Yesterday, I read the Sun’s coverage of the weeks-long mismanagement of the Prince Andrew situation, and it struck me – King Charles really is the worst manager ever. He’s terrible in a crisis, he dithers, he’s weak and indecisive, and he refuses to make the tough calls. In my opinion, this whole fiasco also shows that Charles has always been out of step with the public mood. Well, this and the whole Camilla thing, which also showed his inability to understand the public. Anyway, the Daily Mail’s A.N. Wilson has been simmering with similar thoughts about Charles’s poor managerial style and more. Some highlights from Wilson’s latest column:

William didn’t threaten his cousins: This week, Emily Maitlis said on her podcast that it was Prince William who seized control of events by threatening his cousins, Eugenie and Beatrice, with being stripped of the title of princess if they did not persuade their awful parents to move out of Royal Lodge, Windsor. I am told that this rumour is categorically untrue but, even if this particular bit of the story has been misrepresented, there is no doubt that William is a tougher nut than his father. And it is no longer a matter of choice: He must be tough. Indeed, if he is to save the monarchy, he must even appear to be cruel.

Dithering Charles: The kindly and conciliatory King has been dithering, making it clear to Andrew that he should give up the Royal Lodge while never quite having the guts to chuck him out. Legally-minded folk point out that Andrew’s lease on the place has decades yet to run. But this is entirely beside the point. Public fury is at eruption-point.

Charles & the heckler: The Palace has tried to brush aside the sentiments of those such as the heckler who called out an awkward question to the King in Lichfield on Monday about his brother and Jeffrey Epstein. But these hecklers were shouting what most reasonably-minded monarchists believe. Andrew and Fergie are a pair of greedy sleaze-bags who are dragging the monarchy into the gutter.

William & Kate need to be ruthless: In such circumstances we must be realistic and – come the sad day when we are informed of the current King’s death – the future of the British monarchy will lie with William and Kate. They simply cannot afford to be gentle with Andrew. They have to be brutal, to save the monarchy itself. What began as a sex scandal has become a row over property. Now it is utterly toxic for the Royal Family.

The Yorks must be sent to Sandringham: There is no reason whatsoever why the Crown Estates, ie the public purse, should go on financing [Andrew and Sarah]. Most British people felt huge respect and affection for Queen Elizabeth II and did not want to peer too closely into her finances. She was a faithful public servant for decades, and no one felt the need to draw a clear dividing line between what she owned as a person, and what she held in trust as monarch. As it happens, when Prince Philip retired from public life, it is noticeable that he chose to do so not in a Crown Estate property but in Wood Farm, a very modest house on the Sandringham estate.Prince Andrew should do the same.

Charles refuses to learn certain lessons: When the brouhaha has died down a bit and there is no longer any suggestion that Andrew and Fergie, and their ludicrous extravagances, are being subsidised by the British taxpayer, then there will be the time for lessons to be learned. I fear the King will never learn these lessons. His privileged upbringing has numbed him to any sense of what the public think of the royal property question. For years, as Duke of Cornwall, he went on regarding the profits from the Duchy as his private income and used almost £1million of it to buy his beloved Highgrove in 1980. The house is now leased to him and is ‘his’ until death.

No more Crown Estates for non-working royals: This week – following the heckling on the streets of Lichfield – it has become clear that the public’s fondness for the royals is not limitless and we can’t go on allowing them to live on Crown Estate properties if they are not working royals. Nor can they expect to go on trousering the vast incomes from the two duchies: Cornwall and Lancaster.

Andrew received vast sums from his mother: By any standards they are not merely comfortable but hugely rich. Andrew may not have inherited anything substantial from the late Queen (or the Queen Mother) on her death but he is believed to have been given large sums during her lifetime and a handsome allowance from his brother the King. We are yet to be told how much money he made while acting as our special ‘trade envoy’ – a period in which he earned the nickname ‘Air Miles Andy’ – but we do know that his enthusiastic sucking up to foreign potentates earned him various favours including – it is whispered – the use of a mansion in Abu Dhabi. Meanwhile, his ex-wife recently sold a Belgravia house for over £3.5million. We are not talking here about people who would be plunged into poverty if they simply did the decent thing and stopped living on our money.

[From The Daily Mail]

I don’t have any issues with anything Wilson has written here – it’s basically what we’ve been talking about this whole time. I think it’s interesting that the Mail is telling Charles: you can’t send Andrew to Frogmore Cottage either, because he will still be living a grand life on a Crown Estate. Wilson is saying exactly what I’ve said this whole time: send these people to Sandringham and manage this situation, for the love of god. The British press is really starting to worry that something larger is happening with the public mood. The monarchy’s approval ratings are in the toilet right now as well.

Photos courtesy of Avalon Red, Cover Images.