The royal blackmail story is remarkable for the absence of outrage

I suppose there must be someone left in Britain who is surprised or shocked that a minor member of the royal family has alleged homosexual tendencies and is partial to the odd snort of cocaine. Lord Charteris of Amisfield, for example — formerly the Queen’s private secretary — would at least have pretended to be appalled, but he’s been dead for seven long years. Frankly, I suspect most British people would shrug their shoulders with resignation and boredom even if it were reported that a fairly important royal had been photographed mainlining anthrax spores while fellating a pine marten. The newspapers, denied the right to inform their readers of the identity of the blackmail victim, instead directed them to a whole bunch of websites which had blithely ignored the injunction. ‘Yesterday the name of the person was only a click of a mouse and a ten-second internet trawl away,’ the Daily Mail said in a forlorn attempt at breathlessness on Tuesday this week.