Worst Opinion of the Week: A 'Tough' Wife Would Keep Prince Andrew in Check

Story: Prince Andrew gives unbelievably bad interview regarding his friendship with convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

Reasonable take: Fucking hell, have you seen what that cunt is saying?

Brain rot: What the Duke of York needed was the love of a good, strong woman to steer him clear of international child sex trafficking friends – Toby Young.

This week saw something of a "Sophie’s Choice" for British right-wingers, who were left with a moral conundrum: hold steady with their “hang all nonces” mantra, or defend the Queen’s son and friend of famous nonce, Prince Andrew, after a diabolical interview with Newnight's Emily Maitlis in which he remorselessly and nauseatingly rebuffed the accusations levelled against him and his friendship with Jeffrey Epstein.

Luckily, Toby Young managed to navigate the discourse in a way few else could. Instead of picking a side, he simply wrote a Spectator article lamenting how Prince Andrew could have stayed out of trouble with if only he'd married a women who was more staunchly against buddying up with child sex traffickers. Young, seemingly hinting it was Sarah “Fergie” Ferguson to blame for the woes (much like Liverpool fans in the 90s), reflected: “What the Duke of York should have done is marry a tough, sensible, no-nonsense woman who would have stopped him getting into these messes.”

All these relatable “messes” the Prince has found himself in, aye? One second you’re all having just one too many pints of pilsner down The Miner’s Arms listening to Thin Lizzy on the jukebox, then before we know it you’ve made the faux pas of ending up on a billionaire paedophile’s private island.

In the article, Young said he felt “sorry” and “sympathetic” towards the Duke of York. He mulled over whether or not go on Good Morning Britain to defend him and eventually declined the offer, following some epic advice from his wife: “Are you fucking insane? He’s the most reviled man in Britain. Honestly, you amaze me sometimes.”

It’s difficult to know where to start with this astonishingly bad contribution to journalism, but I’ll probably begin with Young implying that people constantly operate on the peripherals of the elite world of child sex trafficking unless you are married to “someone level-headed and sensible”. It seems a “woman’s work” for some men doesn’t end with being surrogate mothers for fully grown adults who are unwilling to perform even the most basic of life skills such as cleaning, cooking or owning bed sheets. Now, those wifely duties include preventing your husband from palling around with sex offenders.

It’s hard to know if Young actually believes this bullshit or the British class system is so woven into the fabric of his existence that he’s willing to jump at the defence of a royal by insinuating that a stern wife with basic human morals is the only thing stopping some people from finding themselves in a similar situation.

As the Duke of York was grilled on his longstanding friendship with the late Epstein, he also denied claims he had sex with Virginia Roberts, the woman who alleges that she was forced to have sex with him as a trafficked 17-year-old. What we witnessed was a blasé prince sitting in one of the several hundred elaborate rooms of Buckingham Palace, blithely reeling off apathetic platitudes and a litany of explanations ranging from fanciful to borderline senile.

When Maitlis questioned the Prince Andrew as to whether he slept with Roberts on a particular day, where photographic evidence shows them two together, he questioned the veracity of the image because he was in his “travelling clothes”. Then he famously declared that, on the day in question, he was most likely “at a Pizza Express in Woking”. Toby Young offered that these flighty stories amounted to “a good alibi” for Prince Andrew, and the bad manner in which he came across in the interview just one of the “drawbacks of having a large male ego”.

What was truly despicable was watching an emotionally devoid prince incapable of expressing sorrow or empathy for Epstein's victims describe his friend's sexual exploitation of children as “unbecoming”. He even admitted that he didn’t regret his friendship with Epstein because “the people he met, and the opportunities, were actually very useful”.

Prime Minister Boris Johnson said that the “institution of the monarchy is beyond reproach” when questioned about Prince Andrew’s behaviour during the ITV debate, and he literally meant that in a good way. It’s no wonder that a prince of a family who believe they're ordained by God to rule over lowly commoners would consider their only flaw being “too honourable”.

The real reason Prince Andrew floundered under scrutiny was presumably because he hasn’t had to answer to anyone about anything ever in his life. The only punishment he’s faces is “stepping back from public duties”, which I imagine is the royal equivalent to us of being told we don’t have to take the bins out or change the cat litter anymore.

After witnessing the Duke of York take a 50-minute long dump with an unnerving lack of remorse or sympathy for Epstein's victims, Emily Maitlis was compelled to say: “Your Royal Highness, thank you.” I’m genuinely starting to believe that when David Icke called the royal family “seriously reptilian” shapeshifting lizards out to control the world, he was underselling it.

@MULLET_FAN_NEO