How come William chose to ignore the massive elephant in the room and no one challenged him on it?

[Roadtripwithpretzels]

Prince William spoke about the very important subject of mh yesterday on Radio One and while it’s a subject that should be highlighted, does no one else think that his credibility on this issue has now been damaged by the AMW case?

He may not have been personally responsible for the alleged cover up, and he may well loathe Uncle Andrew, but he is still a central player in the institution that helped to pay off and cover up the voices of AMW’s alleged victims? Virginia Giuffre took her own life fhs! He can’t just ignore it!

To me this interview came across as incredibly unintelligent and insensitive in current circumstances. And proof that William himself just doesn’t “get it”.

Why on earth did he not say that in the light of current circumstances and out of respect for victims; the interview couldn’t go ahead?

Or why did his new ex crisis manager PR person not advise this?

And why was he allowed to sit there by the BBC and not address this?

And what about the mh of the Palace staff who have suffered because of AMW’s boorish and inappropriate behaviour for years? The nanny who allegedly left because of AMW being inappropriate and the policeman whose arm was hurt by AMW’s speeding at Windsor? The maids who were screamed at? What about the mental health of the police protection offices who quite recently were, according to Lownie, reminded about their NDAs and the safety of their pensions if they spoke out?

I don’t think it’s good enough any longer for a senior member of the RF to sit there and say yet again in a rather generic way “we all need to talk about our mental health” while ignoring what their own institution has covered up for years and is still allegedly trying to suppress?

And the BBC should hold some accountability about this too!

I know I feel absolutely helpless and hopeless at this point. It's a whole world order - there's no stopping it - like snakes they will shed their skins and apart from a few sacrificial lambs like Andrew and Mandelson, perhaps even someone like Bill Gates, the network itself will perpetuate.

Honestly republicans fill your boots with the scandal and do whatever it takes to make a constitutional change but it will not change a thing when it comes to the reality of who is doing what at the level of these people.

I so agree, I can honestly say these Epstein files that have been released have shook me to the core, the world is run by paedophiles and if the files that have been released to be believed, baby killers, torturers, murderers, rapists, I could go on. I have never felt so helpless that this is the world we live in, run by truly evil people who will not face one shred of justice, nothing to see here. Andrew and Mandleson may go to prison, the Republicans may even get their long held dream of a president but they are utter fools if they think a change of the old guard in the UK will change the evil that runs this world, in fact it will probably get worse, the untouchable elites have got away with it, they will be even more powerful, more corrupt than they are now, they have been exposed and have not faced one single consequence, but hey so long as we don’t have a constitutional monarchy all is good in the world.

💯 👏 👏 Spot on

This is in reply to Wordler and bluegreygreen and others, who are, as far as I understand it, trying to make the point that this scandal revolves around a general tangled web of powerful men that is not specifically related to the RF.

I think the more you seek to argue this, the more you exacerbate the threat to the RF’s existence, because the general public can already see that the RF are deeply implicated in this debacle , and have been for years, and that it took far too long for them to act , that they have dissembled far too long , and the action they have taken was ultimately reluctant and begrudging.

It’s actual a desperate disgrace for the monarchy that all of this has emerged only because of the publication of the Epstein emails! If they hadn’t been published, they would most likely still be covering up Andrew’s actions now! The general public aren’t stupid! They know this!

And no one believes obsequious historians or biographers who say the King has acted swiftly and decisively! It’s actually laughable to suggest that! The RF, through their own lack of action, are now seriously exposed. And it’s specifically the monarchy to blame for handling this so badly, not other random evil men. The RF need to take accountability about who knew what and when.

No one needs to “argue” it’s not an argument, it’s factual, within the released files that rich powerful elite men and women who run this world are implicated in atrocities beyond comprehension, for you to try and sweep that under the carpet as if it’s nothing and just a “scandal” is utterly sickening, just so you can grind your axe against Prince William.

@Roadtripwithpretzels

This is in reply to Wordler and bluegreygreen and others, who are, as far as I understand it, trying to make the point that this scandal revolves around a general tangled web of powerful men that is not specifically related to the RF.

No, my point is the world is particularly fkd right now, and it's clear that even when we manage to elect fairly moral and good leaders into positions, they don't expose or deal with this network of power under the surface that is making backroom deals, indulging their every whim no matter how immoral or illegal and advancing their own wealth and power positions.

