The Social World

Tag: Virginia Giuffre

  • Will the Andrew formerly known as prince appear before Congress?

    Will the Andrew formerly known as prince appear before Congress?

    Amidst all the ceremony and gravity of Britain’s Remembrance Day service on Sunday, one salient fact could not be ignored. The King has long talked of his desire for a “stripped-down monarchy,” and now he has his wish. The only male figures from the Firm who were out on show alongside him were the Prince of Wales and Prince Edward, who together had the effect of making the royals look a rather paltry selection compared to the grander gatherings of the past.

    We all know about Harry, but although some would like to see him, too, stripped of his royal title, Montecito’s second most famous resident continues to be able to refer to himself as a prince. This is not a luxury that his disgraced uncle enjoys any longer, as he adjusts to life not as Prince Andrew, Duke of York, but plain old Andrew Mountbatten Windsor. As he prepares to leave Royal Lodge for a more modest existence in a grace and favor home tucked in some obscure corner of the Sandringham Estate, he may look around and wonder if his disgrace is yet over. Well, judged by recent events, the bad news for him just keeps on coming.

    During his “heyday,” Andrew liked to present himself as a swashbuckling, entrepreneurial figure, thanks to his Pitch@Palace initiative, which invited would-be moneymakers to come to Buckingham Palace and get their businesses off the ground. Unsurprisingly, given his shame, this is no longer a going concern. Documents seen by the Guardian show that the last remaining part of the business, Pitch@Palace Global, has been wound up after its UK side foundered in 2021.

    Admittedly, after Andrew’s disastrous 2019 Newsnight interview, it is doubtful that even the most desperate would-be businessman would have seen the soon-to-be banned old Duke of York as the answer to their prayers, but the knowledge that this beleaguered endeavor is no more shows how total, and terminal, his disgrace is. (Lest we forget, it was from the Chinese arm of Pitch@Palace that the alleged Chinese spy Yang Tengbo emerged, suggesting that Andrew’s judgment when it comes to those he kept company with has always been terrible.)

    And what of middle England? Well, Andrew has a few supporters who argue doughtily for the presumption of innocence before guilt is proved. Yet the overwhelming majority of the country consider that enough wrongdoing has now been established to regard the former prince as unspeakable, and they are not afraid to make their feelings felt. Residents of Prince Andrew Road and Prince Andrew Close in Maidenhead are hoping that the names of their streets will be changed, to avoid the taint of association. One long-sufferer local, Kelly Pevy, told the Daily Telegraph that: “If you’re giving someone the address, it’s the first thing [they’re] going to say. When I speak to energy companies and they ask for the address, they make a little joke. It’s mentioned more and more, and so then you start thinking about it more.”

    It remains to be seen whether the dwellers of Maidenhead succeed in their petition to the local MP to end this little joke, but if Andrew takes a moment out from a head-down routine of self-pity and video games, he may by now be seeing the enormity of the disgrace he faces. The Democrats on the House Oversight Committee have asked that he be summoned to the United States and Congress to answer questions about the precise nature of his relationship with Jeffrey Epstein. Although they have no legal power to compel him to attend, Andrew knows that to do so would be potentially hazardous. Not only could he be prosecuted for perjury if any part of his testimony is false, but his presence in America would open him up to investigation, even arrest, for his alleged activities with the then-17-year-old Virginia Giuffre.

    Andrew Mountbatten Windsor – there is currently some debate as to whether his last name will be hyphenated or not – is as maligned as anyone in public life today. Yet if he had stopped playing Call of Duty on Sunday and watched his elder brother and nephew remember the fallen, he would have been aware of what real courage and real sacrifice look like. Andrew, by contrast, is an insignificant figure, too sinister and grim to be pathetic and too boring to be laughable. His downfall, in all its embarrassing little details, reflects the man perfectly.

