Chameleon Magazine

In a forthcoming memoir, Nobody’s Girl, Virginia Giuffre claims Prince Andrew once regarded intimacy as part of his royal birthright. Courtiers, caught somewhere between embarrassment and déjà vu, rushed to insist that His Royal Highness “has always been deeply committed to public service.” A statement which, if true, suggests the public may want to reconsider what service they actually require.

Giuffre’s recollections, however uncomfortable, expose something deeper than one man’s misjudgement. They highlight an institution built on the quiet assumption that consequence stops at the palace gate. Centuries of deference have cultivated a peculiar ecosystem where ordinary accountability simply doesn’t apply — a kind of constitutional greenhouse where reality never quite penetrates the glass.

We are told the monarchy “unites the nation.” Yet each scandal, each half-hearted apology, reminds the public just how divided that unity really is. In an age where nurses queue at food banks and soldiers are made redundant, the spectacle of gilded immunity feels less like tradition and more like parody.

This is not about republican envy or tabloid schadenfreude. It’s about a principle so simple it should never sound radical: that power, wealth, and birth should not shield anyone from scrutiny. The problem isn’t one errant prince; it’s a culture that quietly teaches entitlement as duty and silence as loyalty.

Perhaps it’s time to retire the idea that monarchy is our moral anchor. When the nation’s most recognisable family is forever “learning lessons,” maybe the real lesson is that the age of inherited privilege has expired.

For a modern democracy, reverence should never replace reason. If the royal family truly wish to serve, they might start by surrendering the illusion that they are somehow different from the people they reign over. The crown, after all, was meant to symbolise responsibility — not immunity.