As I said in the UK MI5/6 will have briefed every PM for decades on all of this and all these people - not one has done anything to deal with it. Gordon Brown can look like he's helping now but he was the one who appointed Mandelson to a business position.

In the US you have someone as clean cut as Obama who still didn't say anything about the briefings he will have been getting about the people in these shady networks.

If you want to get rid of the monarchy then I totally understand why this might be a good line of argument but the downside to that argument is that you can't replace it with anything more ethical in terms of abuses of power because we can see that there is no more ethical option available right now.

Edited because I tried to write the F word with asterisks and it didn't work.

Pretty poor try BigWillyLittleTodger

I actually started this thread because I was so shocked and disappointed by William who was wanging on about mental health on Radio One while neatly compartmentalising the fact that the institution of which he comprises an important part, paid off Virginia Giuffre so that AMW didn’t have to face his day in court and she subsequently died by suicide.

Nor did William seem to be thinking of the mh of Andrew’s staff who had to put up with his bullying and inappropriate sexual behaviour either, and how the RF covering up this scandal by serving legal letters to anyone who blew the whistle, and by reminding ppos of the vulnerability of their pensions, also potentially caused a lot of stress and mh problems too!

The word that springs to mind is hypocrisy.

So don’t try and make out that I have no concerns for the victims because they are literally the reason why I posted my op in the first place.

Slightly irrelevant but......I remember years and years ago hearing that there was some information in existance so appalling that if it ever came out it would rock the RF to its core. It was many many years ago and I always wondered what it was. But i cant remember if it was before AMW could have known Epstein. It could have been as far back as the 1990s. I always wondered what it was. I wish I could remember how far back I heard it.

Poor try yourself, your agenda is transparent as a window.

I agree the world is f*cked and powerful men will always scheme and plot and undermine democracy but that doesn’t mean our response should be to throw up our hands in despair and not try and make every redress we can in speaking truth to power within our own legal frameworks.

If nothing else has been achieved today, arresting AMW has sent out a powerful public message that no one, however elite, is above the law. And that’s a good thing.

@wordler I have been checking in periodically. It's been a busy week at work.

I saw my brother this weekend, and he told me that he started avoiding all social media since Trump was re-elected. We both discussed that the US will turn 250 and everything that the Americans fought for in 1776 is being destroyed. I'm not having sympathy for many Americans in need because they voted for him. I feel like my country is dying.

At this point, I am unsurprised by massive corruption in government. It seems to be the norm.

Unlike many of you, I grew up in a town heavily controlled by organized crime. You learned early which people and topics to avoid. I have long suspected that growing up in the RF is similar. It take a lot to break out of that level of cultural conditioning.

Out of curiosity, let's imagine a scenario where after QEII died William and Catherine either completely ignored Andrew in public, refused to attend events with him, or glared at him. The media would have gone to town on how awful W & C were to Andrew. Wiiliam and his family celebrated Easter last year away from the RF, including Andrew, and were denounced here on Mumsnet for doing so.

What do you want William to do? Stand up and announce that he had always thought Andrew evil but had been ordered to play along? There are people who will accuse him of disloyalty to his family.

I’m actually quite shocked Wordler that you are describing the RF’s cover up as a hyperbolic accusation!

Have you read Andrew Lownie’s book?

However, no matter how much hyperbole is spilled on here about how the monarch can have things hushed up, hidden, jobs threatened etc. In reality they don't have that personal power.

Andrew Lownie has stated that this is exactly what the monarchy have done for years! The RF have used their considerable financial resources to engage lawyers and PR professionals to try and hush up AMW’s potential criminality. This is a hugely serious matter.

Obviously the cover up hasn’t worked entirely bc AMW was arrested yesterday! But Lownie had a hard time getting the information he needed to put the hb together. He said BP briefed many people not to speak to him. He has received legal letters himself. He has had to improve his security. He had to leave out quite large chunks of the hb owing to legal issues. People he spoke to were threatened. And Lownie issued countless failed Freedom of Information requests himself. And don’t forget the conveniently missing Trade Envoy papers!

Of course AMW’s activities were protected because of the late Queen. Senior members of the FO and intelligence sources told Lownie that they briefed QE2 about AMW’s nefarious activities and they were sent away with a flea in their ear.

All of the other powerful men involved in financial corruption and sexual abuse must he prosecuted in their own legal jurisdictions.

