Royal birthday tradition to be followed despite the Prince being embroiled in sex scandal

Following a contentious ‘reminder’, emailed by Matt Stevenson (private secretary to Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government permanent secretary Dame Melanie Dawes), to all local councils ‘advising’ that they should raise the flag to celebrate Prince Andrew’s birthday, both the general public and various politicians have aired their outrage at the order by Whitehall, which places protocol before principles.

Andrew stepped down from royal public life in November, following his disastrous Newsnight appearance, amid an ongoing scandal over his friendship with millionaire paedophile Jeffrey Epstein, and claims that then-teenager Virginia Roberts was coerced into having sex with Prince Andrew in 2001 and 2002.

He was accused of showing a lack of empathy for Epstein's victims and of failing to show regret over his friendship with the disgraced financier.

Critics have said that the "crass and offensive" order should be revoked due to allegations that Prince Andrew, also known as the Duke of York, had slept with Virginia Giuffre, who claims she was trafficked by convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

The allegations have been vehemently denied by the prince, who is facing pressure to talk to the FBI and US prosecutors, claiming he was at a birthday party at the Woking branch of Pizza Express on one of the nights the pair are said to have slept together.

The flag raising story prompted a strong reaction from Ms Giuffre, previously known as Virginia Roberts, who has claimed that she and the Duke slept together on three separate occasions, including when she was 17 - still a minor under US law.

She wrote on Twitter: "Oh mummy they didn’t even raise the flag on my birthday- if only life was so hard." She went on to urge the Prince to "get over" himself and to "tell the truth."

Labour MP Ian Murray, who is running to be deputy leader of the party, had this to say on the proposed flag raising:

“This protocol has to be binned given the allegations against the Prince," he told The Sun.

Another MP, Wes Streetling also contends that:

“This would be wholly inappropriate. It should be knocked on the head immediately”.

Republic, a campaign to replace the monarchy with an elected head of state, declared that the councils had more important concerns than following "daft royal protocols".

Republic CEO Graham Smith said:

"This is crass and offensive, and that even at the best of times it's nonsense to be flying flags for Andrew's or anyone else's birthday.

"Councils are struggling to provide core services, they have better things to worry about than daft royal protocols.

"And to think we should be celebrating a man who has serious accusations of sexual assault hanging over his head is particularly appalling.

"It's time we ended the whole nonsense of flying flags for royal birthdays.

"It's inappropriate in a democracy and the public aren't interested. I think we'd all rather see councils spend their time and money getting services delivered."

A council source told The Sun it was ridiculous that, apparently, the government is not aware of what has happened recently, or is not taking into account “the mood of the nation.”

The Queen and Prince Charles held an emergency meeting last week regarding Prince Andrew. It is unclear whether they had approved, or were even aware of the flag memo.

Alleged victims of the billionaire paedophile Jeffrey Epstein have joined forces with the family of Harry Dunn to call for Anne Sacoolas, wife of a US spy who fled to the USA under the guise of diplomatic immunity after having killed Harry in a car crash’  to return to the UK and the Duke of York to face questioning from the FBI in the US.

The scandal has not gone away and there are many still unanswered questions regarding the case, Prince Andrew’s sense of morality, the efficacy of ingrained, longstanding protocols regarding the Royals, and, in fact, the role of the Monarchy in modern day Britain.

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