Andrew ousted in brutal sacking. What will 'commoner' life be like?

0:02The Telegraph

0:10In an unprecedented and brutal statement, the royal family has stripped Andrew of his titles and his home. In a special edition of The Daily Tea, we will go inside the negotiations between the king and his brother, ask where his brother will live next, and is the palace concerned about Andrew's mental health? Welcome to The Daily Tea with me, Tim Stanley.

0:43First he was a prince, then he was a duke. Now he is just Mr. Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor. Camilla Tomini, you chose a difficult week to go on holiday. Last night, the Royal Palace issued the following extraordinary historical statement. Quote, His Majesty has today initiated a formal process to remove the style, title and honours of Prince Andrew. Prince Andrew will now be known as Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor. His lease on Royal Lodge has today provided him with legal protection to continue in residence. Formal notice has now been served to surrender the lease and he will move to alternative private accommodation.

1:21These censures are deemed necessary, notwithstanding the fact that he continues to deny the allegations against him. Their Majesties wish to make clear that their thoughts and utmost sympathies have been, and will remain with, the victims and survivors of any and all forms of abuse. And then in capital letters, Ns. Victoria Ward, you are the Deputy Royal Editor of The Telegraph. Thank you for joining us. You're welcome. When did this land, as they say? So the statement dropped at 7pm last night, Thursday night. The royal editors and correspondents were given about seven minutes warning that it was coming.

1:59We didn't know what it was, but we were told that a statement was coming at 7pm by email. And that was what landed. And nobody had an inkling of what was to come. Now, to most of us, this would seem, feels like it came out of the blue. But actually, we discussed this earlier, you're saying this has been a slightly longer process than the public might appreciate. I think it has. Yes. So obviously we had two weeks ago, the palace put out the statement in Prince Andrew's words, where he voluntarily relinquished his titles. And they were hoping that that was going to be enough and that that would satisfy the public appetite and they could go to the Vatican on their historic state visit and not be overshadowed by the Prince Andrew scandal and that things might be able to move on.

2:39But actually, I think they realised pretty quickly that that wasn't going to suffice and it wasn't enough. And there was this huge public clamour, there was political pressure. And so I think they realised quite quickly that they needed to do something else. So talks began to start this process to formally remove these titles and remove the Prince title over a week ago. But it's been very convoluted, huge numbers of people involved. They've consulted all wider members of the royal family. There's the government. There's all sorts of people, the legalities of it. So they needed to get all their ducks in a row.

3:11So these talks have been going on for over a week. But they only, interestingly, secured agreement from Prince Andrew late on Thursday, just only shortly before the statement was put out. So it wasn't cut and dried. Because you say talks, that includes lawyers, as you say, and politicians to try to work out how you feasibly do this. But an element of it is also negotiation with Andrew himself. Oh, yes, absolutely. Do we know what he was negotiating, what it was he was trying to get out of this process? We do a little bit, because let's not forget, the King's been trying to get him out of Royal Lodge for nearly two years, certainly 18 months at least.

3:43So this has been a back and forth argument for a really long time. And he's always said that the plan in place was for him to go to Frogmore Cottage. That's what Buckingham Palace wanted him to do, and he's always refused to do that. What we've learnt today is that the red line for Andrew and his closest advisors was that if he was going to move out of Royal Lodge, it had to be a property that was not on the Crown Estate, because in their eyes, rightly I think, if he moved to Frogmore Cottage, which was still part of the Crown Estate, there's no difference at all between that and Royal Lodge. He's still going to be facing public political media pressure.

4:17The same pressures apply. Why? Because the Crown Estate is not privately owned. They're working on behalf of the nation. The idea is that the Crown Estate is looking after this land and these properties on behalf of the nation. So it's not officially royal private property. Okay. So they didn't want a situation in which he was still living off something which is connected to the public. Exactly. And actually, they said that the Frogmore Cottage, this long-term plan where they've been trying to get him such a long time was potentially a worse scenario than Royal Lodge because at least with Royal Lodge when he moved in in 2003 he paid an eight million pound upfront stump of cash which covered him for the the next 20 years whereas if he moved into Frogmore he'd have paid nothing and and so there was always the potential for further controversy and public clamor to get him out whereas with this the new plan where he's going into a private property owned by the king privately, that's completely separate and he can live there in peace.

