The King and Queen must have breathed a sigh of relief when they heard it. After all, there was no ghost at the Sandringham party this year! No one who avoids being photographed while walking to church on Christmas Day. Or to avoid it by having a cookie with dinner.
A sense of shame, or perhaps a few words of wisdom whispered in his ear by his ex-wife Fergie, have persuaded Prince Andrew to stay away from the royal Christmas gathering.
As the Mail reports today, Charles did not feel able to ban his younger brother completely after the ‘Chinese spy’ scandal heaped even more ignominy on his non-existent reputation. But he and Camilla hoped the Duke of York would do “the right thing.”
In truth, I didn’t have much of a choice. Since news broke of his “close friendship” with Chinese businessman and suspected spy, Yang Tengbo (aka Chris Yang), pressure has intensified on Andrew to cancel Christmas entirely.
And that includes the private lunch the King will host at Buckingham Palace this week for close and extended family who don’t make the Sandringham cut, as well as friends. As I write, the ‘assumption’ is that your brother won’t show up.
But demands that he also miss this lunch are surely at odds with the Christmas spirit. To me, it feels like bullying.
It has yet to be established what exactly Andrew has done, or how he might have benefited from his association with Mr Yang.
What we do know is that Mr Yang, who denies all allegations, had the authority to act on the Prince’s behalf when dealing with potential investors in China.
Prince Andrew will stay away from the rest of the Royal Family this Christmas
The King and Queen stand with Andrew as the family, including William and Kate, attend church on Christmas Day.
Andrew certainly has financial challenges. He is no longer a royal and has lost his £1 million ‘subsistence allowance’ from the King after refusing to move from Royal Lodge in Windsor to a smaller estate.
But it seems there are endless rich people willing to help him, and maybe Mr. Yang was one of them.
What exactly they get in return, other than invitations to real events and networking opportunities, is opaque. I doubt Andrew has inside information on anything today. In terms of insider information, I assume he wouldn’t know more about anything than what you or I wouldn’t have access to through Google.
He is also not the only one who associates with alleged spies. Former prime ministers Theresa May and David Cameron took photos with Mr Yang (both say they had no idea who he was).
Chinese infiltration into Westminster has been an ongoing problem for some years now. From junior employees to parliamentarians, the Chinese Communist Party has successfully deployed cunning methods to get closer to power, and is happy to play the long game.
MI5 is accustomed to knocking on the office door of an unsuspecting MP to inform him that he, or a member of staff, has actually been duped.
I am in no way defending Prince Andrew. He has brought great shame to the Royal Family for many years, not least through his friendship with the late pedophile and sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein.
Of course, he should retire from public appearances. But in a revealing interview at the weekend, his ex-wife, who still shares a house with him, described him as a “sad man.” To me, this suggests that there may be some degree of regret for his many failings.
Every family has a black sheep, but many find a way to accommodate them at Christmas. It would be a shame if the royals couldn’t do the same on Thursday.
Blonde Davina is an inspiration.
Davina McCall as a blonde? Who would have thought? And yet the presenter looks stunning in an image released to promote the return of ITV’s The Masked Singer next month.
The image was taken before her recent brain operation to remove a benign cyst, and I want to pay tribute to the positive attitude Davina displayed throughout her recent struggles.
She lost her sister, who had two brain tumors, in 2012, and took the stage last week at a benefit for the Brain Tumor Research Campaign to speak in harrowing detail about her brother and her own experience.
Davina, you are an inspiration to many.
Davina McCall looks stunning with blonde hair in an image released to promote the return of ITV’s The Masked Singer next month.
Go back to Boris and fight, fight, fight.
Boris Johnson’s column in yesterday’s Mail is a must-read for everyone who voted for Brexit and then naively believed every rotten lie uttered by Sir Keir Starmer about how Brexit was secure under the Labor Party.
We now know that Brexit is not certain and that Starmer has created a ‘Surrender Squad’ of civil servants in Whitehall tasked with undoing Brexit. It is even greater than what the Department for Exiting the European Union (DExEU) created to make Brexit a reality.
We live in a democracy, but this socialist Prime Minister is displaying an arrogance that would have made even Tony Blair blush. It is clear that we were scammed.
Let’s hope the weather remains mild for the sake of the seniors who didn’t vote to have their winter fuel payments waived.
Just as the farmers did not vote to lose the family business due to the punishment of inheritance taxes. Or the bosses of companies large and small who did not vote to make staff redundant because they cannot afford the increase in national insurance. I could go on…
We must heed the words of Boris, who is the only Conservative leading on this issue. Their message is ‘fight, fight and fight again’ for the freedoms we voted for in 2016.
The first opportunity we have to show the Labor Party what we think of its dismal performance as a Government, its smoke and mirrors and its lies and deceit comes with the local elections in May.
It can’t come fast enough.
The buds I’ve always dreamed of…
Holiday outbreaks are reportedly 25 percent larger than normal, and I can attest to that.
Before hosting a pre-Christmas lunch over the weekend, I bought my first sprout tree, with each protuberance the size of a mini cabbage proud of the stem.
We can thank climate change for that. It was warm when the sprouts were planted, which meant excellent germination; and it was wet while they were growing.
Then came the all-important frozen snap, which has given us a perfect, tight, shapely Brassica oleracea for Christmas.
For five years I have tried to grow sprouts in my garden, without success, so this year I gave up on the dream. The moral of this story? Never follow my gardening advice. Merry christmas!