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A ‘money-hungry opportunist’. That’s how Prince Andrew’s biographer Andrew Lownie describes her. Adding, for good measure, that she’s ‘manipulative and greedy with no moral boundaries’ who ‘squandered millions on a lifestyle neither she nor her husband could afford’. We are, of course, talking about 66-year-old Fergie. And it is becoming clearer by the day that, far from being the loyal, long-suffering loyal ex-wife to Prince Andrew, she is up to her neck in the mire with him. This is the woman who, as The Mail on Sunday revealed last month, sent an email to Jeffrey Epstein describing him as a ‘supreme friend’ - three years after he had been jailed for soliciting prostitution from a minor. Who, less than two months before sending it, had told journalists, with rank dishonesty: ‘I will never have anything to do with [Epstein] again.’ Forget the jolly hockey-sticks Fergie that she likes to pretend she is, or the one who was patron of so many laudable charities and is filled with courage and compassion. There’s long been a hidden side to her. And now those charities - from the Teenage Cancer Trust and the British Heart Foundation to Prevent Breast Cancer and the Children’s Literacy Charity - have seen it, they’ve dropped her like a ton of hot bricks. The point is that Fergie, as Andrew’s closest companion and mother of his children could at least have tried to restrain Andrew. But she did the very opposite. Her lust for money is as rapacious as his. She loves the high life so she colluded in the friendship with Epstein, begging him for money, taking gifts from him, allowing him reportedly to bankroll her for years and asking to go to Epstein ‘Paedo’ island where girls were abused. Did she never think of the young girls Epstein abused? Apparently not, for why else was she alleged to have taken her daughters Beatrice and Eugenie to be the first to meet him and stay with him after his release from prison? In his book, Lownie suggests that Fergie’s father, the disgraced, prostitute-frequenting Ronald Ferguson, was sceptical about the marriage to Andrew from the beginning, saying of his daughter: ‘She’s either in love with Andrew or in love with the Royal Family and I think it’s the latter.’ The late and much lamented Prince Philip saw right through her and, according to Lownie, ‘thought she was a girl on the make’. How right he was. Now she’ll be shunned by all the royals who have been too tolerant of her for far too long. She’s had the right to use her treasured Duchess of York title stripped from her at last. She’s removed all references to it on social media, changing her Twitter handle from @SarahTheDuchess to @SarahMFergie15. So tarnished has she become that some media commentators say even doing this is a money-making exercise. As American Brand Finance CEO David Haigh, a renowned authority on the economics of reputation, observes: ‘Once a royal brand becomes associated with ongoing controversy, detaching from that identity can help rebuild credibility and commercial flexibility, which for a public figure like Ferguson, is essential to her personal balance sheet.’ Now the world around her is imploding, where will she turn to keep the money coming in? No one will buy her books any more, not that many were before. Will she try to salvage her reputation with a cringe-making appearance again on Oprah? And a bigger question. Will she stay with her ex-husband if he is finally forced to move out of the 30-bedroom Royal Lodge in Windsor Great Park that was once home to the Queen Mother? Who knows. But one thing is certain. She’s fully played her part in the scandal of the Yorks’ downfall. And while Andrew is beyond reprehensible, sometimes I think money-grubbing Fergie’s worse. An own goal by Waitrose after the posh supermarket refused to pay even a token wage to autistic Tom Boyd, 27, for his 600 hours of voluntary work. He was snapped up by rivals Asda who will pay him. Waitrose’s promise of ‘Food To Feel Good About’ now leaves a nasty taste in the mouth. Tracey Connelly, the mother of ‘Baby P’, admits in her attempt at early parole that ‘I was a bad mum’. In 2009 she was jailed for at least five years for causing or allowing the death of her son after failing to stop her lover Steven Barker’s abuse of the toddler. Parole? If there were any justice, this monstrous mother would never be set free again. Demi locks great What’s not to adore about Demi Moore, 62? She’s just appeared on Glamour magazine’s cover looking stupendously sexy and saying she is fighting back against the ‘desexualisation of older women’. She adds that it’s wrong so many menopausal women cut their hair short – while she flounces her own locks which reach down past her pert bottom. If only we could all afford such natural-looking hair extensions! Was it not a tad pretentious of David Beckham to appear on the cover of Country Life as guest editor? He paraded as a country gent at his magnificent Oxfordshire mansion with its acres of beautiful gardens, wildflowers and bee hives. As if the multi-millionaire would do the work required himself! The giveaway is that he’s wearing immaculate Wellington boots without a spot of mud on them – and pristine plus-fours that probably still have the shop tag on them. Did the Queen gatecrash the Pope prayer? Why was Queen Camilla present when King Charles prayed with the Pope? Why was a divorcee at this historic meeting when the Catholic church regards marriage as a sacred covenant that cannot be dissolved? And was she having a laugh wearing a replica of the Philip Treacy headpiece she wore at her civil partnership to Charles, only in black? While mostly agreeing with a survey condemning folk for paving their lawns and ‘planting’ – horror of horrors – fake flowers, I dissented on one point. When my Mum got Alzheimer’s she fretted there were no blooms in the garden in winter. So Dad and I put plastic flowers in her hanging baskets. Mum swore she could smell the distinctive scent – of a plastic rose, bless her. Am I the only one struck by the similarity between the cold-blooded stare of Harvey Willgoose’s murderer Mohammed Umar Khan and that of Southport killer Axel Rudakubana? And, how is it right that Khan is sentenced to just 16 years? It makes a mockery of a ‘life’ sentence – not even a year for each of those Harvey was alive. In a tearful video, besties Claudia Winkleman and Tess Daly reveal they have decided to quit Strictly. So who will replace them? Wouldn’t the perfect coupling be Amanda Abbington and her ex partner Giovanni Pernice, the pro she accused of bullying, thereby turning the Strictly glitterball into a wrecking ball. Now that I would watch! Carla Bruni, 57, bid a tearful farewell to her husband former French president Nicolas Sarkozy, 70, as he was jailed for using illicit funds in an election. The only person who might be laughing now is Jerry Hall who split from Mick Jagger after his affair with Carla. Not sure what schadenfreude is in French, but in English it is you get what you deserve – and Carla has just copped a bucket-load of it. Many of us have a TV show we watch to make us happy. Mine is Pete Wicks: For Dogs’ Sake, where he rescues abandoned pups. When my moggie Ted asked why there wasn’t a show called For Cats’ Sake rehoming abandoned kittens like him, I reminded him dogs have but one life and cats nine, so shut up and eat your treaties. Dig deep for poppy appeal Thursday was the launch of the Royal British Legion’s poppy appeal which hopes to raise at least £50million to support traumatised veterans whose lives have fallen apart. It is an abiding shame that we take so little care of our former soldiers who gave their everything, including often their sanity. As the famous epitaph quote goes: ‘For your tomorrow, we gave our today.’ Time for us all to dig deep and support our brave troops.
