By Gabriel Princewill-
Prince Andrew’s personal secretary and special adviser, Amanda Thirsk flopped big time in her advice for Prince Andrew to conduct a BBC Newsnight interview.
Ms Thirsk was forced to quit her role as Andrew’s adviser following the debacle of Prince Andrew’s interview, despite her good intentions to clear his name. The interview, designed to clear Prince Andrew’s name, turned out to be a PR disaster.
Considering Ms Thirsk is a University Of Cambridge graduate, more was expected of her in terms of giving an all round competent advice to the prince.
The best advice would have been to avoid the interview, but even the event of such an interview would have been given top quality preparation. Instead, what transpired was a series of wrong answers with consequences that appear to be spiralling out of control for the royal family.Jason Stein, hired only a few months by the Prince before he left over plans for the interview- had advised against the interview, but was ignored.
COMPETENT
Most competent and well rounded advisers would have foreseen the highly probable question of whether Prince Andrew regretted his former association with the notorious billionaire paedophile.
It would appear that advisers of The Duke Of York failed to foresee the importance of unequivocally expressing regret for his association with mr. Epstein, though not inconceivable that the prince could refuse such advise. It would be a common sense advise that would require much conceit to just dismiss.
The Duke Of York made matters worse when he said he had gained contacts from his association with the convicted paedophile. Clearly, he was trying to maintain some loyalty to those persons. If he truly did not regret his association with Jeffrey Epstein after all he knew, then perhaps the truth was best served in the interview not being properly planned.
DISTURBING
Most viewers who saw the BBC Newsnight interview would have considered any benefits that may have accrued to Prince Andrew through his association to Jeffrey Epstein to be shelved. At least in public, they should have been subordinate to the broader and disturbing fact that he had become associated with a sex offender.
The response from Prince Andrew lacked foresight and gave the potentially misguided impression that consideration for Epstein’s victims was unimportant. In fact, uppermost in the mind of the Prince might have been consideration for his own affairs and how signalling regret for meeting Epstein might go down in the eyes of some of those contacts he made through Epstein.
Nonetheless, it would still amount to an unarguable error of judgement in how he would reconcile the two potentially conflicting positions in his head. That would fall under the remit of his expert advisers.
Emma Maitlis (left) speaks to Prince Andrew (right) about Epstein scandal.
EMPATHY
The importance of expressing empathy for Epstein’s victims should also have been foremost amongst the advice given to the Prince for the planned interview. What were they both thinking? Omitting this crucial consideration was very disappointing, Ms Thirsk would have been expected to emphasise all the import areas not to miss.
A lot may depend on what the prince actually knew of what was going on and his true perception of the girls. With the eventual conviction of Epstein. Amanda Thirsk should have been very sharp on the job. Ofcourse, avoiding the interview was the safest option, given the murky circumstances that was distastefully engulfing the prince.
ELATION
In all of this, Jason Stein, who counts former MP Amber Rudd amongst his clients, must feel elation arising from the fact his objection to the eventually disastrous interview turned out to be justified.
The 28 year old had advised Prince Andrew to conduct two newspaper articles in the new year, rather than appear in an improvised television programme where high scrutiny would accompany him. His idea was most prudent, and he was proved right in hindsight
Elated: Former PR Of Prince Andrew Jason Stein,resigned over television interview dispute.
A contingency plan priming the Duke Of York for an impressive performance in an interview he had agreed to do would not have gone amiss, had Stein been able to put one in place. That theoretical position may have become difficult if Amanda Thirsk was throwing her weight around until relations between her and mr. Stein became unmanageable. She ends up with egg on her face, whilst mr. Stein moves on to greener pastures with his reputation in tact.
CULPABLE
The main problem in relation to the television flop was Pushy Amanda Thirsk. She was most culpable from the PR side of things, but Prince Andrew has to take the rap since he is the one whose whole conduct and judgement is called to question.
DETAILS
We don’t know the details of what Prince Andrew was gaining from his relationship with Jeffrey Epstein, neither do we know why he took the bizarre and objectionable decision to spend four days at the billionaires property after he had been convicted on sex offending. Those missing parts of the jigsaw leave us in the dark of the full story which could out everything in accurate perspective.
What we know is that his interview left a bad taste in the mouths of dispassionate observers and did not present him in good light.
TRANSGRESSION
As for Ms Thirsk, her transgression of exerting pressure on Prince Andrew to conduct the eventually ill advised interview has almost irreparable damages. She should have listened to mr. Stein, whose only possible failing was his passivity to a contingency plan which would accommodate Prince Andrew’s ultimate decision to press on with the interview.
So, let’s mince no words. As lead adviser to Prince Andrew, Amanda Thirsk flopped big time!