The Firm ‘desperate to escape’ shadow of Prince Andrew’s shame at Jubilee

The royal family is reportedly growing desperate to ditch the overshadowing smog of shame Prince Andrew will carry into the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee celebrations.

This claim’s been made by the former royal butler and royal commentator Grant Harrold.

He sat down with Express and admitted, "It's very difficult to know how he would be able to go back doing normal duties until it's resolved one way or another.”

"One thing you can see on social media, there's a lot of strong feelings about it from both sides and I think the dangerous bit and what you don't want to do, they don't like to overshadow this.”

"It's what they kept saying in Prince Philip's funeral, the possibility that Meghan was going to come over and obviously concerns that that would take the focus away, and I think that's the thing that no one in the family would try to do intentionally is try to take that away.”

"I think what's really important is...because there seem to be so many things that have gone wrong for them in recent months, I think when they have these special occasions, people normally rally around the Queen."

Before concluding he added, “Everybody loves the Queen, even if you're a Republican I think it's safe to say you still have respect for the Queen, but these occasions are a chance for people to get together, to celebrate that we're lucky to have a monarchy and obviously from their point of view, they're very aware that in the world we're living today, nothing is guaranteed. We hope and pray that we have a monarchy, but nothing is guaranteed."