That the attacks on Duchess Sarah are orchestrated, I'm convinced, and take advantage of her relative lack of any guidance and protection. I repeat, this hoo-ha is an oblique attack on Andrew's continuing success in bringing money into the UK. Even his most stringent critic couldn't deny his successes, here.
Let's recap. The man who inveigled the Duchess into a long, boozy dinner, placing $US40,000 in fresh notes beside an ashtray, and ordering another bottle of wine afterwards is Mahzer Mahmood, whose elaborate stings have trapped celebrities, other royals and crooks.
It was Mahmood who, in 2001, posed as an Arab sheikh and met up with the former PR woman, now the Countess of Wessex, at a £1200-a-night suite in London's swank Dorchester Hotel.
There, with his trademark alcohol-based modus operandi, he pitched for a phantom £20,000-a-month PR account supposedly promoting a Dubai investment company.
Just as the Duchess of York slurred incomprehensibly, so the Countess of Wessex allegedly let fly with embarrassing remarks about everyone from her in-laws in the royal family, to the then prime minister, Tony Blair. However, in this case, the royal PR machine went into top gear when the Countess told her husband, and the palace immediately set the lawyers in train. Not one word was published - although the Countess, strangely, gave the paper an exclusive interview with an apparently approved front-page headline: ''Sophie: my Edward is NOT gay.'' (ick: who cares? it's none of our business, after all. His private life is his own and not worthy of comment).
For the besieged Duchess of York, however, there was no PR machine, no royal lawyers. She issued a statement, alone, after being seen crying her way across the Atlantic to receive an award for her outstanding charity work. And what did the less sensational press have to say?
A number of newspaper columnists labelled the tabloid sting "far from a major scandal", with some saying they felt "sorry" for the Duchess as she struggles to keep financially afloat after her divorce.
The Guardian's columnist Guy Dammann wrote that "flogging influence for cash is an ancient practice in business".
"What makes Prince Andrew so special that, as a man of influence in his capacity both as international playboy and British trade envoy, people shouldn't buy an introduction to him if they see fit?
"And why should it be so shameful to sell this introduction?" It's normal business practice, after all.
Sam Leith of the London Evening Standard said it was "hard for people to remember that being vulgar isn't a moral failing, and it certainly isn't blanket licence for spite".
"Humiliating the Duchess of York in the papers isn't a public service. It's a sport, and not a skilled sport like fencing or archery - more a recreation."
Terence Blacker said in a column for The Independent that she was "not the villain of the piece" and the royal family were to blame for not supporting her after her divorce from Prince Andrew.
"When the Duchess of York was released into the peculiarly nasty outside world, the Windsors might have ensured that she was given some kind of help and protection, not least from herself, but they did not.
"As a result, this ordinary, not particularly bright woman, has been left to tout her semi-royalty, her fragile celebrity status, in order to make a living.
" ... Like a fat girl who wants to be liked, the Duchess of York is the perfect victim for these playground bullies, as time and again she tries to ingratiate herself, never with any lasting success."
Similarly, years ago, a young Alex Montagu worked for and with my husband. This Australian man, now the 13th Duke of Manchester, and his delightful mother, Lady Montagu, have suffered dreadfully at the hands of an harassing and nasty UK press. Alex' life was often topsy-turvey, (at one stage, as a young man, he was imprisoned) but reading about him in the tabloids in the UK, one might have thought him the devil incarnate. He wasn't, despite his many difficulties. Today, he lives in the US, quite quietly and anonymously, so far as is possible. I'd be surprised if he ever contemplated returning to the UK as he believes its press intolerable, e.g. a few years ago, a Texas millionaire offered Alex a huge amount of money to sell his title (only in Texas, only in Texas!). Of course, it wasn't legally possible, and Duke Alex was greatly amused. However, press reports in the UK screamed "Duke of Manchester, Diana's cousin, to sell title to highest bidder."
If I were Sarah,I'd follow suit and join Alex in California. America certainly has problems with an intrusive and incursive tabloid press, but it's rarely as vicious and as ill-founded as the UK's.
And did anyone else notice that beginning 2 years ago, Sarah has been the Queen's guest at Balmoral? Probably not - it just doesn't make good tabloid copy.