Is there a more heart-wrenching narrative than that of Virginia Giuffre’s autobiography, released after her tragic suicide earlier this year at 41?

The book, titled “Nobody’s Girl,” hits the shelves this month, chronicling the journey of an innocent whose life was shattered by ruthless, self-serving, and morally corrupt men, including Prince Andrew.

Virginia recounts her first disturbing encounter with the royal at Ghislaine Maxwell’s London residence. There, Maxwell and her sinister partner, Jeffrey Epstein, introduced Virginia to Prince Andrew, treating her as a prized item in a twisted display, akin to an unsettling version of “The Great British Bake Off.”

In a chilling moment, Andrew, treating the situation as a frivolous game, accurately guessed the teenager’s age. She stood before him in Britney Spears-inspired jeans and a crop top, revealing she was 17, while he noted his daughters were just slightly younger.

Such stark reality should have deterred any man with a shred of morality from continuing down this path of debauchery. Yet, as the years unveil, Prince Andrew seems far removed from any realm of decency, steadily immersing himself in disgrace.

Giuffre’s memoir paints Andrew, then 41, as friendly yet ‘entitled,’ believing it was his privilege to be with her. He impatiently bypassed any pretense and moved swiftly to fulfill his desires.

‘He paid particular attention to my feet’, Virginia writes, worried at the time that she would have to reciprocate and do the same to him. The poor child.

Prince Andrew and Virginia, after being introduced by Ghislaine Maxwell

Virginia’s story reveals that her whole life was bookended with horror at the hands of men. She alleges her father sexually molested her and traded her to a family friend when she was between the ages of seven and 11 years old.

Her father, Sky Roberts, strenuously denies this but make what you will of the fact that the friend later spent 14 months in prison for abusing another minor and was on America’s registered sex offenders list for over a year.

In the months before she died, alone in a remote farmhouse in Australia, Virginia had tried to revise her book following alleged domestic violence at the hands of her husband, Robbie Giuffre, with whom she was in a custody battle for their three children.

She had originally described him in her pages as ‘part guru, part goofball’, but even that dream had soured, too. There was to be no happy ever after for poor Virginia, who could never escape her past.

It can’t have helped her mental state that Prince Andrew has essentially called Giuffre a liar – and for many years has repeatedly denied sexually assaulting her. In 2022 he paid her a multi-million-pound out-of-court settlement while making no admission of guilt. And in his famous Newsnight interview in 2019, he even denied ever meeting her.

‘It didn’t happen. I can absolutely categorically tell you it never happened. I have no recollection of ever meeting this lady, none whatsoever,’ he told Emily Maitlis back then.

Yet it has now been revealed that when the infamous photograph of the prince with his arm around Virginia was first published in the British media in 2011, Andrew sent Jeffrey Epstein a yelping email to say ‘we are in this together’ to ‘keep in close touch’ and ‘let’s play some more soon’.

Virginia Giuffre, with a photo of herself as a teenager

All of which suggests Prince Andrew knew all along exactly who Virginia Giuffre was, remembered precisely what they had done together and had not forgotten the nature of their liaisons. What other explanation could there be for the tone and content of his correspondence? Absolutely none.

All of this puts further pressure on the Duke of York and the Royal Family. Not just because so many of his denials have turned to dust or that his personal recollections of his own behaviour vary and stray from the accounts of others.

Yet the big question is not how can the royals carry on living with soiled Prince Andrew festering away in their midst, it is how can he live with himself? What role did he have in the death of this young woman?

Of course, the Duke is not directly responsible for Virginia Giuffre killing herself – but he is a golden stitch in this tapestry of shame. His lofty insistence that they had never met despite her claims to the contrary must have taken a toll. It must have been humiliating, at the very least.

Don’t forget that Virginia Giuffre was one of the earliest and loudest voices who called for criminal charges against Epstein and his enablers, including Ghislaine Maxwell. Other abuse survivors later credited her for giving them the courage to speak out, too, and bring at least some of these men – and one woman – to justice.

Virginia was damaged but she was brave until the end, despite the fact that throughout her life men had abused her, denied her, dismissed her and disparaged her.

It is part of our national disgrace that Prince Andrew was one of them.

 I’m smitten by the showgirl in love

Yes, I do understand why many music lovers are not Swifties and cannot understand the fuss over TS, even if she is the biggest pop star in the world.

