Right Royally Unsavoury

Those born to power, wealth, prestige and/or royalty appear to gravitate toward one another. They are distant cousins, in a manner of speaking. Having shared immense privileges denied other, ordinary members of society. These are the casually cosmopolitan, those born to the manner and manor royal.

Schooled in diplomacy and exemplary social manners, they flit about the world in a concentrated vortex of extravagance.

It need not be surprising that the second son of Moammar Gadhafi, the socialist-revolutionary king of Libya, who bought a costly but to his family affordable doctorate at the prestigious London School of Economics, might have bumped into Britain's Prince Andrew at any number of posh affairs.

Each had something to sell. Prince Andrew the respectability that comes with doing business with a member of the British Royal family in his position as Britain's trade ambassador. And Saif al-Islam Gadhafi ("Sword of Islam" Gadfly), access to Libya's vast oil fields. Of course former Prime Minister Tony Blair had something to say about that, too.

More than happy to agitate on Col. Gadhafi's behalf, dangling the carrot of access for BP, for the release from Scotland of the architect of the Lockerbie bombing atrocity. If it's good enough for a member of the royal family it's fine and peachy with the government.

That business camaraderie was naturally extended to intimate familiarity. Which led, as gestures of friendship between equals often do, to invitations to come along and abide awhile at the family estate.

In this instance it was Saif al-Islam bed-and-boarding as an honoured guest of the Duke of York at Buckingham Place and Windsor Castle, enabling this son of Libya to meet with senior British cabinet ministers and charmingly wow the socks off everyone.

In view of the rather unfortunate turn that relationship has taken, with Prince Andrew having little option but to publicly disavow any possible personal friendship with a bloody fiend, setting government troops with all their military equipment and might on unarmed anti-regime protesters, a trusty metaphorical shoulder-shrug dismissed it all.

It took another relationship with yet another unsavoury character, a child-sex predator, to get the tch-tch going in earnest. Might it be true? Prince Andrew, Duke of York, son of Queen Elizabeth II, consorting with a pedophilic pederast, visiting him at his Florida home which just happens to be a mansion where, a la Silvio Berlusconi, under-age girls were sexually abused?

Saying it isn't so, doesn't make it not-so. For that did happen: That a man who served 18 months in prison for child sex offences, was entreated successfully by Prince Andrew to personally help pay off his wife Sarah's (the Duchess of York whose legendary debt and her financial travails had her schilling for Weight Watchers) tedious debts.

There now is much talk between government ministers of revoking the prince's position as the country's trade ambassador. He is, let us be frank, rather a huge embarrassment to the government, the nation and his family. Which appears to have developed a penchant for embarrassing itself.

This one, however, is the exemplar of a mangy opportunist.