But that doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t attempt to prosecute powerful men like Andrew and Mandelsohn and any others who have allegedly broken laws on UK soil or while representing the UK abroad and being funded by the public purse.

@Roadtripwithpretzels you seem to be misinterpreting what I am writing. The hyperbole I was referring was the level of control certain posters on here ascribe to the monarch and royal family. It is quite clear now that the cover-up is universal and stretches across the whole political spectrum.

The prime minister runs the country - anything they choose to do which seems to favour the royal family they do because they want to do so, because it benefits them or their party, or their network of cronies. Not because they are being controlled by the monarch. And we can see the same happening in other countries some of which do not have a monarch.

As I have said - I'd love everyone to be prosecuted for their crimes. And as I've also said it's clear that not one person in actual power - the prime ministers and presidents has had any intention of investigating or exposing this until they were forced to.

Is it possible Maxwell and Epstein were blackmailing the RF. They seem to have been on many visits to different royal houses. Why ?

I understand perfectly what you are saying wordler

I’ll be blunt. I think you and some other posters are deliberately trying to switch the focus of this thread away from William and his evident lack of understanding about how a royal cover up would cause further mental distress to AMW’s and Epstein’s victims.

So what you are saying is that you cannot speak out on any issues, political or otherwise unless you have personal experience of it. Do you know how stupid that sounds? It also insults the many thousands of people like me, who worked extremely hard to help those less fortunate.

so true

Thank you for calling my post stupid. I stand by my point.

I am saying the reverse; that if you are in a unique position of privilege and influence like William, with access to considerable resources, plenty of staff and the best research; then there should be some awareness and acknowledgement on your part, that an issue like homelessness, for example, occurs due to a series of complex, largely political reasons, causing inequalities in society, and will not be resolved because a prince of the realm, despite very good intentions, tells everyone that it can and starts an excellent charitable initiative to attempt this.

I think you will find that the majority of people working in homelessness today know and agree with this too.

Some of us also agree that having a roof over your head and basic amenities is a fundamental human right in 2026 in the group of supposedly civilised nations that form the UK.

Those working full time in homelessness already know that homelessness can be ended because the government achieved it pretty swiftly by throwing money at the issue during the pandemic when at least 85% of people were removed from the street.

And when Covid crisis ended, they let them all go again!

I am saying that the model of someone who is very rich, privileged and influential working to end a societal issue through charitable means, is outmoded and ineffectual in 2026, when it can really only be achieved through political change.

This is also very much the case with mental health charitable work too. It’s great that William is encouraging people to talk and seek help but most of us know that accessing help once someone has spoken up, in a hugely under-resourced NHS, is the real issue here.

And I could write many more paragraphs about our current political system where state care for children, state education, public transport, public services in general, social services, social care, NHS care, are currently so under-resourced that they are often failing the most needy and vulnerable in our society, and that if you are a child living under the poverty line, as approximately 4.3 to 4.5 million children are in the UK as of 2023/24 (that’s around thirty per cent btw, a figure that marks a near-record high level) then your future prospects with regard to housing and mh are considerably worse than those of the average child born in to a financially stable family.

I can well believe that William is genuinely committed to his causes and I commend him for building homes on the Duchy of Cornwall land for homeless individuals, but no one with a reasonable grasp of these problems can deny that there are also huge credibility issues when perhaps one of the most privileged people in the country, whose family’s role and influence and very existence embeds privilege at the very heart of our society and contributes to the huge disparity between rich and poor, makes a choice to step in and speak out on these issues, as opposed to an ordinary person, such as you or me, doing this.

Upon becoming sovereign in 2022, KC3 inherited a personal fortune of about £399 million from QE2, including the private estates of Balmoral and Sandringham, and various investments, and art. William is set to do the same. This inheritance is largely tax-exempt, as the monarch is not required to pay inheritance tax on assets passed from sovereign to sovereign

Put it this way, if William, on becoming monarch, opts to pay inheritance tax on the assets and funds passed down to him from Charles, and agrees that all the land laws that currently apply to ordinary citizens also apply to him and his family , then I will take his speeches on charitable commitments aimed at achieving a more financially equitable and mentally healthy society, a little more seriously.

