it into the mix.

ronib

Not my brother’s keeper? If Andrew was in need of certain services, his brothers and sister will hardly monitor him.
It’s not for a security team to bar the number of people turning up, of their own will. Why a register of visitors wasn’t used was a security breach but the RF must have felt comfortable with this arrangement.

In need of certain services, utterly stomach turning really.

He didn't need multiple partners, he wanted this. His family turned away.

They should have had some back bone and decency and reminded him , his brother is the head of the Church.