Sarah Ferguson: Shooting Hangers-On in a Barrel

So Sarah Ferguson has been turned over by the News of the World this morning? Reading the front page, it was as much as I could do not to yawn. Yet another sorry tale of money grubbing in Banana Republic GB.

The cash for access sting is unsurprising; it indicates that some people close to the Royals see it as a right to leverage their access for cash. Yes, it’s a ruthless turnover and it just about ticks the public interest box – but wake up, cronies; this is what the NOTW does, so very well.

Does it damage the image of the Royal family? Of course not! But it does extend the vocabulary of clichés that surround the desperate, sycophantic court hangers-on; the snobby fools who identify their tenuous alignment to a minor Royal as some sort of accomplishment when it is clear from the outside that it’s nothing more than archaic, and rather sad, snobbery.

Trading on loose connections make this middle class pond-slime vulnerable, an easy target. These pygmies are plentiful – they collect in the same barrel and almost beg to be shot. In these cash-strapped times, figures in public life would do well to be more on guard, employing wily PR minders in the background to deflect the trouble caused by media and hangers on.

Greed and hubris lies at the centre of public life. To be human means that mistakes will be made. It’s time for a sanity check. Hungry Sunday newspapers stalk public life, huge beasts trying to be the best model of Darwinian living available. The hard truth is that only the fit and wise (be they celebrity or minor royal) will survive – and in lean times it becomes urgently necessary to dispatch the weaker members of the pack.