Absolutely @Roadtripwithpretzels . None of the Royals ( especially William who has decided to reverse the policy of his father and be more secretive about his finances) seem to address that all of the issues they claim to champion suffer from severe lack of resources and funds as do all public services. It's not running around in the woods that is going to improve early years education, it's funding to provide parenting classes, facilities for children to play outside properly maintained, it's not William building ' affordable housing that presumably he will profit from by charging the government for rent, just like every other landlord, but money for drug rehab facilities, education and training and paid social workers. They lack credibility while they remain so determined not to contribute to the cost of these things. Clapping their hands while other people do the hard work is just not enough. If they want to keep their affairs secret ' like everyone else's then they can be subject to the same rules as everyone else.

I think its a convuluted argument to extend blame to William simply for being a member of the family. It's a bit like blaming the child of a paedophile for their father being a paedophile.

I have concerns around this whole thing tbh. If AMW has been using trafficked women I'd like him charged with that so we can all see the evidence. It's concerning he hasnt been charged or arrested for that. Searches have been carried out so we'll just wait and see but it's all a bit of a witch hunt against AMW when others are in the frame, yet nothing happens . . .

@PrincessofWells

The point remains that a group of Windsors paid off Virginia
This is public money that was used- ultimately all the money the Windsors have , they took.
We have a right to know

Personally I saw a concerted effort to rehabilitate Andrew’s image when Charles took over . William was part of that .
Thankfully the old tricks don’t work any more and the attempt failed.
Then we later have ‘ sources’ telling us how the rest of the Windsors knew absolutely nothing. Except they knew who Virginia was and who Epstein was . They have known about Epstein’s conviction since 2008 .

Senators Khanna and Massie both talk about ‘the Epstein class’ - unaccountable billionaires .
There are 3 of Williams charities linked to donations from Epstein or from associates of Epstein
I hope we have clarity about this from the Charity Commision investigation

Off topic but I’ve just remembered Rory the young man in Edinburgh who shouted at Andrew ‘you are a sick old man’

Royalists turned on him. I think Rory was arrested .

I haven’t forgotten the bravery of what Rory did. Men like that give me some hope .

Well put more simply, William is part of a system that promotes inequality.

But he does have choices despite his position.

In June 2022, Prince William by all accounts was heavily involved in a good decision to ensure that AMW did not appear in public for the order of the garter service.

Unfortunately, as pointed out by RainbowBagels, he has also taken a poor decision to be less open about his taxes.

And as stated by Ukisgaslit, he did seem to participate in some attempts to rehabilitate AMW and SF.

Obviously, how much William knew about, or was involved in, VG’s pay-out remains key, as does the information about his charities and possible links to Epstein related funding.

A huge amount of pressure is on his shoulders. I don’t think it’s an exaggeration to say that future of the monarchy depends on W’s ability to make good decisions in future.

I happened to think the decision to talk about mh without considering the experience of Virgina Giuffre, who is, or should be , uppermost in all of our minds at the moment, was not a particularly compassionate or intelligent one.

Finally, any concerns you have about AMW being the focus of a witch hunt will be alleviated by reading Entitled by Andrew Lownie.

Perhaps legal advice not to comment on an active police investigation,dont want to give AMW a to claim he cant get a fair trial?
I think William wants his uncle to be investigated and brought to justice.
I don't think William is responsible for his foul uncles actions .

Those working full time in homelessness already know that homelessness can be ended because the government achieved it pretty swiftly by throwing money at the issue during the pandemic when at least 85% of people were removed from the street.

And when Covid crisis ended, they let them all go again!

And you would rather ... what? That people be held against their will?

I think Prince William has to tread very carefully as he’s not in charge at the moment. Also there are huge legal implications particularly now. This drawn out scandal was not of William’s making it was entirely the late Queen’s.
Evidently no one could make her sack Andrew from his position in the family. She put him in the trade role and was consistently briefed about his behaviour and she closed it down again and again. Staff had their careers curtailed if they dobbed him in.

It seems to be fairly well known that Charles thought the trade role was a terrible idea for Andrew but what can you do? She wanted to believe the best of him or she literally didn’t believe the reports, or she only believed him - who knows.?

But I think she knew and kept hoping it would get better and maybe staff gave up reporting on his activities.

I hold her and Andrew responsible. It’s a bit unfair I think to blame the siblings.

It looks like the legal process might take down the present king too.

William would then have a chance to inaugurate a rein of authentic financial transparency and genuine service.