The Queen told visitors this week: ‘As you can see, I can’t move.’ Well, Ma’am, that is so very true in so very many different ways.
What with scandals snowballing and humiliations piling up around her like winter slush, Her Majesty barely has room to manoeuvre betwixt her beleaguered sons and their headline-hitting problems.
God save the Queen indeed — from her own family.
Receiving guests at Windsor this week, our 95-year-old monarch leaned on a stick for support and looked frailer than we have ever seen her before. Even the pleats on her dress seemed to have an air of wilt.
Yet one had to admire her resilience, insisting on standing up to greet the assorted top brass who had come a-calling. Indeed, she seemed so cheerful it was almost worrying.
As scandal continues to buffet the Palace, a black squall rolling in, with Storm Andrew closely followed by Storm Charles (although, to be fair, the focus is on his ex-aide Michael Fawcett and not HRH), it all must be taking a toll.
As scandal continues to buffet the Palace, a black squall rolling in, with Storm Andrew closely followed by Storm Charles
However HM seemed determined to be seen, at least, as buoyant. The very fact the photographs were released sent out a clear message: I am still here. The Platinum Jubilee is still on. Onwards and upwards.
But where does the monarchy go from here? As scandals explode around the Windsors like long-buried ordnance finally igniting, Andrew and Charles must be realising that the age of deference is well and truly over.
No longer can these pampered princes move with impunity through life, behaving as they wish, breaking the rules behind the castle ramparts, taking no responsibility for their actions.
That upstairs/downstairs world has gone for ever; now they are as accountable as any butler or footman or chancer or crook when it comes to allegations of sexual abuse or of a potential cash for honours disgrace.
The long arm of the law can and will reach out to tap their shoulder should it be deemed necessary, despite the ermine epaulette.
What next? Andrew will remain in disgrace until death, while even Charles might have to shuffle off into exile if things turn torrid, never to be crowned king.
This would leave the ascension route clear for King William which, according to my postbag, is what many people would prefer anyway.
As scandals explode around the Windsors like long-buried ordnance finally igniting, Andrew and Charles must be realising that the age of deference is well and truly over
In the meantime, we all love the Queen, but does she have to bear some responsibility for her children’s embarrassing, awful behaviour? As we cruise into another annus horribilis, all eyes naturally swivel towards the head of the clan and questions must be asked. Chiefly, is there more she could have done, as a monarch and a mother, to keep the gang on the straight and narrow?
The Queen has always led by the example of her own unassailable integrity. Can it be her fault if her children and grandchildren did not always follow suit?
The Windsors, after all, are quite possibly the most dysfunctional family on the planet. They make the Osbournes look like the Waltons, and there must have been many times when matters of state meant she was missing in action on the home front.
Yet there comes a point in every adult’s life when you have to stop blaming your parents and take responsibility for yourself. Prince Harry has yet to reach that point.
Meanwhile, Princes Charles and Andrew seem permanently blighted by a sense of entitlement, one that has long bloomed like bacteria in their royal bubble of privilege.
In contrast, Princess Anne and Prince Edward just get on with things, without fuss. Perhaps the Queen can comfort herself with the fact that, to paraphrase Meat Loaf, two out of four ain’t bad.
The Queen has always led by the example of her own unassailable integrity. Can it be her fault if her children and grandchildren did not always follow suit?
Really, what more could HM have done? She is about to celebrate a jubilee that commemorates 70 years of service — an incredible achievement. Most of us have never known a time when she was not our Head of State. But instead of an unclouded jamboree unfolding over the coming months, there is the stink of Andrew’s multi-million pound pay-off and now a police investigation linked to Charles’s charities. No mother deserves this.
Certainly, there is precious little she could have done to curb her sons’ mutual covetousness of money, which is what really lies at the heart of both situations.
Each prince positioned himself close to the bonfire of wealth, hoping to feel some comforting heat for themselves via the largesse of their billionaire friends, respectively Jeffrey Epstein and Mahfouz Marei Mubarak bin Mahfouz. It is that cupidity and weakness that have led us to this sorry juncture.
After a lifetime serving the nation impeccably, the Queen merits so much more than this — the fallout from the questionable behaviour of her sons.
But in the wee small hours, surely she would not be human if she did not ask herself: Could I have done more?
And please keep Harry out of it!
