Prince Andrew – The Right Royal Lizard Tale

Kit Knightly

The Queen is cancelling Prince Andrews birthday party. It’s big news. Oh, and some charities are declining to work with him.

This is all off the back of his (allegedly) voluntary, stilted and frankly bizarre Newsnight interview with Emily Maitlis. The collection of jarring statements, fairly obvious evasions and upper-class waffle has been autopsied to death. We don’t need to go over it again.

In fact, mocking Prince Andrew has become the pastime du jour. Everyone’s doing it. Isn’t it fun to partake? Make a little dig, really throw something back in the face of the establishment?

Really though, shouldn’t we know better?

The voice of the mainstream can NOT be trusted. It is never more important to remember this than when it is telling you what you want to hear.

Everybody should have learned by now, the media – and most especially the BBC – don’t have ANY duty to the truth. They can’t be forced to report something just because it’s true. They actively and willfully ignore true things all the time.

A few years ago 50,000 people marched past television centre, and the BBC simply ignored them all.

When the powers who control mainstream media don’t want to talk about something, it. Doesn’t. Get. Talked. About.

The corollary of this is that when the mainstream media is talking about something it’s for one reason and one reason only – they want to talk about, because somewhere, somehow an agenda is being served.

What’s the agenda being served here? It’s impossible to know for sure at this stage, but it’s certainly true that while we’re talking about Prince Andrew having sex with a 17-year-old, we’re not talking about REAL paedolphilia.

We’re not talking about orphanages on Jersey or trafficking in Belgium, or Jimmy Savile. And we’re not talking about any of the names in Epstein’s “little black book”.

I’m not minimising or apologising for Prince Andrew’s alleged conduct, but let us recall the age of consent in the UK (and many American States) is 16. Significantly, he’s not being accused of doing anything actually illegal.

Do we really think this is that all the Epstein case boils down to? Is this as dark as the underbelly of the political elite gets?

It is sleazy, it is unseemly, and it is highly unpleasant. But it’s NOT a crime, and it’s certainly not a source of powerful political leverage. Nobody is being blackmailed into line based on this.

You don’t need to fly people to private Islands in the Caribbean to have sex with 17-year-olds. You don’t need to “traffic” legal teenagers in order to find girls willing to have sex with billionaires or royalty.

Clearly there must be something more to Epstein, his goals and his agenda, but none of that is being talked about.

While Andrew is being pilloried, and the BBC is getting plaudits for “hard-hitting” journalism, there are proven cases of institutional paedophilia that are far deeper and darker than anything being discussed by the BBC.

While we’re all laughing at Andrew, we’re forgetting that Prince Charles never gave, and was never asked to give, an interview explaining his “friendship” with Jimmy Savile.

While we’re huffing and puffing over “Royal conduct” and sex with girls of legal age, we’re not talking about the fact there are sitting MPs who were once “affiliated” with groups that campaigned to have the age of consent lowered to 10. We’re forgetting that accusations of REAL paedophilia circulate around many high-profile MPs (usually only after they die).

And, of course, lost in all the fuss about Andrew is the fact Jeffrey Epstein is dead.

It may have been memed into a meaningless catchphrase, but it’s still true – Epstein didn’t kill himself. Not alone, anyway.

Broadly speaking one of only three things can have happened:

He called in some favours and faked his death.
He was allowed/encouraged to commit suicide.
He was outright murdered.

Which of these took place we may never know, but it doesn’t really matter. He’s gone. And wherever or however he’s gone, he didn’t do it alone.

Someone – or a collection of someone’s – helped him on his way, either literally or euphemistically.

Why?

Why is always the most important question, you can tell that because it’s always the one media ignore. We’re never encouraged to wonder why anything happens, to think through motive, risk-reward calculations or basic strategy.

These are the big questions, going unanswered while we all partake of Prince Andrew free-for-all.

The fool of the family used to go into the Army or the Church, but now he’s dressed in motley and thrust in front of the TV cameras to gambol and pratfall to the laughs and jeers of the common man. The individual is sacrificed, but the institution is preserved.

I’ve used the autotomy of lizard tails as a metaphor before, and while it may display a lack of imagination to revisit that particular well, there’s no denying it fits well enough.

Of course there’s a temptation to go after Prince Andrew, he likely deserves it, but if we throw everything behind that, we’re in danger of losing the bigger picture. Like a dog being distracted with a string of sausages.

There’s something much bigger than Prince Andrew at the heart of all this, but we won’t find it if we content ourselves with feasting on the morsels the press are happy to feed us.