Prince Andrew once told me that he wished he could be a plumber and fix things. At the time, I felt sorry for him.
Since his departure from the navy, he had performed a nebulous role as a "full-time working royal", a bit of ribbon-cutting here, a spot of patronising there and a position created to give him the appearance of utility, as Britain's special representative for trade and investment.
In 2004, I travelled with him to China as he gladhanded and guffawed his way across the country.
The Duke of York pushed all manner of British products, from petrochemicals to pig semen. His royal status opened doors. Yet he was clearly out of his depth, unfiltered, like his father, and perplexed by a world that failed to operate to the same laws as Planet Windsor. "People say to me, ‘Would you like to swap your life with me for 24 hours? Your life must be very strange’," he said to me two years later. "But of course I have not experienced any other life."
This strangeness helps to explain his woefully misconceived interview with Emily Maitlis. He imagined that, like the plumber he yearned to be, he could fix things, for himself and his family.
Instead, he took a wrench to the delicate pipework that sustains the monarchy, an institution that owes its survival to the infrequency with which its subjects question its value or right to exist. It had borne his misdemeanours, but this infraction it could not brook and accepted — or forced — his retirement from public duties.
That may be little comfort to the girls and women trafficked and abused by the convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, who saw the prince use the BBC's global platform to deny culpability instead of acknowledging their suffering or, in one breathtaking answer, their humanity. How could he have failed to notice their presence? Maitlis asked. He replied: "I live in an institution at Buckingham Palace which has members of staff walking around all the time and I don't wish to appear grand but there were a lot of people who were walking around Jeffrey Epstein's house."
He could not, he said, recall Virginia Roberts.
The backlash has plunged the monarchy into its most profound crisis since the abdication just as it appeared at the apex of its popularity, puffed and glamorised by The Crown and refreshing its brand through Meghan Markle.
Yet the interview would never have taken place if not for behind-the-scenes turbulences. Planet Windsor is losing the leadership that united its warring clans. The Queen, at 93, has relaxed her grip. Her heirs are shaped by the same mixture of indulgence and deprivation — of purpose and real-world connection — that explains but can never excuse Prince Andrew's behaviour.
The coming transition to a new monarch would always have offered an opportunity for republicans to make the case for a new settlement. That discussion now looks likely to unfold in a kingdom united only by the impulse to disunity.
We have urgent work to do to strengthen Westminster to cope with these challenges. Even in calmer times, politicians flailed when it came to constitutional reform, fudging the overhaul of the House of Lords and defending a voting system that in disadvantaging women and minorities lets down the entire population. We find ourselves in a period of convulsive change in part because the interlocking institutions of state — the crown and the executive and legislative branches — have for so long resisted managed change, reflexively protecting themselves and their own.
When #MeToo came to Parliament, 15 MPs faced allegations of sexual misconduct. Not one stood down at the time; their parties were inconsistent in their responses and feeble in their efforts to investigate. Since the Women's Equality party announced that it would field candidates — all women who have experienced rape or domestic abuse — against five MPs facing unresolved allegations, four of those MPs decided not to contest their seats.
There are obvious steps to improving Westminster and most other workplaces, not least in tackling their underlying inequalities. It's harder to propose a solution for an institution whose central proposition is inequality.
Prince Andrew's fate illuminates this. He lost his trade envoy gig in 2011 after an investigation exposed his ties to Epstein. His ex-wife, Sarah Ferguson, had taken money from Epstein to pay her debts. The prince had stayed with Epstein after his release from jail. The palace simply redeployed Andrew to front Pitch@Palace, notionally founded to "accelerate the work of entrepreneurs", specifically as a berth for a problematic prince. I would not be surprised if he were to take up residence in a country with its own royals and a less inquisitive media.
The last time I saw him was at a 2014 book party for Hillary Clinton. He said: "I'm doing what you do; I've become an investigative journalist." I was too busy trying not to laugh to ask what he meant.
I now wonder if he might have been attempting oppositional research into Epstein's accusers rather than merely continuing his fruitless search for a suitable occupation.
Only one role befits him now: helping the authorities with their inquiries and Epstein's victims to get justice. — Guardian News
- Catherine Mayer is the author of Charles: The Heart of a King and co-founder of the Women's Equality party.
