FORGIVENESS, put simply, is accepting that someone made a mistake and agreeing not to hold it against them.
So, should we forgive Prince Andrew?
The Archbishop of Canterbury, the most senior religious leader in Britain, thinks we should mark the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee by doing exactly that – although he’s since clarified that he was making a “broader point” that “we must become a more forgiving society”.
But is Andrew seeking to make amends?
Or is he seeking to repair his battered reputation and regain some relevance in public life?
If forgiveness is accepting that someone made a mistake, we need to know what Prince Andrew thinks his mistake was. There’s plenty to choose from.
Read more from Piers
Was it heaping global embarrassment on his mother, the Queen, and the Royal Family?
Was it remaining close friends with Jeffrey Eptein after he admitted child abuse?
Was it giving the most embarrassing interview in royal history; ludicrously claiming a meal at a pizza restaurant and the inability to sweat proved his innocence?
This grand old Duke of York has had ten thousand excuses.
Most read in News TV
Virginia Giuffre accused Prince Andrew of sexually assaulting her at the age of 17 after she was trafficked to the homes of Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell.
He said he’d fight to clear his name, then wrote a cheque for many million dollars to avoid his day in court. He vehemently denies any wrongdoing.
Surely, forgiveness starts with explaining what he did – and then a “sorry.”
All we’ve seen from Prince Andrew is “I’m going to clear my name,” followed by “I’m writing a fat cheque to avoid going to court.”
That’s not acceptance or repentance, and Andrew – I’m sorry – I think the public might find the forgiveness part quite difficult without you keeping your half of the deal.
FRIENDLY FIRE
Talking of leaders who need to be stopped, is it the beginning of the end for British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, a man very uncomfortable with the truth?
He’s had a turbulent premiership with the pandemic, partygate and now ruinous inflation.
But he’s now coming under ferocious friendly fire which I believe will be politically fatal to him.
At least 29 of Johnson’s own Conservative MPs have now publicly called for him to quit. If 54 of them write letters of no confidence, he’ll face a vote that may have him packing his bags at No10.
And frankly, I think he should be.
Boris Johnson’s whole brand is built on bluster, blather and bull. That and making people laugh.
A leader can get away with that style in the good times.
But when times get hard, and people start dying, losing their jobs, or finding they can’t afford to feed their kids, that style wears very thin very fast, and none of it seems funny anymore.
Especially when voters discover the man who locked them down for several years was a shameless hypocrite partying it up in Downing Street with his staff.
It’s that shocking double standard over his own rules that is driving the Tory rebellion, and which lies at the heart of his dreadful approval ratings.
I’ve got a letter of my own to the Prime Minister, and it’s a short one:
Dear Boris.
The party’s over.
Resign.
UNI MOBS RULE
Universities used to be places where students were keen to broaden their minds by hearing different views.
Now they’ve become seething woke hotbeds of vicious violent intolerance.
The latest target was British Education Secretary Nadhim Zahawi, visiting Warwick University.
A furious mob of students hounded Zahawi off campus by howling abuse at him, and physically hitting members of the university’s conservative association who had invited him.
And his crime?
Protesters reportedly accused him of “inciting hatred” by defining a woman as an adult human female. He wasn’t, he was stating a simple biological fact.
What the hell is going on at our universities?
There’s a complete intolerance of free speech among many modern students who’ve been brain-washed by woke cancel culture mentality.
They need to realise that in the real world, not everybody is going to agree with them. And if they want to live in the kind of tolerant society they preach about, tolerating other people’s opinions is the right place to start.
Especially when, like Mr Zahawi’s, those opinions are right.
A RIGHT ROYAL KNEES-UP
Now, a public service broadcast for our friends across the pond.
It’s the American’s guide to the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee. You’ll be hearing a lot about it.
The Jubilee is when Brits celebrate our monarch.
The monarch is of course like our president, only without politics or power, which is why we tend to like them.
And unlike other royal events which celebrate change – for example, coronations and weddings – a Jubilee celebrates the lack of change – namely, the monarch still being alive.
If that doesn’t sound like much, only six have ever made it to a Golden Jubilee for 50 years on the throne, only two made their Diamond Jubilee for 60, and only one – Her Majesty – has ever gone Platinum.
That’s seventy years in the hot seat.
We celebrate all this with parties in the street, because it’s free and everyone’s too drunk to drive anyway.
We hang up something called “bunting”, which are little paper flags tied to lampposts because, well, because we always have.
We eat sandwiches and Victoria Sponge, which is a big cake named after another monarch.
And if this seems like a strange thing to be doing at a time of inflation and war, we don’t really care, because we’ve got a day off work, the pubs are open late and, yes, we love our Queen.