5:19Just to pick up on that point, because I think it's an important one, you say he invested about£8 million into Royal Lodge. Yes, at the beginning. What would he get back for moving out? Does he get any compensation for leaving? So the terms of the lease, so the lease wasn't due to expire until 2078. And that's why he had always been able to put his foot down thus far, because he had this cast iron lease and the palace had even got to the point where they had tried everything they could and they had accepted that they weren't going to be able to get him out because of this lease. In order for him to break it, he has to agree to break it.

5:52This$8 million covered him up until 2028, I think it was. So by breaking that lease two or three years early, he's potentially in line for compensation of around£500 ,000. But, and this is quite a big but, the palace has made clear that any money that's needed to renovate Royal Lodge because it hasn't been kept in the best state of repair will come out of that compensation. So in reality, he's probably going to end up with very little. Have you been to Royal Lodge? I've never been to it, but I've seen pictures recently. There's been a lot of photographs of healing paintwork and all sorts. I don't think it's an attractive property.

6:32It looks like a giant bunker to me it looks like a hospital to me it's very yeah white and stark or one of those sorts of rundown places that cults buy it's just not a very attractive place i wouldn't particularly want to live in it it doesn't look but it hasn't got that homely no about it has it no um let's talk about the statement itself let's break that down i i okay i we have seen royal statements in the past and they can be a little terse but this seems to me to be brutal is that a fair interpretation. I think it's fair. It's very terse. There's no emotion there, is there really? No, no. And so they do state, I mean, the one thing, the one bone that they throw him is notwithstanding the fact that he continues to deny the allegations against him, which it's not, it's he still says he's innocent.

7:17And I think perhaps they've got to put that in because they're taking this such an unprecedented, drastic action. One for the history books really, isn't it? And questions will be asked about why they're doing it and they've got to give a nod to the fact that he hasn't actually been convicted of anything and i guess the question is if you're cutting him off like this and you're kicking him out why aren't you going to the police with him so you have to say he continues to deny all things because otherwise it just makes just begs the question so why don't you demand an investigation of him if you're willing to do this stuff to him and the way it closes with their majesty's wish to make clear that their thoughts and utmost sympathies have been and will remain with the victims and survivors of any of all sorts of abuse, makes it very clear where their sympathies lie.

8:00Well, that line was the line that stood out for me by Country Mile. Really interesting. I think it's the first time the palace has ever officially declared their sympathies for the victims of abuse in that kind of way, in a public official statement. It's also very interesting that it's their majesties. It's not just the king at this point. It's bringing the queen in. It's the king and queen. And that's important because domestic abuse is such a huge part of the queen's work. She will have wanted that in there and she'd want it on the record that that's where she stands and that's her stance because both her and the Duchess of Edinburgh, who also does a lot of campaigning for victims of sexual abuse and sexual violence all over the world, will want to continue that work and it's very important for them.

8:39It's one of the key planks of both of their public lives. The Queen talked recently about an attempted sexual assault on her when she was younger, didn't she? She did. Yes, I don't think she spoke about it directly, but it came out in a book, didn't it and they confirmed that it had happened yeah right right yeah a teenager so so um it just it loads the whole thing against andrew that's the key thing is that emotionally you read this and they say we are done with him and we want to make it clear that we are done with him and not only that we're done with him but we're siding with right the other you know right right so do we think this is coming from charles or will yes i think it is very much coming from trials.

9:18I think William's obviously on board. There's no doubt about the fact that he supports the king. He's wanted this done for ages. He's long insisted that the palace take a stronger line on Andrew back from when the queen was alive. I think he was always desperate for them to do more and do more. He does support the king. He fully supports him. He appreciates the line that he's taken. I don't think he's been completely instrumental in the last couple of weeks in this particular development. He's been away for school holidays, half term. He's in Brazil? He's going to Brazil, yes. Well, that starts next week.

