What if he hangs himself tomorrow? Might it now seem a shorter fall than his calamitous fall from grace?
Mercy cashes in for clicks, views, and mob opinion, into an ever-wilder frenzy of populist condemnation. The minor issue that he has not (yet) been found guilty of any wrongdoing is, at best, reduced to the small print no one reads —the sort that explains that your home is at risk at the end of a loan advert.
An irrelevance but must have, to not spoil the thrust of the narrative – that he is a monochrome of evil to be hated, deserving to lose everything beyond what is already lost – his status, dignity and remnants of respect.
Should his life be cut to death, what next will this oxygenated fiery rage consume to avoid being extinguished? Most likely, his death will trigger a narrative shift to desecrating the Royal Family for being an anomaly in this modern age, blaming their elevated status for disguising the fact that they are fallible individuals who are easy prey to the world’s Epsteins.
There will be a rallying call for a republic. The mob will turn any sympathy for Andrew’s fate into more fuel for the flame. How much did King Charles know? Who knows, but like any wildfire, it will move on to fuel its flames.
Opinion now flames so fast it becomes its own judge, jury and executioner.
I preferred Jon Sopel as a BBC journalist. I am not sure who he now believes himself to be.
Opinion now flames so fast it becomes its own judge, jury and executioner.
Have we not learned from the cases of Michael Barrymore, Tulisa Contostavlos, or indeed 900 postmasters who were wrongly convicted?
Prince Andrew is at least authentic
Prince Andrew is at least authentic. I am no apologist, but I sense he might be a rather authentic upper-class, arrogant buffoon. How many of us would be just the same, given his extraordinary lifelong royal conditioning? Compounded, as it was, by the military’s own conditioning, further isolating him from the realities of humanity most of us experience.
To me, his slightly hapless naivety typifies those I have known who once served in the military. The military builds deep mutual trust—your life can depend on the person next to you. I have seen that they find civilian life, especially in business or bureaucracy, challenging because people take them at their word and expect integrity by default. They get burned.
They met several times and joked about condoms
I gained a sense of Prince Andrew’s character some years ago when I secured a client ‘The Queen’s Award for Innovation’. They met several times and joked about condoms, for my (now late) client was a manufacturer of rubber level crossing systems. Peter was a cheeky sort and was thrilled to be awarded this, but more so for Andrew simply remembering him for ‘being into rubber’ and being so playful. He touched him.
As a patron of a charitable client of ours, I must add that I have only received positive feedback about his daughter, HRH Princess Beatrice. For all his faults, I am confident she can be a loving daughter, as he must be a proud father.
Now, Prince Andrew, a once-protected Royal, is being twice and thrice burned. But let’s not forget that social media outrage is often owned and driven by those who feel otherwise powerless and so seek to forsake their own moral virtue for the savage criticism of others.
Each click, each share, each gleeful comment is another small cut — not only to his flesh but to our collective humanity. The digital mob rarely stops to look in the mirror, because the reflection might show the very thing it hates: the capacity for cruelty disguised as virtue.
Prince Andrew is at least authentic.
If AI spares us anything, it has to be empathy. If human empathy and its quest for proper justice do not survive the algorithm, we are doomed.
Isn’t justice founded in due process rather than a lynch mob?
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©˙Matthew Rymer
All writing and ideas are my own.
AI tools are limited to formatting and proofing.