  • Prince Andrew finds refuge in video games

    Prince Andrew finds refuge in video games

    Oh God, not that. That’s all we need, I thought, reading in a long account of Britain’s Prince Andrew’s current travails that “according to visitors to Royal Lodge,” he now “spends much of his time playing video games.” Even before all the unpleasantness with the child-rape allegations against Jeffrey Epstein, one of the Prince’s more embarrassing qualities was his appearing as an “ambassador” for this or that – usually accompanied by a helicopter trip to a golf course.

    Now he’s reduced – no chopper, no putting green; woe is him – to being an ambassador for adults who play video games. As an adult who plays video games, and even writes about them from time to time, I generally welcome news of figures in public life who do the same. Not on this occasion.

    Does it not, after all, play into the worst stereotypes of the hobby? We are invited to picture this paunchy blue-blooded delinquent – a man so gauche he’s said to have rejoiced, lifelong, in demanding his phone extension end in 007 – sitting in his monogrammed underpants and his silk robe, surrounded by old pizza boxes, hammering away at the PlayStation into the small hours of the morning because he has nothing else in his life. Curiously, the exiled Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad is also said to spend most of his time holed up in his Moscow apartment gaming. Rumor has it that he tends to play World of Tanks, a multiplayer online game in which he prefers using Russian equipment.

    What games is Andrew playing, the likes of me can’t help but wonder? The generic mobile game Royal Match – in which you shuffle gems into rows of the same color to rescue a portly royal personage from drowning, being eaten by a snake or locked in prison – would be a bit on the nose. Is he trash-talking noobs in some Call of Duty multiplayer lobby? Again, unlikely: a man with the prince’s ego wouldn’t stick long at a game in which the hand-eye coordination of a 65-year-old is tested anonymously against that of a teenager. I prefer to imagine that he’s playing through some deep, long, immersive, cartoony, learn-at-your-own-pace one-player game of the sort that bears no relation to reality. Super Mario Galaxy, say, or Zelda: Breath of the Wild.

    In that case, we can say that this situation is decipherable – that if you were watching the only life you have known crashing around your ears, you might like to escape into another world. A defining quality of good video games – which makes them as addictive as other things that share this property – is that they are deeply absorbing. They take you out of yourself and into another place. That is not in and of itself a bad thing. Humankind cannot, as a wise man once said, bear very much reality.

    It strikes me that video games could offer a safe and harmless outlet for the prince’s bruised ego. He is a man, after all, who sets very great store by rank and station. He loves to be called “Sir.” A couple of weeks ago, a bit before the Firm harvested his various titles like Mario running through a cache of power-ups, it was reported that he had emailed Epstein saying “We are in this together” fully three months after he claimed to have ceased all contact. Andrew has always denied any wrongdoing. What struck me most strongly, apart from him contradicting his earlier statement, was that said email was apparently signed: “A., HRH The Duke of York, KG.” Could there be anything more cringe-inducing than following that slightly nauseating just-the-initial signature with a cavalcade of formal titles? Even if this was the work of a standard email footer, it tells you something about the man.

    All those titles and honors he collected, cherish them as he did, arrived by accident of birth. They were imaginary honors – no more substantial than pixels on a screen. Yet there’s something to be learned from that. Even if the wider world disdains him and the titles he hoarded are gone, he can acquire some new ones in the virtual world. Better ones, in fact.

    For any achievements he earns in a video game are ones he will have gained by working for them. My 11-year-old was cock-a-hoop when he cracked platinum ranking in Rocket League (a game where you play soccer with cars, m’lud) – and I don’t blame him. It’s a positively Ruritanian honor as far as the outside world is concerned, but it means that in this small arena, he excels. Same with, say, a purple parse on Ragnaros in Warcraft Logs.

    They don’t hand video game achievements out for free. You have, in the parlance of that world, to grind for them. There’s no shortcut to the muscle memory that allows you to navigate the final level on Bubble Bobble or learn how to snapshot trinket procs for the optimal feral rotation; no way of bypassing the endless matches you need to play to optimize your team on FIFA.