9:52So he's flying to Brazil over the weekend, and then it's the Earthshot Prize, and he's away, and then it's COP towards the end of next week. So he's away. He hasn't been there sitting with the king and Andrew in the room, you know, thrashing this all out. But from the sidelines, he very much made clear that he supports it, and he'll be pleased that this is done. He wanted the king to deal with this before he became king. There was some interesting reporting in the morning where reporters had clearly spoken to Andrew or people adjacent to Andrew. Those reports were saying that, I keep going to call him the Duke.

10:27He's neither a Duke nor a Prince. He's just a Mr. But Mr Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor has fully supported what the King had done and is in fact relieved. Yes. Do you buy that? Well, that's what I've been told by his team. Why would he be relieved? Well, what they say is, and you can understand there must be an element of truth in this. For 15 years, he's had parts of his life stripped away slice by slice and to the point where he's left with nothing. So it started in 2011 when he was stripped of his trade envoy role, back when the Virginia Dufresne allegations first emerged. And that was obviously a huge public accumulation, lots of scandal and allegations flying around over the years.

11:09and then you come to the Newsnight interview and then directly after the Newsnight interview which was in October, November 2019 he was told he had to step back from public duties entirely and then he had the civil case with Virginia Dufresne and then in January 2022 as part of that, just before he settled that claim he was stripped of his military affiliations and his patronages and then we had two weeks ago being told he had to voluntarily stop using his titles and so it has you can see that he's been living with this for a very long time and what they what his team argue is that the palace it's a failed palace strategy because what they've been doing is chipping away and chipping away every time it comes this scandal comes up to the public for again and there's clamor for some action but what they've never actually done is dealt with the real issue the crux of the issue and that is that he's been accused of sexually abusing Virginia Dufresne.

12:07He's never actually been allowed to clear his name. And when you think about, when you think back to the civil claim in late 21, early 22, Andrew was desperate for that to go to trial. He wanted it before a jury. He genuinely was convinced that he was going to get acquitted. He wanted to see it through. Well, hence he had the Maitlis interview. He thought if I make my case, people will believe me. Yes. He really genuinely thought that people would believe him. And he was adamant all So that civil trial, there were months and months of awful headlines and all these allegations and horrific claims being thrown around.

12:43And it was dominating the media agenda for a really long time. He didn't care. He was so convinced that he'd get off. But ultimately, it was the palace that said to him, you've got to draw a line under this. We can't have it overshadowing the Queen's Platinum Jubilee celebrations. So he settled because he was told he had to. The Queen gave him the money to do it. and he drew a line under it for the sake of the monarchy and for the institution because he was basically given no choice. And so he's been left in this kind of limbo, whatever you think of him and whatever he may or may not have done.

13:15As far as he's concerned, he's never been given the opportunity to clear his name. But I think that's why, coming back to your original point, is this now a relief? I think in a way you can kind of see he's, I mean, somebody said to me this morning that he'd been living almost like an under house arrest for six years at Royal Lodge because he's got nothing, he can't go out, he can't do anything, he's got no life. So in a way, by finally removing the last vestiges of royal life and being a proper private citizen, perhaps it is a bit of relief. He's not beholden to anyone anymore. Is there any hint that the palace might be concerned about Andrew?

13:54In terms of his mental state and welfare? Yes, absolutely. I think there is actually. I think they're, interestingly, it's not been something that's come up before, but Palisades and others on the periphery have started noting that they have a duty of care to both Andrew and Sarah Ferguson and urging members of the media and others to remember that these are human beings at the centre of this and just to be mindful in their reporting about the pressure that people, individuals are under. I do think there's a concern, yes. And somebody said to me, somebody else said to me this morning, I don't think anybody can understand the level of pressure and the level of when you're living under this such public malice and hatred against you.

14:44Nobody can understand that, which I think is probably fair, isn't it? What do we know so far about where he might go to? So we know that he's going to go to a small property on the Sandringham Estate in Norfolk. And forgive me, why is that acceptable in a way that Frogmore isn't? So Sandringham is owned by the king privately. So it's not crown estate property, it's purely, it's the king. And so he can go and live there, he's not beholden to anyone, the public, there's no lease, there's no anything. He can live, the king's going to fund his upkeep privately, out of his private purse, not out of his funding he gets from the Duchy of Lancaster.

