Platell's Pathetic Princess Pettiness

Back in 2008, Amanda Platell, now the undisputed Glenda Emeritus of the Daily Mail, decided to snipe at one of the junior Royals: Beatrice, one of the Duke of York’s daughters, spent “too much time on her generous bottom … a young woman must take responsibility for her own thighs”, venturing out of her draughty glasshouse only to collect those More And Bigger Paycheques For Herself Personally Now.

The stuff of nightmares

And one thing that the obedient hackery of the legendarily foul mouthed Paul Dacre can be relied upon is to maintain their mean-spirited grudges: today, Ms Platell is back on Beatrice’s case, in support of an equally mean-spirited article entitled “Beatrice 'the scrounger': Unemployed royal under attack for jet set lifestyle after taking three holidays in barely a month”. Someone else paid - what’s the problem?

Ms Platell can think of plenty of problems. “Princess Beatrice has earned her own wounding nickname. She's been branded 'Her Royal Work Shyness' after revelations that, aged 26, she has given up her job with Sony Pictures and has just returned from her third luxury holiday in a month. She is derided by a red-top newspaper as a 'royal scrounger’”. Is Amanda Platell in productive employment right now? Just asking.

But there’s more: “Beatrice is risking the monarchy's future by flaunting her privilege in a world of increasing restraint, while shirking even the most basic employment. And goodness knows, there are plenty of graduates who'd kill for a job in the film industry!” She ain’t in the film industry Mandy, you just said she’d left it. And some people are better-connected than Daily Mail pundits. Well, how rotten is that, eh?

The carping continues: “The younger royals seem not to have realised that with great privilege comes great responsibility - and that their royal lives and titles cannot come on their own terms. Beatrice is not alone in this fundamental failing. Harry oscillates between cavorting as the playboy prince and doing wonderful work with his African charity. William would rather play happy families with the Middletons - with whom he is currently holidaying in the Caribbean - than step up to royal duties”.

Whine, madam? I’m not a great Royalist, but nor am I a passionate Republican. The Royal Family will endure as long as it is useful to the British people to have it there, and, right now, they seem to find it pretty useful. If someone wants to pay for Beatrice to go off on hols - her partner isn’t exactly skint - then that’s their business.

What makes this kind of attack particularly incongruous is that Amanda Bloody Platell appears to do very little productive work, and even her Saturday columns are little more than a catalogue of sniping, sneering, catty, jealous, petty and vindictive whining, the kind of thing that can be picked up from social media without having her over-generous salary thrown at it. She wants to tell others to get a proper job, she should get one herself.

Trouble is, who would want to waste money employing her? Reality - awful, isn’t it?