Perhaps the Queen could let it be known she’s selling a Canaletto to pay Andrew’s bills?

RASHMEE ROSHAN LALL February 17, 2022

Hampton Court Palace. Photo by Tom Podmore on Unsplash.

Don’t believe this blog’s headline. I made it up. I have absolutely no idea if the Queen will sell a Canaletto to help Prince Andrew pay his promised settlement to Virginia Giuffre. I have no idea if the Queen will, in fact, help Prince Andrew pay up. There have been a lot of reports on this, but no one really knows.

Even so, the reported details of the royal pay-off are juicy. They suggest an eyewatering sum of more than £12 million, to be transferred across the Atlantic from the royal purse to Ms Giuffre.

Twitter had a lot of fun with news that Prince Andrew was sending a load of cash to Virginia Giuffre, a woman he claimed never to have met.

Check out this one.

Pretty smart, huh: “Huge queue forms at Palace on news that Prince Andrew is giving away money to people he’s never met.”

Understated British humour at its best. Lots of irony in there.

The subtlety of that message assumes force and bite in the tweet above it,  from former Chief Prosecutor Nazir Afzal. He says the settlement is “blood money” and it is “one hell of a ‘I did nothing wrong’.”

Quite.

Cue the usual UK taxpayer outrage at funding the royal family.

Perhaps the Queen could let it be known she’s selling a Canaletto to pay her son’s bills? Perhaps, but the inevitable questions would arise. Is the Canaletto even hers to sell?

Tomorrow: Royal finances – our money and theirs