15:21And it'll be a pretty lonely life, I think, up there. It will, but on the other hand, he's being publicly discredited and cut off, but privately the family is still taking responsibility for him. Yes, they're still, yes, they're not casting him out on the streets, are they? I mean, Sarah Ferguson, different matters. She's been left to go and make her own way, I think. She'll have to find her own accommodation. Sarah's been told she has to find her own accommodation. Oh. So she has been literally being casted. You can come and live with me, Sarah. Remain a fan, I'll go to my grave a fan. It's interesting their situation, isn't it?

15:53because, I mean, how many ex-formerly married couples live together in this way? But Royal Lodge is so vast that they could do that. They still get on very well. And Sarah could have a wing to herself at Royal Lodge and they can live kind of separate lives, as separate as they wanted them to be. And how fast will this process take? It's quite a slow process, actually. The palace has likened it to selling a house in terms of extracting yourself from all the legal bits and bobs. Early New Year, I've been told that he'll actually move to Sandrium. And that's very convenient because let's not forget the royal family will gather en masse at Christmas at Sandrium, the big house, Sandrium house.

16:32And it would have been very awkward, wouldn't it? And again, all of these scandals would have come up if Andrew had been hidden away in a small cottage next door while the family was out. Looking through the window. Exactly. And possibly going up, knocking on the kitchen door and asking for some milk and some sugar. Or if they went out for their, you know, they go shooting on their shooting parties on Boxing Day and whatnot. They bump into him. Bump into Andrew, yeah. They couldn't have that. So it's quite convenient, I think, that Andrew and Sarah can both stay at Royal Lodge in Windsor, more than 100 miles away, until after Christmas.

17:04But it would be quite a lonely and isolated Christmas. I think it will be. I think last year was as well. They did the same last year. They were on their own at Royal Lodge last year. Yes. So it's not something that's completely unfamiliar to them. We think he'll have one or two members of staff, potentially. He's never had to fend for himself. He probably doesn't know how to cook and clean. He's never had to do anything like that. Oh, he was in the army. He'll know how to make sausages and eggs. He had people to cook for him, even in the army. In the army? He did. He had subordinates who were looking after him in the army.

17:32What the hell kind of an army was this? We still won, so this was the foreclosure. And he will have the consolation that his daughters are going to retain their titles and their invitation. Yes, that was important. That was important to the king, actually. it was made clear over the last couple of weeks, it's been made clear that all of these discussions have included Beatrice and Eugenie. And they wanted to ensure that they had no concerns, that they were going to be impacted and that their titles would be taken away. And the king is very fond of both of them and wanted to ensure that they would be protected.

18:03In your time as a royal correspondent, you will have seen divorces, marriages, arguments and all these sorts of things and scandals. Has this week felt different? I think it's the biggest. It definitely felt different. Really, the biggest? This is the biggest thing that's happened on my watch. And I started covering this beat a week before the Newsnight interview in 2019. So we've had Megxit. Megxit was huge, obviously. We've had the deaths and the coronations and everything. But to strip the king's brother of all of his titles and make him essentially a commoner is beyond anything else, I think.

18:38Victoria Ward, thank you very much. Welcome.

18:44Victoria has spoken about what's happened and what will happen next, but what is the historical precedence for all of this? I'm now joined by the venerable historian and commentator, Rafe Heidelman-Ku, who is also the co-editor of Berks Peerage, World Orders of Knighthood and Merit. What he has to say is always interesting and well-informed. Rafe, my first question is, is this historically unprecedented? This is unprecedented. It's not the first time that someone has been stripped of their titles of prince, the style of royal highness, indeed of their peerages. But in the past, this has happened to traitors to the crown, people who have been deemed to be treasonous or who have fought for the enemy side.

19:28So the precedent for this is in 1917, when King George V issued letters patent that decreed who was entitled to the style of royal highness and prince. And this was to streamline who was entitled to it in order to exclude the German cousins and relations who descended from Albert and Victoria, for example, who were, of course, fighting for the enemy's side. At the same time, in 1919, a royal warrant was issued when Princess Patricia of Connaught, who was the granddaughter of Queen Victoria, she wanted to marry and she wished to relinquish her style of royal highness and her title of princess to marry Sir Alexander Ramsey.