    Just ask Elon Musk. So hungry was he for the approbation of the video game community, the big wally, that he claimed to be in the top 20 Diablo IV players in the world – only to be called out when live-streaming a game which showed that he had only a semi-shaky grasp of the skills involved. It was widely concluded that he had been getting other players to “boost” his character. No great surprise. Reaching that sort of rank in that or any other game would require not only unusual talent but the investment of much, much more time than Musk can reasonably be expected to have devoted to it.

    You can’t rank up in video games, as you can in the royal family, by whining at Mom until she gives you another medal, feathered hat or garter ribbon. You need to work at it. So if Prince Andrew devotes himself to collecting 121 stars in Super Mario Galaxy, we should regard it as the closest thing this wretched creature will get to redemption.

    This article was originally published in The Spectator’s November 10, 2025 World edition.

  • Prince Andrew no more

    It’s all over for Prince Andrew or, as he is now known, Andrew Mountbatten Windsor. The former Duke of York, ex-trade envoy and, for all we know, Grand Pooh-Bah of Kazakhstan, has been stripped of every one of his titles. Andrew has also been ejected from his Windsor mansion by his brother, the King.

    In a terse, angry statement, Buckingham Palace that said that: “His Majesty has today initiated a formal process to remove the style, titles and honors of Prince Andrew. Prince Andrew will now be known as Andrew Mountbatten Windsor. His lease on Royal Lodge has, to date, provided him with legal protection to continue in residence. Formal notice has now been served to surrender the lease and he will move to alternative private accommodation. These censures are deemed necessary, notwithstanding the fact that he continues to deny the allegations against him. Their Majesties wish to make clear that their thoughts and utmost sympathies have been, and will remain with, the victims and survivors of any and all forms of abuse.”

    And, with those 109 words – six more than the original statement that sent this rather tarnished Adam out of his garden of Eden, or at least the Royal Lodge that he had been living in, rent-free for decades – Andrew was removed into banishment.

    The language of the statement is unprecedented. “Censures” is a word that is particularly damning. So, too, is the statement’s sign off: that the Royals’ ‘thoughts and utmost sympathies’ are with abuse survivors.

    No doubt some will still choose to defend Andrew. Seven percent of the public expressed sympathy for Andrew this week, despite the publication of Virginia Giuffre’s memoir. Yes, 93 percent of Brits may have turned their back on Andrew, but it’s still remarkable that anyone is willing to stick up for Andrew.

    Perhaps they are entitled to, just as there are those who believe that Elvis is living in platonic bliss somewhere. But the realists will see that Mr. Andrew Windsor, as we can now, finally, call him, has been served the punishment that his arrogant, selfish actions have merited all along.

    Andrew can skulk in some ignominious corner of the Sandringham Estate in Norfolk, England for the rest of his days. Few would see that as anything other than a fitting judgment on a man who refused to believe, even when confronted with the most damning of evidence, that he had done anything wrong. Posterity, and his public, will contend otherwise.

  • Have the Virginia Giuffre revelations got Prince Andrew sweating?

    Have the Virginia Giuffre revelations got Prince Andrew sweating?

    It is a staple of Gothic fiction that the malefactor is often caught out by a document or apparition that appears from beyond the grave. And so it appeared for Britain’s scandal-riddled Prince Andrew, ever since it was announced that Virginia Giuffre, who the now-former Duke of York allegedly had sexual relations with when he was 41 and she was 17, was posthumously publishing a memoir, entitled Nobody’s Girl, in which she offered candid accounts of what, precisely, happened with Andrew, courtesy of the disgraced sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. Everyone – including the royal family – braced for impact, and the decision to remove Andrew’s title and Order of the Garter must surely have been dictated by this latest humiliation.

