OPINION:
The saying "you can't choose your family" often pops into my head when I think about Princess Beatrice and Princess Eugenie.
Somehow, despite having a father (Prince Andrew, Duke of York) whose name is linked to a convicted sex offender and a mother (Sarah Ferguson, Duchess of York) who's known for trying to crummily peddle access to said dubious dad for wodges of cash, ol' Bea and Eug have turned out … actually OK.
They have real jobs, lovely husbands and are the only adult grandchildren of the Queen who have managed to by and large avoid parlous headlines. (Well, aside from that hat incident in 2011 but let's move along quietly here. At least the girl was experimenting a tad.)
But no matter the fact the two princesses have followed the rules, played nice and only took 15 holidays in 2015 (really) they, like the rest of the royal family can't escape the very, very long shadow cast by Andrew's friendship with alleged sex trafficker Jeffery Epstein.
Because while the Yorks' cousin Prince Harry and his wife Meghan, Duchess of Sussex's travails might have totally gobbled up the world's attention over the last year and a bit, the very hot, very uncomfortable spotlight is about to swing back on their dear old dad.
Lucky Andrew famously doesn't sweat then.
Buckingham Palace courtiers might have had their hands very full of late trying to work out the time difference with Montecito but that does not mean for a moment the very lumpen, golf-loving shaped problem of the duke has gone anywhere.
It wouldn't be 2021 if I wasn't about to tell you the palace's Andrew problem is about to come roaring back into view – and how.
On July 12, Andrew's former mate Ghislaine Maxwell will stand trial on sex trafficking conspiracy and sex trafficking charges in New York, an event guaranteed to reawaken the Andrew cataclysm. (Last week, Maxwell pleaded not guilty to all the charges.)
So has the 61-year-old spent the last little while piously atoning for his PR sins?
Ha!
Only this week it was reported that Andrew has set up a company with Harry Keogh, a former banker at Coutts, the bank of choice for reigning monarchs and cashed up earls everywhere, who resigned in 2018 after being accused of touching a female colleague inappropriately and boasting about his sexual exploits.
If you think for even a moment that Andrew might have used the time since his swift and totally humiliating fall from grace and public life for a spot of reflection then clearly you have been enjoying whatever cocktail Princess Margaret used to rely on to get her through house parties in rural Wales.
Earlier this month the Daily Mail reported that Andrew had "demanded" he be allowed to wear full military dress for his father Prince Philip's funeral. Ultimately the decision was made that all attendees would wear mourning coats instead.
While it might have been nearly 17 months since the royal gave his now infamous BBC interview, serving up a mish mash of implausible "alibis" to disprove allegations he had sex with Virginia Giuffre, then 17 and an alleged sex slave, the world has not forgotten, not for an instant. (The duke and his lawyers have strenuously denied the claims.)
The disgraced HRH might have spent the intervening months playing golf (pre-Covid) and helping his ex-wife and longtime housemate Fergie pack gift bags for pandemic frontline workers (during Covid) but his reputation and public standing are still in tatters.
What is most shocking about the fact that only 10 per cent of people have a favourable of him, is that one in 10 Brits actually have a positive view of a man who saw fit to stay at Epstein's New York home after he had been officially placed on the sex offender register.
So, if you happen to be a) his mother, b) a courtier or c) the Prince of Wales, how the hell do you solve a problem like Andrew?
(Don't forget too that Andrew and Fergie are also still trying to offload the $32 million Swiss ski chalet they bought in 2014, with the woman who sold them the luxury property currently suing them for allegedly still owing her $12m.)
The palace might have come up with something of a feeble, only vaguely successful Sussex fightback strategy of Keeping Calm and Carrying On With Opening Stuff (do you run a suburban recycling centre? Well, we've got an HRH for you!) but they have proven to be totally bedevilled by how to handle the Andrew predicament.
The thing is, the palace is in a total bind here.
There is not a sporting club, military association or credible corporation that would want to come within ten feet of the defrocked duke, however he has never been accused of anything illegal. Gross, abhorrent and morally repulsive? Absolutely. But has he ever been accused of committing an actual crime? No.
Andrew has been punished to pretty much the full extent the Queen can mete out short of taking away his golf privileges – but that does not seem to be enough to sate community anger towards him and by extension, the royal house.
The public perception is that the palace is somehow aiding and abetting Andrew in circumventing him in having to face the full consequences of his actions which is particularly dangerous territory for an institution which has only just, barely weathered the Sussexes' accusations of racism and cruelty.
Despite the duke having stepped back from official royal working life in November 2019, there is still a prevailing sense that he has somehow got off scot-free.
The man himself, seemingly not a fast learner, has not made things any easier, with reports suggesting that he still wants to return to public life in some capacity. A source close to the embattled HRH told the Times last October: "He's locked down at Royal Lodge [his home on the Queen's Windsor estate], thinking about his future service and public role. He has some clear thoughts."
Whatever those thoughts might be, he has kept to himself so far. (Maybe Fergie has had more gift bags for him to pack?)
While the palace could – and should – bring to bear pressure on him to speak to US prosecutors there is not much beyond that the royal family can do here.
(Last June, Manhattan-based federal prosecutor Geoffrey Berman made a formal request to the British government for access to the royal. Lawyers for Andrew hit back, saying that he had offered his help to US investigators on three occasions.)
Still, the palace and the Queen are trapped in a Catch-22 situation here: The public wants to see Andrew disciplined and forced to pay more of a price for his abysmal choices, however having lost his royal job, patronages and reputation what else is there to take away?
Short of Her Majesty forcing him to mow the acres and acres (literally) of palace lawn every week or pushing him out of a speeding Range Rover in front of the US Embassy and leaving him to the FBI, royal hands are tied. (Given decades' worth of reports painting Andrew as the sovereign's favourite son, that seems hardly likely to happen.)
The palace desperately needs the Andrew situation to go away but even when the Maxwell case has worked its way through the American legal system, the taint and stain on the royal house of this chapter will remain.
But we've got a long way to go before then. A long, long way.
Lucky Beatrice and Eugenie have those nice husbands, right?
• Daniela Elser is a royal expert and a writer with more than 15 years' experience working with a number of Australia's leading media titles
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