Terry Prone: Seriously, what planet does Britain’s deluded Prince Andrew inhabit?

Andrew's latest public statement shows he should be confined to the Tower of London

Britain's Prince Andrew, formerly the Duke of York, attends the coronation ceremony for King Charles III and Queen Camilla, at Westminster Abbey in London. Prince Andrew will no longer use his titles and honours, including the Duke of York, he announced in a statement released by Buckingham Palace. Picture: PA 

You want body language? I’ll give you body language. All around the bloke formerly known as HRH. Him. Prince Andrew.

There’s even a song to sing while we’re discussing the body language. It’s about a guy who once had the title our friend Andrew has now had to relinquish. 

Or more properly, “put in abeyance”. The Duke of York he now isn’t, but the nursery rhyme will outlive him if only because it has few competitors when it comes to portraying noble gobshites doing completely futile things just because they can. Remember it? Of course you do:

Oh the grand old Duke of York 

He had 10,000 men

He marched them up to the top of the hill 

And he marched them down again 

And when they were up, they were up 

And when they were down, they were down 

And when they were only half way up 

They were neither up nor down

Nobody knows for sure who the nursery rhyme was written about, but the busy uselessness of whichever duke of York it was matches almost precisely the busy grinning uselessness of the guy who up to this week held the title.

But hold, I hear you say, what about the body language? Now, before we go there, let’s be clear. Most of what passes for body language is about as useful and valid as the actions of the Grand Old Duke of York. However, in this case, a couple of examples are worth looking at, starting with the man formerly known as the Duke.

A video clip from the recent funeral of the duchess of Kent’s funeral, earlier this month, at Westminster Cathedral, is illustrative. Less than 15 seconds long, it is framed so the duke of York, as he still was, is on the left, facing the camera, while Prince William is on the right. 

As the clip opens, the duke (as was) says something to the Prince, who glances away. The Duke looks up, sideways and smiles delightedly before bringing his gaze back to his nephew and giving a huge open-mouthed grin. 

Now, lip-readers believe that what he offered was a reference to their collective good fortune in having good weather, but you have to wonder about that. A dull reference to weather doesn’t seem to justify either the duke’s glee or his nephew’s discomfort.

Inside three seconds, it’s clear that Andrew’s said something he thinks is clever out. He’s just delighted with it, so he is. 

Delighted enough to do an open-mouthed smile, which any royal trainer would tell him was never acceptable at a funeral

Closed-mouth expressions of agreeability are as far as any royal should go at formal obsequies, and signs on it, the King and his son do precisely that as they greet the archbishop and other worthies. 

But Andrew, who many people felt shouldn’t have been there at all, given the level of scandal surrounding him and the fact that he has formally ceased to be what we’ll laughingly call “a working royal”, couldn’t contain his self-directed approval and merriment. 

He may have thought that he was in a situation akin to the nursery rhyme: only halfway down and therefore okay to be jolly in public.

What planet does this lad inhabit? Even if he was all the way up, back in the days before we found out about him, he shouldn’t have been doing jolly hockey sticks joking with the man next to him.

That man, Prince William, demonstrated the priceless value of silence and near-passivity. He did that nod that says “I hear you” rather than “I agree with you.” He kept his mouth tight. He didn’t smile. He glanced away.

Theatrics

And in the middle of it all, he did an involuntary movement hardly ever seen in reality. Theatregoers in Ireland would have seen it onstage, long ago, when Donal McCann played the painfully shy army officer in a production of Boucicault’s The Shaughraun. The army officer would rise on the balls of his feet in a kind of physical stammer whenever he was spoken to directly. It was the funniest device, consciously used.

Prince William did exactly the same thing as he digested unwelcome input from Andrew. He rose up a few inches briefly and — self-evidently — in an unplanned involuntary gesture. It was sad testimony to the contest between natural instinct and public obligation. He couldn’t tell Andrew to shut up and behave like a grown up or get the hell further back into the guest crowd. Much as he might have liked to.

Even if his nephew said nothing at the time, Andrew would have been well advised to stay home that day — with 30 plus rooms to wander through, he could have got in his exercise for the week — or, at the very judicious least, move back into the crowd

 His smirking front row public presence warmed up hostility towards him that would otherwise have been on the back burner, so that when more evidence of even more scandals subsequently emerged, the general attitude, even among conservative Britons who tend to be positive, even protective, towards the royal family, was that the King needed to do something that would divest Andrew of his delusions. 

He did it and just before the weekend, a statement emerged from Buckingham Palace indicating Andrew’s acceptance of instructions not to use a bunch of military and charity titles and honorifics bestowed on him long years ago before he was revealed to be seriously worse than the “Randy Andy” which was his nickname. His ex-wife lost her title, too. She’s now just Sarah Ferguson.

Senseless statement

The statement issued was a seamless continuation of the rubbish that characterises this man’s communication. Here’s how it begins.

“In discussion with the king, and my immediate and wider family, we have concluded the continued accusations about me distract from the work of his majesty and the royal family."

That first sentence commits a PR crime. Nobody should ever claim to be resigning because their troubles are a distraction from the wonderful work being done by their company, organisation, political party or family. It’s never the reason and the implicit claim to noble self-effacement is nonsense.

The statement goes on thus:

“I have decided, as I always have, to put my duty to my family and country first.” 

No, sunshine, you haven’t. Furthermore, his majesty has left you no choice.

“I stand by my decision five years ago to stand back from public life.” 

Nobody’s trying to dissuade you from a decision forced on you then.

He finishes with another PR crime: “vigorously” denying accusations against him.

It’s not accusations that have finished you off, Pet. It’s your own public lies, revealed in your own emails.

God be with the days when the king could have had a guy like Andrew confined to the Tower of London. Because, these days, there is always a chance of him re-emerging in some lamentable form.