20:08that was granted by a royal warrant. But never have we seen somebody being stripped of their title in this situation and in this manner. So completely unprecedented along those lines. In 1917, there were four people who were stripped, the Duke of Albany, the Duke of Cumberland and Teviot and his heir, who had been on the enemy side, and Viscount Taff, an Irish peerish title. They had gone to Austria in the 1700s and had served the emperor. How do you feel about Andrew being bracketed with traitors? The fact that he's receiving the same treatment that has historically been given to people who have actually worked against their country, that's pretty strong stuff.

20:49Yes, and this is something you certainly can't accuse Andrew Mountbatten Windsor of, because whatever he may or may not have done, and he has not been found guilty in a court of law, it must be said, he certainly has not been a traitor to the Crown. He did serve the crown loyally. But it's in that same context that you need to understand this. So in 1982, he was willing to sacrifice his life for queen and country in the Falklands War. And I would say that now he has been called upon to make a similar sacrifice in laying down his public life and everything he holds dear, again, for king and country and for the greater interests of the monarchy, because his life has been overshadowing, particularly recently when we've had the historic visits, for example, of the king to the Holy See, first time in centuries, and yet it was, of course, the king's wayward brother who was still on the front pages.

21:36And so I think everyone understands that the monarchy must take priority and precedence. So, yes, an unfortunate situation in that context. Also, of course, he's losing the Order of the Garter and his role as a night grand cross of the royal Victorian order. Last people to be stripped of the Order of the Garter were, again, enemies of the state. Emperor Hirohito, Emperor of Japan during the Second World War. So he does have some strange bedfellows in that regard. And can you also tell me, can the crown actually do this? It seems some people have suggested that they're sort of jumping over some procedure here to do this, that it's harder to do what they want to do than the letter suggests.

22:20Yes, we need to understand that we're dealing with two different types of honour here. We have the style of Royal Highness, we have the title of Prince, and then we have the Dukedom, which is a peerage title, which is a very different creature. So His Majesty the King has the power and the authority to strip somebody of the style of Royal Highness and of the title of Prince, as was done in 1917 by Lexus patent and in 1919 by royal warrant. So either a royal warrant or a letters patent will be issued to strip Andrew of those titles. Sorry to interrupt, but those documents come from the Crown, right?

22:59They don't involve Parliament. Those are issued by the King. They were issued by King George V in the past so that the King can do that on his own bat. He doesn't need to consult anybody over that. The distinction comes with the dukedom. Peerage titles are treated as a form of property, of heritable property. The legal term is incorporeal hereditament. And it has been long established that the Crown does not have the right to dispossess somebody of their property. This rests on the common law as well as statute goes back for centuries. Only Parliament can divest somebody of their property. Thus, it's only Parliament that can deprive Prince Andrew of his dukedom.

23:40Now, what he's agreed to do is to essentially not be known as the Duke of York. Today it's been announced that his peerage title has been struck from the role of the peerage. And many people think, oh, well, he's not on the role of the peerage, that means he's no longer a Duke. That's not true at all. He still remains a Duke. Not being on the role of the peerage isn't that consequential. It just means that if there are any appointments that Andrew gets in the future, any official documents, he won't be called Duke in those official documents. It's of very limited relevance. He does remain a Duke, but he is Andrew Mountbatten Windsor, Duke of York.

24:16He's not his Royal Highness, the Prince Andrew and he won't use the title of Duke of York either. And of course we know he doesn't have any male children so when he dies the title will naturally become extinct and will revert to the crown. Would people still have to bow to Andrew if they met him? No. No, there's no requirement. You only bow to Royal Highnesses or Majesties so there's no requirement now to bow or curtsy or genuflect or kiss the ring or do anything along those lines at all. That's very interesting. Final question. We've discussed how historically unprecedented this is. So do you think a new precedent has been struck?