    Although Nobody’s Girl is not published until next week, excerpts have now been released to newspapers and magazines on both sides of the Atlantic, and it is a strange mixture of the newsworthy and the unremarkable. Giuffre once again recounts how she had sex with Prince Andrew three times, courtesy of Epstein’s pimp, Ghislaine Maxwell, and how she was paid $15,000 by Epstein to keep the duke happy. She describes the actual sex as being unremarkable, if tending towards the fetishistic – “He was particularly attentive to my feet, caressing my toes and licking my arches” – and the whole thing was over in less than half an hour.

    The picture painted of Andrew is certainly unflattering and aligns closely with that Giuffre had already said in various court depositions – how she was taken to the exclusive London nightclub Tramp, despite being underage, and how the duke “was sort of a bumbling dancer, and I remember he sweated profusely.” (This, of course, led to Andrew’s reputational downfall in his 2019 Newsnight interview, in which he said, straight-faced, that he was medically incapable of perspiring.) The most damning statement is Giuffre’s reflection that “he was friendly enough, but still entitled – as if he believed having sex with me was his birthright.” After all, in her recollection, Andrew was the second son of Elizabeth II, and Giuffre was just one of the innumerable girls that Epstein provided for him, as if on a platter.

    Andrew, of course, denies all claims of wrongdoing and also has suggested that not only did he never have sex with Giuffre, but that he has no recollection of meeting her. Few are convinced. Resurfaced emails suggested that he and Epstein were “in this together” and that when the fuss had died down, “we’ll play some more soon.” These were far more damaging than anything that has so far been released from Nobody’s Girl, because the association with Epstein – which lasted far longer than Andrew had admitted – is so toxic that it will hang over him like a nuclear cloud for the rest of his life.

    With this calumny removing any chance of a public comeback, Andrew will now be grasping at what little comfort he can seize from the situation. It is highly unlikely, on present evidence, that criminal proceedings will be brought against him, and even if they were to be opened in the US, it is highly unlikely that an extradition attempt would succeed. It is widely believed that no member of the royal family would ever be tried in a criminal court in the UK – noblesse oblige dies hard – and so it is likely that Andrew will remain at liberty, even with his reputation shot to naught. Likewise, there is no revelation from Giuffre’s book – so far, at any rate – that dramatically worsens his situation. Yet there is every chance that, as the Epstein emails slowly drip-feed into public view, there is worse to come, and one could hardly blame the banned old Duke of York for lying awake at night awaiting the next revelation – and sweating profusely at the thought of it.

  • How my sister Ghislaine beat the Epstein conspiracy theories

    How my sister Ghislaine beat the Epstein conspiracy theories

    The nine-hour interview of my sister Ghislaine, conducted under limited immunity by Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche over two days in late July, generated an all-too predictable uproar. The reaction became still more intense following the release of the associated transcripts and audio late last month.

    Having held Ghislaine in torturous conditions of solitary confinement in the run-up to her trial – including waking her up every 15 minutes during the night for 30 months at the same time as they deliberately deprived her defense of exculpatory “Brady” material – prosecutors ensured both Ghislaine and her legal case were effectively hollowed out. Under the circumstances, she could not and did not take the stand. The rest is history.

    Her encounter with the Department of Justice’s Blanche was the first time ever she had spoken to a US law enforcement official. In the interview, Ghislaine challenged – if not demolished – the multiple prevailing conspiracy theories and myths surrounding Jeffrey Epstein: from the notorious “client list” to a supposed blackmailing scheme to the way he made his money and the alleged involvement of the Mossad intelligence agency. In regard to the creation of the nonexistent client list, in particular, and other fictions, she highlighted the insidious (and hugely profitable) role of the accusers’ lawyers and the foundational (and also hugely profitable) role of Virginia Giuffre in the whole Epstein mythology. Ghislaine calls it a “narrative” that was “built upon and just mushroomed – basically… a Salem Witch trial.”

