The King and Queen must have breathed a sigh of relief when they heard. No spectre at the Sandringham feast this year after all! No one to avoid being photographed alongside while walking to church on Christmas Day. Or to dodge when pulling a cracker over dinner.
A sense of shame – or perhaps a few wise, whispered words in his ear from ex-wife Fergie – have persuaded Prince Andrew to stay away from the Christmas gathering of royals.
As the Mail reports today, Charles didn’t feel able to ban his younger brother outright after the ‘Chinese spy’ scandal heaped yet more ignominy on his non-existent reputation. But he and Camilla were hoping the Duke of York would do the ‘right thing’.
In truth, he had little choice. Since news of his ‘close friendship’ with a Chinese businessman and alleged spy, Yang Tengbo (aka Chris Yang), the pressure on Andrew to cancel Christmas altogether has intensified.
And that includes the private lunch that the King will host at Buckingham Palace this week for close and extended family who don’t make the Sandringham cut, plus friends. As I write, the ‘assumption’ is that his brother will be a no-show.
But demands that he should miss this lunch, too, are surely at odds with the spirit of Christmas. To me, it feels like bullying.
What exactly Andrew has done, or how he might have benefited from his association with Mr Yang, is yet to be established.
What we do know is that Mr Yang, who denies all the allegations, had authority to act on the Prince’s behalf when dealing with potential investors in China.
Prince Andrew will be staying away from the rest of the Royal Family this Christmas
The King and Queen alongside Andrew as the family – including William and Kate – attend church on Christmas Day
Andrew certainly has financial challenges. No longer a working royal, he has lost his £1 million ‘living allowance’ from the King after refusing to move out of Royal Lodge in Windsor to a smaller property.
But it seems that there are no end of wealthy people willing to help him out, and perhaps Mr Yang was one of them.
What exactly they get in return, other than invitations to royal events and networking opportunities, is opaque. I doubt Andrew has an inside track on anything nowadays. In terms of privileged information, my guess is that he’d know no more about anything than what you or I wouldn’t have access to via Google.
Nor is he alone in consorting with suspected spies. Former PMs Theresa May and David Cameron had their pictures taken with Mr Yang (both say they had no idea who he was).
Chinese infiltration in Westminster has been an ongoing issue for some years. From junior staffers to MPs, the Chinese Communist Party has successfully deployed cunning methods to cosy up to power – and it’s happy to play a long game.
MI5 is well used to knocking on the door of an unsuspecting MP’s office to inform them that they, or a staff member, have been well and truly had.
In no way am I defending Prince Andrew. He has brought great shame on the Royal Family over many years, most notoriously through his friendship with the late paedophile and sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein.
By all means he should retreat from public appearances. But in a revealing interview at the weekend, his ex-wife, who still shares a home with him, described him as a ‘sad man’. To me, this suggests there may be some degree of repentance for his multivarious failings.
Every family has a black sheep, but many find a way to accommodate them at Christmas. It will be a pity if the royals can’t do the same on Thursday.
Blonde Davina’s an inspiration
Davina McCall as a blonde? Who’d have thought it? And yet the presenter looks stunning in a picture released to promote the return of ITV’s The Masked Singer next month.
The image was taken before her recent brain operation to remove a benign cyst, and I want to pay tribute to the positive attitude Davina’s shown throughout her recent struggles.
She lost her sister, who had two brain tumours, in 2012, and took to the stage last week at a charity event for the Brain Tumour Research Campaign to speak in heartbreaking detail about her sibling and her own experience.
Davina, you’re an inspiration to so many.
Davina McCall looks stunning with blonde hair in a picture released to promote the return of ITV’s The Masked Singer next month
Back Boris and fight, fight, fight
Boris Johnson’s column in yesterday’s Mail is required reading for everyone who voted for Brexit, and who then naively believed every rotten lie uttered by Sir Keir Starmer about how Brexit was safe under Labour.
We now know Brexit isn’t safe – and that Starmer has established a Whitehall ‘Surrender Squad’ of civil servants tasked with undoing Brexit. It’s even bigger than the Department for Exiting the European Union (DExEU) established to make Brexit happen.
We live in a democracy, but this socialist PM is displaying an arrogance which would have made even Tony Blair blush. It is clear that we were conned.
Let’s hope the weather remains mild for the sake of the elderly who didn’t vote to have their winter fuel payments removed.
Just as farmers didn’t vote to lose the family business due to punishing inheritance taxes. Or the bosses of businesses big and small who didn’t vote to sack staff because they can’t afford the hike in national insurance. I could go on…
We must heed the words of Boris, who is the only Tory providing leadership on this issue. His message is ‘fight, fight and fight again’ for the freedoms we voted for in 2016.
The first opportunity we have to show Labour what we think of their abysmal performance as a Government, their smoke and mirrors and their lies and trickery comes with the local elections in May.
It cannot come fast enough.
The sprouts I’ve always dreamt of…
Festive sprouts are, according to reports, 25 per cent bigger than normal – and I can vouch for it.
Ahead of hosting a pre-Christmas Christmas lunch at the weekend, I bought my first sprout tree, with each protuberance the size of a mini cabbage standing proud of the stalk.
We can thank climate change for that. It was warm when the sprouts were planted, which meant excellent germination; and it was wet while they were growing.
Then the all-important frosty snap arrived, which has given us perfect tight and well-formed Brassica oleracea for Yuletide.
For five years I’ve tried to grow sprouts in my veg patch, with no success – so this year I abandoned the dream. The moral of this story? Never take gardening advice from me. Happy Christmas!
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Read more at DailyMail.co.uk