24:53Is this likely to be the way in which the royal family deals with difficult members in the future? Well, we've never had a situation quite like this. Many people have suggested or inquired as to whether this might be something that would be in line or in store for the Duke and Duchess of Sussex, particularly in the next reign of William, it's difficult to say. It may well be the case that a future king would strip Harry or indeed his son, who will succeed as His Royal Highness, the Prince Archie, Duke of Sussex, of the Royal Highness and of the Prince. But again, the same issue comes up in terms of the peerage.

25:30What will happen is Prince Harry's grandson, the child of Archie, if he has a son, will lose the Royal Highness naturally because he'll be the great-grandchild of a sovereign he will become his grace, the Duke of Sussex, rather than Royal Highness. So yes, you can strip away the princely title, strip away the style of Royal Highness, but there's very little that the monarchy can do to remove the title of Duke of Sussex from Prince Harry or his descendants. Rafe Heidelmanku, thank you very much. Pleasure. Coming up next, I speak to a Telegraph columnist who thinks we should feel a little sorry for Andrew.

26:14I'm now joined by Annabelle Denham who is a columnist for The Telegraph of course a very famous and brilliant one Annabelle you what I love about your columns is you always say what I thought no one else had the nerve to say I'm not sure that's always a good thing Tim and you asked recently if you were the only one who felt a bit sorry for Andrew well you're not according to one poll 7 % of the country feels sorry for Andrew 93 % of the British public against me. And when that article was published, because of the headline, I would say the first 20 comments just said yes, or yes, with an exclamation mark, in response to the question, why the only one who feels sorry for good time.

26:54I read them later on in the day, and actually quite a few of the comments said, make some good points. I get it. Is this overreaction? Considering when you wrote that, which was about a week ago, and now the process feels like it's come to an end, more may follow but let's assume this is it that andrew's been stripped of all his titles kicked out of royal lodge do you still feel sorry for him or even more sorry for him well i think i feel more sorry for him because he's had this most recent of many humiliations dragged out for the best part of a fortnight and it does have death by a thousand cut vibes doesn't it it's just dragged on and on and on and on and i didn't really believe that the palace would feed him to the lions in this way actually i'm quite surprised at that we've arrived at this outcome particularly given i don't believe that this is the end of it i don't believe that now the king has made this really unprecedented decision that all of the whisperings around andrew are going to go away what do you think oh no no i don't think they will i think you're absolutely right um i mean what i would say is yeah they've thrown him to the lions but they've also they've also looked after him because he's going to go from Royal Lodge to something the king is going to pay for.

28:08So he will be given a residence, etc. But do you think they've done that because they're very benign and they've done it out of kindness or self-preservation? There's probably literally no alternative. I mean, what's Andrew going to do? Go on Rightmove? Well, no, but what he might do is get a handsome book deal and start airing Dirty Laundry in a way that would make Harry and Meghan blush and go on daytime television. That's what his wife did in the past and I'm surprised he hasn't done it yet. If I was him, I'd be tempted to do it. Well, certainly now. And it would be supremely embarrassing for the monarchy.

28:43Extremely damaging in a way that we haven't seen before. So perhaps they're doing it as a kindness, out of generosity, out of the goodness of their hearts. But I do wonder whether there is an element of self-preservation there. Oh, totally. And that's how the royal family works, right? It's a firm as well as a family and it throws people under the bus if they get in the way of the brand of the firm. So my view on this is this is not really about Andrew. This is about Jeffrey Epstein. And the problem is that the man who should be on trial, preferably executed, died before that could happen in very mysterious circumstances.

29:19So we're going around the world trying to find someone by association who we can put on trial instead. One of the people who's gone through the process is Ghislaine Maxwell. Well, it feels, I think, a little bit uncomfortable that it's a woman, an accomplice, but a woman who has ended up in prison rather than Jeffrey. And now we're trying to chase down Andrew. And one reason why I must confess some anxiety about this is because when I first started writing Leaders for the Telegraph, it was around the time of all the accusations of sexual abuse against members of the establishment. You remember people like Ted Heath.

29:59and they were accused. There's different kind of accusations, don't get me wrong. I mean, the people, what Epstein did, he definitely did. And there are a lot of people who've gone on the record to say he did what he did. We can prove those. Whereas the stuff against Ted Heath, et cetera, it was total fantasy. I know there's a qualitative difference. Nonetheless, one of my formative journalism experiences is dealing with a moral panic and how easy it is for people to get stuff wrong, the public to buy it, and for us all to jump on someone and put them on trial. Well, yes. And then you have the strides and the facts and you can never fully undo it.

