Palace is Repeating Mistakes with Beatrice and Eugenie
Confused briefing belies a playbook that holds the public in contempt.
News that the York sisters are to miss tomorrow’s Easter service shows that the Royal Family seem to be repeating their mistakes with Andrew when it comes to Beatrice and Eugenie.
If they have done nothing wrong, then surely there is no need for negative briefing and the symbolic cold shoulder. However, if the whispers surrounding their business dealings and finances, many of which I heard while researching Entitled, have any substance, then the Palace reaction should extend further than whether the princesses are allowed to go to church with the family or indeed Royal Ascot.
Yet again, the Royals seem to believe that royal exile is an alternative to real-world legal consequences, and that this should be the end of the matter rather than the start of an investigation into what the Princesses have been up to. This playbook has worked in the past, so why shouldn’t it now?
There should have been a powerful institutional response to Virginia Giuffre’s allegations of sex trafficking in 2011 and to the financial fraud allegations surrounding the 2022 Selman Turk case. Yet there was no response, and of course no investigation by the police, HMRC, the NCA or the Palace.
Tom Sykes has pointed out that the Easter ban shows the waning power of the King in the face of an increasingly dominant William. This may well be the case, but if it is, then isn’t he repeating the mistakes of his father and grandmother?
If you have HRH before your name, it should carry with it a duty of integrity, and if evidence emerges that that royal status has been abused for financial gain, then appropriate action should follow.
And why the mixed signals of recent weeks? They’re banned from Royal Ascot, they’re banned from Easter, then suddenly they are now coming to Ascot. The contempt implicit in the notion that any of this matters to a public fed up with royal impunity just shows how little has changed, despite the biggest royal scandal since the abdication.
Have the King’s or Prince William’s advisers asked whether the York sisters ever received any money from Andrew’s Epstein point man, David Stern? Have they asked why they received such extravagant gifts of jewellery and cash from individuals they claim not to know? If such questions have not been asked, then clearly Beatrice and Eugenie, much like their parents, will believe that there are no consequences for their actions.
It was interesting watching Norman Baker talking about his book on royal finances, it's difficult to take in the level of obscene wealth that the Royal Family have been given through the decades/centuries, with no form of audit or accounting. Why isn't there an annual report of their finances, like any other public or private company? We provide them with their wealth through paying our taxes, so we're entitled to know their finances.
It boggles the mind that William wanted to audit the York sister's finances and they said no and that's the end of it. It certainly appears that the sisters have something to hide. None of this bodes well for the British Royal Family in my opinion.