In the cash for honours case, Prince Harry might be interviewed by police over his ‘concerns’ about the Saudi billionaire. Dear God, no. Haven’t we suffered enough? The last thing we need is know-nothing Harry clipping on his spurs of piety, climbing up onto his high horse, sitting pretty in the saviour saddle while he rides around Told You So Gulch lecturing his father about the company he keeps. Harry should be more concerned about who he is doing business with in the U.S.
What the Adele is going on with you?
I’d hate to have been the person charged with supervising Adele on her trip to London last week. Just get her to the Graham Norton show; get her to lay it on thick about being a London gel; get her to flash her ‘engagement’ ring and get her to drop the line about wanting ‘another baby’ — that should distract attention. And then get her back home, job done.
Instead, 2am found our Adele poledancing at Heaven nightclub under Charing Cross station, stripping down to her black bra top on stage, then sobbing in a car afterwards because she had been recognised.
Yet despite the chat show appearance and the Brit Awards performance, I am still waiting to hear a credible reason for the late cancellation of her Las Vegas shows. Some just don’t buy this Covid and delivery delays stuff.
We don’t know what Adele is going though, and let’s hope it’s nothing serious, but her fans deserve better than this.
Somehow, the Greggs bakery chain has wormed its way into the hearts and arteries of the nation. They have a marvellous PR department, who have somehow persuaded millions that mass-produced pale meat pastries should be viewed with affection. Now they have launched a clothing range with Primark, consisting of Greggs branded trainers, T-shirts and even sausage roll boxers. TV presenter Eamonn Holmes is not the only one who is perplexed.
‘Why would you want to have this? I can understand certain brand names, Ralph Lauren or whatever, but why would you want to be compared to a sausage roll?’ he asked. Well if anyone knows, it’s him.
Lawsuit is a fat lot of good, Linda
Linda Evangelista has had horrible side-effects from using a fat-busting treatment. The 56-year-old former supermodel says she is ‘permanently deformed’ and ‘brutally disfigured’. For five years she could not bear bumping into people she knew, but now she is ‘done hiding’ and appeared in People magazine this week.
‘I don’t look in the mirror. It doesn’t look like me,’ she said, while revealing that she is suing the company responsible for her disfiguration. No doubt some will say that it is her own fault for being so vain, but that is harsh.
Ageing is hard enough for all of us — it must be a thousand times worse for celebrated beauties. Linda was utterly dazzling, but despite everything she is still beautiful.
Perhaps she would be better served enjoying the years she has left, rather than pouring all her energies and time into a lawsuit. But I fear it’s too late for caution now.
Advantage Williams
‘We’ve never been free . . . all we’ve done is work,’ complain tennis star sisters Serena and Venus Williams.
Join the club, ladies. Millions of us are in it, without the benefit of nice trophies and six-figure cheques to celebrate our continual slog.
I haven’t stopped working since I was 16 years old. And I am far from alone.
Of all the political disenchantments over the past few decades, Nick Clegg’s dreary safari from popular centrist (remember the brief, heady days of Cleggmania?) to Silicon Valley hotshot is one of the most dispiriting.
Is it wrong to feel depressed at news of his promotion at Facebook parent company Meta, from vice president to president of global affairs? Now he is right up there, alongside Mark Zuckerberg and Sheryl Sandberg.
Never mind that some failures just keep falling upwards. What is worse is that once upon a time people went into politics to serve their country, not to tee up a lovely, lucrative job at the end of it all.
Still, David Cameron, sitting in his shepherd’s hut, must be seething with jealousy. There is always that.
I’d be better than lame Dame Cressy
Brrring! I’m still waiting for the call from Priti Patel to confirm my appointment as the new Commissioner of the Met. That’s right, I have no operational police experience, but could I do a worse job than outgoing Dame Cressida Dick? Unlike Commissioner Dick, I don’t have a master’s degree in criminology but that didn’t seem to do her much good either.
Cress might have been able to say with authority that Professor Plum did it with the lead piping in the library, but she drew a blank when it came to real policing.
Among her many crimes? Refusing to fire rogue officers or admit when things went wrong.
I vividly recall how it was seen as a great victory for feminism when she got the job — and it was! A woman who would drag this great, sexist Met institution into the 21st century — but under her rule, things only got worse.
With great positions come great responsibilities.
In the end, she failed to meet those, too.
***
Read more at DailyMail.co.uk