Members of the British royal family, as part of the pomp and pageantry that is carried to absurd levels, have all manner of titles and roles in organizations. Apparently these are issued at the sole discretion of the Queen and she can take them back if she wants to. And today, she did just that with her second son Andrew, as his plight arising from his relationship with pedophile Jeffrey Epstein gets increasingly dire.
The Duke of York’s military titles and royal patronages have been returned to the Queen, Buckingham Palace has announced.
Prince Andrew will also stop using the style His Royal Highness in an official capacity, a royal source added.
The duke’s roles will be distributed among members of the Royal Family.
…Buckingham Palace said in a statement: “With the Queen’s approval and agreement, the Duke of York’s military affiliations and Royal patronages have been returned to the Queen.
“The Duke of York will continue not to undertake any public duties and is defending this case as a private citizen.”
This has to come as a big blow to Andrew. He had long been reported to be the Queen’s favorite child and so this move suggests that the royal family, that seeks above all to maintain its image, wealth, and all the privileges it has amassed, sees him as a threat to all that. He is clearly being seen as ‘damaging their brand’, as the kids say these days.
I just love this passive sentence. There is no acting agent. 😀
When will the Brits finally become sick enough of this whole taxpayer-funded soap opera (i.e., the royals) and pull the plug?
@moarscienceplz(#2):
That is the same as asking when will the people of the USA stop worshiping their countries flag.
And that is ignoring that the royal house is a valuable asset for international diplomacy. Sending in any high level politician will get the gossip mill going for the real reason. Contrary to that a member of the royal family (in good standing) is a truly neutral ambassador.
Finally there is a surprising amount of money being made from anything from tourism to paraphernalia that the taxes defray a lot of the money spent on the royals.
To be fair there isn’t any point in pageantry that hasn’t been taken to absurd levels. Pageantry is, by its very nature, absurd, and if you’re going to do it there’s nothing more pathetic than not going all in.
Spare a thought for the compilers of Debrett’s Correct Form… It was one thing figuring out the forms of address and order of precedence for the daughter of a Viscount, divorced from a Knight of the Order of Bath, and now remarried to the younger son of a Baron, but this raises a whole slew of new issues… What on earth do you write on the envelope of a formal letter to him now? They’re going to have to write a whole new section at the very least.
Mr Andrew Glücksburg.
Colbert: “the Andrew formerly known as Prince”
I think the removal was inevitable given that it was requested/demanded by an open letter from 150 veterans ashamed to be associated with him. Their words were too powerful to ignore or brush off. As for whether it’ll be a blow to Andy -- I doubt it. I doubt he cares. Consider: his “defence” in the most recent case was that Giuffre couldn’t sue him because she’d promised (and been paid) not to sue any other rapists apart from Epstein. His lawyers would dispute it, but to anyone with half a brain that defence seems tantamount to saying “yeah, I did her, but she’s already been paid once!”.
On another note: elsewhere it’s been brought up that “he’s not technically a paedophile, he’s actually an ephebophile, because his victim(s?), while under the United States/ (but perhaps significantly not the UK’s) legal age of consent, were biologically adults”. Which is true. But as has also been said, and it’s an excellent point I’ve not thought of before but will definitely think of again, “paedophile” is a propaganda term promoted in the 1970s by child-rapists who were trying to hitch their wagon to the cause of gay rights, and get the age of consent abolished entirely. The main thing they achieved was to falsely associate, in the doltish mind of the public, gays generally with child-rapists in particular, an association that has stubbornly refused to go away in the decades since.
So don’t mess about debating whether he’s a “paedo” or “ephebo” -- it’s more accurate and less offensive to just say he statutory-raped a young woman -- a trafficked, coerced young woman. Isn’t that enough?
This is very much like the old “Islamophobia isn’t racism because Islam isn’t a race” canard… Well, I’m sorry if I’m aruably not using precisely the correct technical term for your problem, but it’s hardly an effective defense, is it?