Unpopular Opinion - William and Kate

[EdaYildiz]

Don't come at me, I'm sharing my unpopular opinion because I want to know what you all think but just don't see a spark between William & Kate.

Loved them since the day they starting dating way back when they were undergrads at St Andrews but I just don't see their connection in pictures and it seems a little forced when she has her hand on his back or when they do hold hands.

I don't expect them to hold hands and snog because I know they're mostly photographed whilst they're working but he looks bored and she looks like she's trying her best.

Does anyone agree with me?

@milveycrohn

Really ? More crawling excuses for Andrew
Disgraceful
And while we are on the subject for people who are a bit dim ....

Why hasn't he helped the FBI then?
He swore he would on that disastrous BBC interview . Over 1000 days later and we are still waiting .
I'm sure another excuse will be found for that too . You really aren't helping your royalist cause but trying to defend him

That should be 'on the subject of people who are a bit dim'

• before someone takes umbrage, thinking I'm calling them don

On that note, Prince Andrew (with whom I have absolutely no sympathy, he’s an arrogant sleeze with absolutely appalling judgment and no ability for self-reflection) will probably be gnashing his teeth bitterly just now.

Long before Virginia Giuffre sued Prince Andrew, she had accused well-known Harvard law professor, Alan Dershowitz, of sexually assaulting her while she was a teenager. Dershowitz denied this had happened, and Virginia sued him for defamation (he promptly counter-sued her). Anyway, this week she has withdrawn her claim against him, saying that she “may have made a mistake” as she was young at the time and it was a very stressful and traumatic environment. Dershowitz continues to deny ever having sex with her. They issued a joint statement making it clear that neither party paid anything to the other (so Dershowitz did not pay her off).

Anyway, if Prince Andrew was told to get out of the case, no matter what, by his family, as is widely speculated, he will be fuming, as despite the settlement being based on no admissions, he’s forever branded as guilty without the case going to trial.

It's easily done - we all hand over millions to an accuser when we are innocent .
Who hasn't ?

@Novella4

so, you’ve never heard of a ‘shakedown’
bless your innocence

Nothing was stopping Andrew from having the trial that he said he wanted .

And yet he paid out

Nothing stopping Andrew helping the FBI as he stated he would

And yet he didn't

Is this the law professor you are referring to?

'Mr Dershowitz is also known for helping defend US football star OJ Simpson against murder charges and former US President Donald Trump in his 2020 impeachment trial.'

This is the link re the quote below

www.google.com/amp/s/news.sky.com/story/amp/prince-andrew-accuser-virginia-giuffre-ends-defamation-lawsuit-against-harvard-professor-12742459

This has been gone over so many times - royalists saying Andrew is disgusting yet continually creeping round with ifs and bits and maybes .

The issue isn't just Andrew . He's bad enough but the royals like to have someone to throw to the wolves don't they ? A distraction from maybe something worse .
It's the cumulative effect of
Andrew
Charles close friends - Saville , Peter Ball ,
Mountbatten

How very unfortunate they seem to be in their circle . Offenders are every turn.

Sometimes court cases don’t go the way you want, for example Meghan Markle won her legal case on a technical copyright issue but we all now know she colluded with Omid Scobie on his turgid novel finding freedom and colluded with him to lie to the court about it, and had to later correct the court record. So the world now knows she’s a liar 🤷‍♀️

I thought she's just been given an humaniatarin award ?
Alert the committee !!

And your answer doesn't explain why Andrew has get to cooperate with the FBI . He vowed to - it was broadcast

@Ohnonevermind
I might be confused but didn't you say on another thread that you aren't in the UK or a citizen ?
Honestly why are you so invested .

I'm a republican - I assumed you are a royalist .
Now I'm baffled why you bother . You've no skin in the game .

Why hasn't he helped the FBI then?
He swore he would on that disastrous BBC interview . Over 1000 days later and we are still waiting .

His lawyers say A can't answer the questions til they're sent through and the fbi haven't sent anything.

It's easily done - we all hand over millions to an accuser when we are innocent.

Most of us don't hand over millions because we don't have that sort of money, obviously. But smaller amounts are often paid over to make matters go away. It often works out cheaper than a company going through court, etc. I know because I have seen it first hand.
In Andrews case, he would open himself up to all sorts of disclosures, not just about his other private business but about the private business of other family members. We've seen how brutal disclosure, and the resultant postltrial unsealing of evidence was in the Depp Heard trial. £3m, which is what the actual settlement was (approx), must seem a small price to pay for such a wealthy family to keep from talking about, exposing and confirmed their secrets.

Is this the law professor you are referring to?

