Farewell ‘Air Mile Andy’

Why is it that minor royals like Prince Albert of Monaco or our own Prince Andrew go to seed so badly? Jowly with bloodshot piggy eyes, flabby and white of hair, or terribly bald (by the way can't Prince William do a Rooney, the rapidity of his hair loss is painful to behold for a fellow receder).

He's not a royal but a special mention has to Diana's brother, Earl Spencer, who's aging faster than the Nazis at the end of Raiders of the Lost Ark. You would think that a life of luxurious leisure would render one forever young.

But wait, Prince Andrew on the other hand, must actually be working because this week it was announced that he is retiring from his role as 'UK trade ambassador.'

Only Britain would appoint a man who has never worked in a business, much less run one, as trade envoy. Andy's lack of anything approaching business experience feeds into the suspicion that the role was created to a) give him something to do and b) allow him to spend a huge number of his mother's portraits, supplied to him by the likes of you and I.

Let's take a moment to examine 'Air Miles Andy's' CV. In 2006 The Mail reported how he travelled 17 miles from Windsor to an event in a helicopter, costing around the £6000 mark. His travel tab for the previous year came to £355,942 which actually represented a reduction in what he usually bills us, perhaps because he'd already been censured by the National Audit Office in 2005 due to his penchant for chartering choppers.

Perhaps the expense was worth it and Andy's earned UK PLC billions in deals. Well it's actually difficult to judge the worth of his 'career' in monetary terms because unlike most sales jobs he doesn't have targets to hit to justify his worth. Even bonus happy bankers (£14billion paid out this week) are remunerated on what they earn (if that's the right word) the bank.

The worth of the royals, versus the tax they cost us, has always been difficult to quantify although most people accept that they do draw tourists here, with Kate Middleton's dress packing them into Buck House this week. So perhaps Andy is an asset? Unfortunately not as another glance at Andy's port-stained resume reveals he would have been fired ages ago if it weren't for mater.

WikiLeaks cables reveal that the American diplomats thought him 'cocky' and 'arrogant' - a view supported by one of our own men, Simon Wilson, who was Britain's Deputy Head of Mission in Bahrain (a favourite destination of the Prince who gets on well with repressive rulers of corrupt regimes.) Wilson revealed that: "Unfortunately, HRH the Duke of York was known among the British diplomatic ¬community in the Gulf as HBH: His Buffoon Highness. This nickname stemmed from his childish obsession with doing exactly the opposite of what had been agreed in pre-visit meetings with his staff."

His buffoonery was matched only by diva-like demands including that water should always be served at room temperature. He also demanded that one of the valets in his entourage carry a six foot irony board everywhere they went.

Alongside mates like Saif Gaddafi and a long list of Middle Eastern dictators Andy's contact book contains billionaire peadophile Jeffrey Epstein. Andy enjoyed his hospitality a number of times, with the groomer of underage girls giving his ex Sarah Ferguson $24,000 and prompting the classic Private Eye photo caption, with Fergie saying: "Is that for Eugenie or for both of them?"

Labour MP Chris Bryant described Andy's binning as "long overdue" a view which virtually everyone who had to deal with him would agree. He's the kind of guy who would be voted off The Apprentice in week one and we had him in batting for British business just because of who his mum is.