It comes as no surprise that it is Prince Andrew, the Duke of York, who is in the spotlight again. Cue eye-rolling and shoulder-shrugging.
This time, rather than allegations of sexual misconduct and concern about his friendship with sexual predator, the late Jeffrey Epstein, the Duke of York appears to be up to his neck in a Chinese spying scandal.
Rather like the Epstein case, though, it does seem to be a matter of his friends getting him into trouble. It makes you wonder what might be next, what else he’s got himself entangled in.
Prince Andrew, now fortunately a distant eighth in line for the throne, is a man out of time. Several decades ago, when he was still known by the tabloids and the hoi polloi as "Randy Andy" and "The Party Prince", his behaviour was cheered on by the ignorant and the entitled, particularly the Hooray Henrys of upper-crust English society.
"The past is a foreign country; they do things differently there," said author L P Hartley in his novel The Go-Between.
There could be no more fitting phrase for the duke, who has become an anachronism, an irrelevance, and fallen far out of favour with the royals, his own family.
Time has marched on somewhat since his involvement in the Epstein sex scandal and the subsequent fallout from his disastrously ill-advised appearance on BBC current affairs programme Newsnight in November 2019.
Now, however, he appears to have dragged the royals into a serious incident involving China and spying. That happened through his friendship with a businessman since accused of being a Chinese spy, who was banned from re-entering the United Kingdom in 2023 by then home secretary Suella Braverman after an investigation by MI5.
The fear is that Prince Andrew may unwittingly have been a victim of the United Front Work Department, a Chinese Communist Party intelligence-gathering operation which, according to the British Parliament’s Intelligence and Security Committee (ISC), has targeted many political and strategically useful public
figures.
According to The Guardian, the duke’s only income is a £20,000-a-year Royal Navy pension which makes him vulnerable, author Andrew Lownie says.
Lownie, who is writing a biography about Prince Andrew and ex-wife, Sarah Ferguson, told The Guardian he feared several royals had been "compromised by the Chinese".
The accused spy, known as H6 in court papers which also said he had become "a close confidant" of the Duke of York, apparently attended functions at Buckingham Palace, Windsor Castle and St James’s Palace.
A BBC report said the police and MI5 investigation found highly concerning and unflattering remarks about Prince Andrew on H6’s devices. In one letter found on a device, an adviser to the prince said H6 sat "at the very top of a tree that many, many people would like to be on".
A document outlining "main talking points" for a call with the duke stated: "IMPORTANT: Manage expectations. Really important to not set ‘too high’ expectations — he is in a desperate situation and will grab onto anything."
How humiliating that is, although it sounds quite likely. After all, this is the royal who has been chopped from all official duties, stripped of titles and had his allowances slashed.
The irony is rich indeed that the prince’s office told media he was "unable to comment further on matters relating to national security". They also said he had cut contact with H6 after government advice and that nothing sensitive was ever discussed with the man.
The whole shemozzle is one the Royal Family and King Charles could do without. But somehow it seems unsurprising that the duke is at the centre of it. His involvement in the Pitch@Palace entrepreneurial initiative has always raised eyebrows over just who it is meant to benefit most.
We haven’t heard the last of this one, for sure.