    We learned late last month that Giuffre’s posthumous autofiction is to be published, which suggests that the Epstein gravy train is still chugging away.

    Poor old Todd Blanche. He seems to get parachuted by his ultimate boss into “hot-button” situations: just over three months ago, the President fired the librarian of Congress, Carla Hayden, citing concerns of “diversity, equity and inclusion,” and appointed Blanche as the new acting librarian of Congress. The trouble is that Hayden’s deputy, Robert Newlen, assumed the role of acting librarian by default on her termination and is publicly contesting the legitimacy of Blanche’s appointment.

    Blanche is not the only Todd in the news. Over in France, where I’ve spent the better part of August in Provence, home to my mother’s Huguenot Protestant ancestors – and incidentally, where she is buried – Emmanuel Todd, a public intellectual and commentator, is making headlines. Todd is perhaps the primus inter pares of declinist thinkers, who predicted the fall of the Soviet Union and is now suggesting the US is in decline. He has a book, The Defeat of the West, in which he attributes the decline of western civilization largely to the collapse of Protestant values, principally of the work ethic, as well as education and social discipline. Alas, Todd offers no quick “Trumpian” fix, telling us instead we’re all going to hell in a handcart. He may well have a point.

    The concept of being “wheeled to hell” as punishment is an old one. In the early 14th century, to escape political turmoil in Rome, Pope Clement V moved the papacy from Rome to Avignon. One morning this summer I found myself wandering the old town, which Petrarch called “Babylon on the Rhône.” But the efforts of various Avignon popes endowed the city with a seriously impressive collection of architectural landmarks. On the opposite side of the river, I would recommend a detour to Villeneuve-lès-Avignon, the resort of the French cardinals during the 70 years of schism. The view across the river to the Papal Palace is wonderful.

    Provence experienced a heatwave for most of last month, with average daily temperatures well over 90 degrees. Everything and everybody had to slow down just to cope which, to be frank, is not that hard in rural, provincial France with its traditional agricultural landscapes and quiet villages that seem eternal, made for sipping a cool glass of wine in the shade and leaving the world’s troubles to one side.

    For whatever reason, however, I found I could not shake the name Todd from my mind. I discovered it comes from the Middle English word “todde” which translates as “fox.” So the name is indelibly associated with the rather foxlike qualities of cunning, intelligence and adaptability.

    The late 19th-century American jockey Tod Sloan, the US’s first international sports superstar, had all those qualities in spades but his career finished badly and he was banned from racing and given the cold shoulder. He left his mark on the English language, though, when his first name was adopted into the rhyming slang used by London’s East End cockneys, giving rise to the expression: “Tod Sloan, on your own.” Over the years, the rhyme was lost, but “on your tod” came to mean being on one’s own. That’s a state which, whiling away time on holiday to beat the heat, I can certainly recommend.

    This article was originally published in The Spectator’s September 15, 2025 World edition.

  • President and prince differ over exorcism of Epstein’s ghost

    President and prince differ over exorcism of Epstein’s ghost

    Jeffrey Epstein’s ghost, a specter of elite scandal, continues to haunt both the American presidency and British monarchy. Donald Trump, embodying the presidency’s assertive role, and Prince Andrew, entangled by Epstein ties, face persistent scrutiny. Court documents from Virginia Roberts Giuffre’s 2015 lawsuit against Ghislaine Maxwell, unsealed in 2024, name both amongst Epstein’s associates, fuelling public demands for clarity. A 2025 poll shows 58 percent of Americans follow the saga, with bipartisan calls for document releases reflecting a quest for justice. Trump’s confrontational playbook and the monarchy’s reserved silence, though starkly different, are each tailored to their institutional contexts, proving appropriate despite Epstein’s lingering shadow.