'Mr Dershowitz is also known for helping defend US football star OJ Simpson against murder charges and former US President Donald Trump in his 2020 impeachment trial.'

Are you trying to demean AD because you don't like who he has defended? Alan Dershowitz is an excellent, well known lawyer. In the US (and the UK) everyone is entitled to a defence. If no one defended people accused of crimes, our whole legal system would collapse and we'd be reliant on the police making decisions over who was guilty and innocent.

This has been gone over so many times - royalists saying Andrew is disgusting yet continually creeping round with ifs and bits and maybes .

Well, that’s because there are if, buts and maybes, Novella.

Anyone can form an opinion of Andrew’s character based on what we’ve seen of him. That’s entirely fair (and will probably end up negative to Andrew, unsurprisingly).

What we don’t know - unless we were in the room(s) at the time - is whether he had sex with Virginia Guffre, as she has alleged, and he has denied. People may believe her, or believe him according to their own preferences and biases, but we don’t know the truth. Because the case was settled (which despite many people’s own opinions on the issue, does not prove anything) neither sides’ evidence was ever tested.

What we do know is that both parties have credibility issues - Andrew because of his ridiculous self-serving interview, Virginia because she’s now had to withdraw a case based on exactly the same allegations against a different man. So who knows where the truth lies? I don’t. Neither do you. I know your opinion on the matter, but that still doesn’t make it true.

And non of that uncertainty changes my opinion of Andrew, either!

(And yes, I know exactly who Alan Dershowitz is. Funnily enough I imagine that most people would have assumed that Virginia’s allegations against him were also true, based on the fact that he’s a hard-nosed lawyer who built a reputation defending unsavoury types. But she’s had to withdraw them and accept she may have been mistaken.).

If one has only a very simplistic understanding of how litigation works then maybe it is best to leave the subject alone. 😑

@MarshaMelrose it's true I don't like either OJ Simpson or Trump. Do you ? But I didn't think being a defence lawyer implicated the lawyer ! It was the first thing up on google - see the link the quote is from

@Serenster
Unfortunately for royalists ( but much more so for their victims ) the unsavoury news just keeps on coming with the royals .
Yes there's Andrew
But Charles has questions to answer - just bad judgment is it ?
Now Mountbatten .
What else ?

This has been gone over so many times - royalists saying Andrew is disgusting yet continually creeping round with ifs and b[u]ts and maybes .

@Novella4 You're quite right. And let’s not forget the next part of the strategy is to deflect by veering the conversation towards the Duchess of Sussex – as if the actions of the two individuals in question were on the same scale of severity.

Meghan’s privacy and copyright claim (for which she won) against Associated Newspapers Limited was not predicated on a supposed collaboration with any of the authors of Finding Freedom but on whether or not said media company had breached her right to privacy by publishing extensive extracts of her letter to her father. The Court ruled that publishing her private correspondence was “excessive” and “unlawful”. It was on this legal basis that she won her case. So there has been no miscarriage of justice, as some of the regular MN royal watchers would have you believe. So let’s stay on script and not give in to that ever so powerful compulsion to criticise the duchess at every possible opportunity – or even better, stop manufacturing the opportunities.

You can apply and direct that same piece of advice to those unqualified individuals who seek to evaluate another’s cognitive abilities and behaviours.

😂😂 Oh, the assumptions we make about people whom we know nothing about and the way we can overestimate the values of our own opinions!!! 👏

i was using Meghan’s court case as an example of winning the case but her reputations being diminished as a result.
This is why people often choose not to go to court, as there are too many uncontrollables, especially when your client lies

So you do have some self-awareness. Glad to hear it 👏

There’s a long long list of Pyrrhic victories in court cases (just looking at the celebrity cases, Johnny Depp, Jason Donovan, Naomi Campbell are all good examples. Rebekah Vardy too - although she did lose her case. 😀). This is why more than 75% of cases will settle long before they reach trial.

In most cases, filing a claim is simply the best way to put pressure on the other side to get the outcome you want from them (usually, money). But if they call your bluff and refuse to settle, it puts the pressure right back on you as claimant as you are the one that has to prove your case. When faced with massive costs, risks and uncertainties, opting to settle is generally the sensible choice, regardless of the actual rights and wrongs.

I think you know the answer to that.
Like I said previously, I am not interested in interacting with pompous contributors pushing a singular political agenda. I know what you are trying to achieve but I don't care to interact so jog on.

I'm off to knit a few more sock puppets. Delightful things, they are!

Aw, @Novella4 , don't be disingenuous. It's easy enough to find who Alan Dershowitz is. It's all over the papers. So don't try and make out that the mention of Simpson and Trump was designed to pin down which lawyer it was rather than denigrate Dershowitz in some way.