Indeed, after the first few listens I didn’t much like The Life of A Showgirl, her new album. Then it grew on me like a chain, a crown, a vine – now I think it is three parts masterpiece, one part genius and let’s not talk about Wood.

However, songs such as The Fate Of Ophelia and Opalite are the sound of a woman in love, with all the joy that suggests. After finding her prince, Taylor is in a post-toad euphoria, and the resulting music is irresistible.

Elsewhere the production values, the costumes, the choreography, the work ethic, the professionalism, the style, the sheer verve, exuberance and ambition of it all is just gasping.

The video for The Fate Of Ophelia alone puts all Swift’s contemporaries in the shade. In her feathers and sequins Taylor makes Dua Lipa and Katy Perry look like schoolgirls performing in an end of term panto.

What a show, girl.

Maggie had an affair? Don’t be so ridiculous 

When it comes to Margaret Thatcher there is a determination – an obsession! – from the Left to rewrite history and depict her as the worst political ogre to ever besmirch Parliament with her presence.

I’ve lost count of the negative depictions of her in derogatory BBC dramas and also from pious documentaries which always focus on her faults, never her achievements.

Lady T is still spoken of with fury in some quarters and regarded as the woman who ruined Britain in others, when it seems clear that the opposite was true. Mrs Thatcher had her faults, but she saved us from at least a decade of discontent – and the rest – but few care.

The latest maligning concerns her sex life. Did Margaret Thatcher have an affair? Two affairs? I double doubt it, but author Tina Gaudoin floats these allegations – and then fails to back them up in The Incidental Feminist, her new biography of the former Conservative leader.

Just because Thatcher had a ‘particular weakness for handsome men of a certain age who stood up straight and wore well-cut suits’ – don’t we all? – doesn’t mean she was sleeping with them, too. Where would she find the time, for a start?

Jonathan Aitken, Tim Bell and Humphrey Atkins – these are the torrid names in the Maggie frame. The first is a convicted perjurer, the second was a drug-taking womaniser and the third was a minister who some say was incompetent but who kept getting promoted under Maggie. Don’t all snigger at once.

‘Why was that?’ chin-stroking gossips now wonder. For me, this last one was the clincher. Even if demotic, workaholic Maggie – she only needed five hours sleep a night – was having sex with her then Northern Ireland Secretary, she wouldn’t be giving him promotions for the privilege and the pleasure.

Quite the opposite, in fact. Humphrey would have been Minister for Paper Clips sooner than he could put a shaking hand on her knee. If this book is meant to be a feminist retelling of events, it insultingly forgets that Mrs Thatcher was a formidable politician and tactician, not some giddy Spice Girl kicking off her knickers at the first sight of a handsome chappie pouring her a whisky.

‘Every prime minister needs a Willie,’ she once famously said. Yet this wasn’t a lonely clarion call for sexual congress, just an acknowledgement of her trusty deputy William Whitelaw’s managerial skills. Poor Maggie! She deserves better than this.

Victoria’s Secret brought the sexy back with their new lingerie show. The US underwear giant previously tried to change their image with sensible knicks and sedate advertising, but their woke rebrand failed – as woke rebrands tend to do.

Now they are back to the skimp and the plunge, giving the opportunity for every model and nepo baby in showbiz to climb into suspenders, eye-popping bras and a pair of porn pants while pretending that they are doing it all for the beauty of art. Or something.

‘I’m doing it to show that motherhood can be subversive,’ said Emily Ratajkowski in an orchid-petal pink thong. Of course you are, dear.

What’s the type for insufferably smug? 

Oh hello. Gwyneth Paltrow has described herself as an Enneagram Type 1.

This is a form of personality typification based on ancient wisdoms – when are they not? – and which is currently popular in California.

There are nine types of personality and GP says she is one called The Reformer; someone who is rational, idealistic, principled, purposeful, self-controlled and ‘perfectionistic’. Very good, even if people who describe themselves as perfectionists must be avoided at all costs.

One worrying thing about the Enneagram classifications is they are all incredibly flattering. You are either agreeable or decisive or versatile or engaging or perceptive or sensitive or driven or generous.

Where is the category for methodical, dull, cautious, clumsy, emotionally constipated and an embarrassment on the world stage?

Only asking because Keir Starmer wants to know.