    Trump’s playbook is defined by bold engagement. He rejects Epstein-related reports as “fake,” filing a July 2025 lawsuit against the Wall Street Journal over an alleged 2003 letter from Epstein. Through press conferences and social media, he labels the scandal a “hoax” driven by a hostile media, asserting he cut ties with Epstein after a 2004 dispute over staff poaching at Mar-a-Lago. In July 2025, Maxwell, serving a 20-year sentence for sex trafficking, told Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche she saw no concerning behavior from Trump, per ABC News sources. This supports his defense, countering critics’ claims. Republican subpoenas targeting Bill Clinton’s Epstein ties (e.g., four 2002–2003 flights) redirect scrutiny, aligning with Trump’s strategy to challenge establishment tropes. His 2025 decision to withhold Epstein files, despite campaign pledges, aims to shield allies from media distortion. While some supporters – 33 percent of Republicans, per surveys – seek openness, most back his resistance to perceived bias. This approach suits the presidency’s need for visibility in a polarized landscape, where assertive leadership resonates with supporters expecting defiance against a critical press.

    The monarchy’s playbook, conversely, is one of dignified restraint. Prince Andrew, after his flawed 2019 BBC Newsnight interview, withdrew from public duties in May 2020 and settled with Giuffre in 2022 for $16 million (£12 million), denying liability. Buckingham Palace issues brief denials, labeling allegations “categorically untrue.” This silence preserves the monarchy’s role as an apolitical symbol of continuity, avoiding spats that could erode its dignity. A new biography, Entitled by Andrew Lownie, detailing Andrew’s Epstein ties and financial misconduct, has heightened scrutiny, with only 9 percent public approval (YouGov, Q2 2025). Palace insiders discuss stripping Andrew’s titles – Duke of York, even “Prince”– via parliamentary action, a step Prince William may pursue as king, reflecting a cautious shift from King Charles III’s traditional approach. Andrew’s presence at events like Queen Elizabeth II’s 2021 memorial sparks criticism, but the monarchy’s restraint aligns with public expectations of regal composure, allowing time to temper public discontent.

    These divergent playbooks suit their contexts. Trump’s confrontational strategy, leveraging Maxwell’s testimony and political tactics, fits the his style for bold leadership, meeting supporters’ expectations in a divided media environment. The monarchy’s silence, rooted in tradition, upholds its symbolic role, with title-stripping discussions showing measured adaptation to public pressure. Both approaches aim to preserve legitimacy, addressing the Epstein scandal in ways that reflect their unique roles: Trump’s visibility counters the media, while the monarchy’s restraint maintains national unity.

    Epstein’s phantom persists through victims’ voices. Giuffre’s advocacy and Johanna Sjoberg’s testimony of misconduct lend weight to public demands, cutting through conspiracy tropes. Teresa Helm’s criticism of a potential Maxwell pardon highlights the human toll, resonating across ideologies. Bipartisan lawmakers pushing for Epstein document releases reflect a call for justice, not mere sensationalism, underscoring the scandal’s gravity.

    Both navigate Epstein’s haunting legacy. Trump’s defiance, supported by Maxwell’s statement, aligns with his base’s distrust of media, though pardon speculation raises concerns. The monarchy’s silence faces accountability demands, as the Prince’s unpopularity fuels title removal calls. Yet, each playbook remains appropriate: Trump’s engagement suits a combative political arena, while the monarchy’s restraint preserves its symbolic gravitas.

    Leadership demands balancing reputation with trust. Trump sustains his base’s confidence by challenging media stories, while carefully managing file releases. The monarchy, addressing Andrew’s titles, upholds its role whilst responding to concerns, avoiding perceptions of aloofness. Both confront victims like Giuffre and Helm, whose voices keep Epstein’s ghost alive.

    Epstein’s shadow lingers, but Trump’s bold playbook and the monarchy’s cautious one each fit their purpose. For observers, the monarchy’s restraint reflects enduring tradition, adapting slowly to scrutiny. Trump’s defiance meets the MAGA movement’s need for action, navigating Epstein’s ghost with resolve suited to a polarized era.