The paradoxical integrity of our dodgy honours system

We are told that the Prince of Wales had no idea at the time that his underlings were offering to sell honours to random zillionaires. That’s lucky. Instead of being tarred by the sticky brush of corruption, then, he emerges from this minor scandal as a benign old nitwit, shovelled from one place to another by his suited aides, shaking hands and offering tea to this Russian biznizman, that Chinese philanthropist, that Saudi moneybags (‘Mahfouz bin Mahfouz, Sir. Very important chap. Great benefactor.’ ‘Yes, jolly good. Have you come far, Mr Mahfouz?’)

I’m inclined to take the denial that he knew what was going on pretty much at face value. It’s not so much, I suspect, that the royal machine cunningly sought plausible deniability: rather, that Prince Charles was the patsy in this. It’s his title and his aura of glamour they wanted, not his brains. 

Mahfouz, for instance, donated chunks of money to the Castle of Mey and Dumfries House, and the paper trail unearthed by the investigations team at the Sunday Times shows negotiations taking place between his fixers and the Prince’s.