your logic works the other way around as well.
every time one of the royal family is 'perceived' as having done something wrong whereby it is open to interpretation or opinion, in some quarters they are given less benefit of the doubt than ordinary people, as it comes down to them being royal class twits, spoilt toffs, parasites on the tax payers, hunters etc. which clouds the issue.
Prince Harry getting drunk like any normal teenager for example

I dont know if Prince Edward did whats accused.
I cant tell either way.

Without going too far off topic - that is exactly what he is not!

so because he is royal, his getting drunk and going to parties is worse??

how does that make sense?

IMO Shona is right on. The whole article smacks to me off pointless tabloid mania with an anti-royalty air. Is there really nothing better to report at the moment than this photo which proves nothing either way? Personally i suspect that if the paps were constantly snapping photos from long distances and odd angles there would be one or two that looked "dodgy" and yet would be entirely innocent.

I have never thrashed a dog in my life but yet i dread to think how i might have looked trying to break up the fight i mentioned on the other thread. You could probably read a thousand things into one poorly taken/timed shot.

Very good point. And just to throw the cat among the pigeons (at the risk of going off topic) as it was mentioned in the hunting thread, the anti field sports movement seems to be just as much about anti-upper class as anti-cruelty.

All the photos look to me like a warning "gerroff" type swing.

What I asked my hubby was "would you know it was Prince Edward if they had not told you?"
So I can't see for sure that it is Edward, so can I tell for sure that he hit the dog?

Bingo! Gotta love those paps

He is a human and we all have to learn and make mistakes, etc. Just because he is a royal doesn't make him super-human! If getting sloshed and making a twit of yourself as a teenager is terrible, then I expect an awful lot of us on this forum have been 'terrible' at some point in our lives. I think it's hypocritical to expect a teenager to behave sensibly at all times, royal or not! In fact, that's what I like about today's royals. They don't do the 'I'm perfect' attitude, which makes it much easier to relate to them. So PE waved a stick at his dog - big deal! I am sure if he had hurt or assaulted him, we'd have seen lots of tabloid blurb about it.

[QUOTE=CheekyChihuahua;1563211]He is a human and we all have to learn and make mistakes, etc. Just because he is a royal doesn't make him super-human! If getting sloshed and making a twit of yourself as a teenager is terrible, then I expect an awful lot of us on this forum have been 'terrible' at some point in our lives. I think it's hypocritical to expect a teenager to behave sensibly at all times, royal or not! In fact, that's what I like about today's royals. They don't do the 'I'm perfect' attitude, which makes it much easier to relate to them. QUOTE]

Now i am not neccesarily a big fan of the royals but i agree with you Cheeky - besides, i would rather have some members of the royal family who have more than a passing awareness of what goes on in the normal world than one who has lead their entire life closetted from it. Anyhoo - i am definitely going OT now

I agree, we are getting a bit off-topic but I think the OT points are quite relevant to this thread as, if it wasn't PE in the pic, who would give a flying hoot about it. It's not like he was actually abusing the dog You are so right, about today's Royals having some idea of the real world, whereas I think things were very different say thirty years ago