30:33There will always be that association in people's minds. But I think you're right. Andrew is sort of guilty by association here. And somehow that has allowed us to turn him into Britain's latest national hate figure, someone who's a cross, as I wrote in my column, between Fred Rest and Jimmy Savile. And I we ought to remind ourselves that he has never been charged, let alone convicted of anything in UK law. And perhaps the vast majority, 93 % no less, of the British public would not continue to associate with someone they might regard as a dear friend had they gone to prison, had they become a convicted paedophile.

31:10But there are still some people who might, or perhaps certainly remain associated with them for lesser crimes. So I'm not sure we can totally hang him out to dry for that alone. And to your point about the moral panic, I think we are sort of slightly having a fit of morality here and we ought to maybe take a step back and just ask why it is as a society today, we are so eager to join the pitchfork crowd while we do just become this enormous baying mob and whether people are really sort of understanding what it is that they're piling into all the time. And sometimes they're doing it in a way where they're presenting it as the brave choice.

31:54And actually, I might argue that often it's the easy one. I think when you've had a period of moral deconstruction of old rules, it's then followed by a period in which you have to erect new boundaries. And it's difficult to decide where they are because you've torn down all the old ones. So we went through the 60s and 70s. We had the sexual revolution. And if you read some of the newspaper copy about, not ours, but if you read other people's newspaper copy about Prince Andrew back in the day when he was to the prince, it really celebrated the fact that he was Randy Andy and was basically saying, good for him, he's a handsome, powerful, rich man.

32:29Why shouldn't he? And then, of course, we have a backlash against that. And then we decide we don't like that. So we have to set up new boundaries and we're not quite sure where to place them. And in the intervening period, of course, you've had the Me Too movement. Exactly, yes. across the US and Britain. Yes, which is not, I mean, in some cases it was, but it's not necessarily a judicial process, right? That was about individuals just saying stuff in some cases and then the public putting someone on trial without any criminal prosecution and deciding that person is now cancelled and we're done with them.

33:00So this is the thing, as I say, when you've had a moral revolution, you then have to create a whole new order and that can be a very messy and cruel process. Yes, I think that's right. And I think, you know, it particularly seems to be Gen Z who are most horrified by Andrew's actions, his behaviour in the war families, initial inertia when it comes to that. And these are perhaps people who don't remember that he was a Falklands hero. He may have forgotten that it is very difficult, I believe, to be a spare. Andrew, when he was in his early 20s, his raison d 'etre ultimately disappeared when his nephew, Prince William, was born.

33:39that he came from, by most accounts, an extremely dysfunctional family. It was an upbringing that was far from wholesome. And he's not necessarily, despite the privilege, despite the titles, had the easiest life in many ways. And I think a lot of that's been forgotten. What about the argument then that, OK, we haven't found him guilty of anything yet, but we can prove he's an idiot. He's an idiot because he hung around with Epstein. He's an idiot because he tried to defend himself on Newsnight and got it wrong. He's an idiot because we now know that he continued seeing Epstein after the conviction.

34:16And even if, OK, he's not being found guilty in a court of law, it makes sense for the royal family to protect itself by cutting off an idiot. And he's not just an idiot, really, is he? Because he's quite an odious... Yeah, he's an unpleasant man. He's an unpleasant man. We do both think that. I don't think... No, no, no, exactly. But I don't think anybody believes that he's put king and country first. Yes. Nor that he has behaved in a way that's befitting One can be sympathetic without being affectionate Exactly Do you think this is going to damage the monarchy long term or is this actually proving that the monarchy is very good at protecting itself?

34:50I think it depends where the Andrew situation goes from here and I suspect as time goes on perhaps more people will come round to my way of thinking that maybe he's been treated a little too harshly Annabelle Denham thank you very much thank you I enjoyed my Daily Tea debut very much I'll see you again at 5pm on Monday when I'm very happy relieved to say that Camilla Tomini will be back

35:39I can sing with you.