‘Harry and Meghan are greedy. They don’t care about trashing the royals’

0:02The Telegraph.

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0:44Camilla: It's the final stop of our Daily Tea on the Road tour and we're in beautiful, sunny Worthing for what promises to be a ripe royal roundup by the seaside. We're joined by the renowned royal experts Phil Dampier and Lady Colin Campbell to take in everything from the highs of the King's US visit to the lows of the latest nonsense from Harry and Meghan. Welcome to this Daily Tea special by the sea in Worthing with me Camilla Tomini and me Tim Stanley. Thank you.

1:23Camilla: So, Phil, you and I have done many Royal Tours together, haven't we? We've been around the world together. And there's a very good kind of ice-breaking question from a chap in the audience called... Tony, how much off-the-record information do journalists receive and how is it used? Now, we could go on for hours about that in the political sphere, but in the royal sphere it's significant, isn't it? Because sometimes you simply can't name your sources. Phil? No, I think it varies from subject to subject. So if you're a crime reporter, for example, it's now very, very difficult because of all the problems we've had in recent years with phone hacking and things like that.

2:04Since then, I know that a lot of the crime reporters, they can't talk to police anymore. They're not allowed to have contacts. It's very difficult. on the royal front it's always been very difficult the Buckingham Palace they used to have this phrase never complain, never explain sometimes they wouldn't answer your questions and that spoke volumes so you had to sort of make sure that you were confident of your sources but it has changed a lot over the years but if I get a no comment to me that's good enough that confirms it

2:32Camilla: if they don't deny something then I think okay fair enough that's right and there's an old adage in journalism that sometimes you can make one call too many and sometimes that's the first call you make so if you're very sure of your information you don't want to give the palace too much opportunity to obfuscate and they'll take a tiny little aspect of the story and say well that's not quite right and want to bury it completely if it comes to showbiz reporters for example there's a lot of trade-offs they might do a story one week and then say to an agent well I won't run that story about someone's scandal but if you give me a story next week so it varies from subject to subject really but on the royal front It's not been easy over the years.

3:10And having genuine contacts is very, very difficult. And obviously, you're not allowed to pay people. You're not allowed to hack any phones. I'm not saying anyone. I've done any of that in the past. But some people did with disastrous consequences. So you have to tread very carefully. And the palace do have quite a tight control now. Prince William, in particular, is very, very tight on what can be said about his children. for example if you come up with a story about George or Charlotte or Louis if he doesn't want you to run it he'll ask the editor phone the editor up and say I don't want you to run that and unfortunately or fortunately whichever way you look at it they tend to take his take his command on that and they don't want to upset him.

3:52Camilla: Lady C unauthorized books about the royals dangerous territory no? Well let me put it this way my information has always come from friends and relations of the royals. I'm trying to find a way of putting it that doesn't sound insufferably snobbish. I function above the courtier level. Yes. With friends and relations of the family. She's not just speaking to the staff people. No. She's speaking to people on her Christmas card list. Except I don't send Christmas cards anymore. But no, and the best thing is at house parties, weekend parties, dinner parties. Socially is where you get the real nuggets.

4:41And, you know, when I was doing my first Diana book, which, of course, I was a virgin, so I made every mistake possible. Like, I listed every single one of my sources, which was, then it caused a whole heap of trouble afterwards. people like Janet Milford Haven, the Dowager Marchioness of Milford Haven, said, how could you mention my name? And Barbara Cartland, plain plum, lied and said that she hadn't spoken to me. And I phoned her and I said, I have 50 pages of notes from you, Barbara. I said, if you continue saying that you didn't know, I'm going to sue your clutch box. And in fact, her biographer has just been in touch with me about it because I didn't even remember.

5:29I'd written her a very strong letter. But so I got the information I've always got. And then also you get a snippet from, I'm sure it's a similar thing with you. You get a snippet from X and you add it up with what Y said. And then you say to Z, and no matter what their response is or isn't, they have provided you with information. But then with the passage of time, I just had things drop in my lap. Also, I knew my boyfriend at the time when I wrote the Diana book, for instance, was a cousin of Catherine Wetherall and Esa Wetherall. Esa was married to Mikey Glamz, the Earl of Strathmore. And Catherine was married to Nicholas Soames.

6:23and so Dana used to try to get information from me about what was going on up at Glam's because she wanted to find out what the enemy camp was about sort of thing. You mustn't name drop. You mustn't name drop. Well, I did in the... The Queen told me that. But that was in my first book. Since then, I've never done a source because I had so many problems and of course since then people now come to me on the basis of the fact that I'll keep my mouth shut so I you know I'll open it but not in terms of who never name the sources all right I think books may well be written about the king's visit to the United States let's let's discuss this remarkable to think that as of last week people were still considering should he even go yes relations between the UK and the US seem to be at an all-time low because of Britain's opposition to the initial Iran attack.

7:20And given some of the things that Donald Trump had said, false, horrific things about the British armed forces, it might have seemed like a slur upon our dignity for His Majesty to show up. In the end, he weaved his magic. King Charles visited the White House beehive, which is shaped like the White House, which was great. He went to New York. He seemed to charm even the radical socialist mayor of New York, Mamdani.

7:44Camilla: Yes. These socialists love sucking up to power there, don't they? Well, what I find funny is Mamdani said that if he met him, he might ask him to return the Koh-i-Noor diamond. And I know it's a matter of honour to the Indian people, but it's so socialist to be obsessed about the fate of a diamond. Indeed. What's the one thing you'd say to Aurora? Can I have my diamond back? But most importantly, he addressed Congress, where he seemed to wow both left and right with a really well-written speech about the similarities between Britain and America, our relationship dating back, as he put it, 400 years, rooted in law and custom, the heritage and legacy of Magna Carta.

8:23And I think it reminded everyone that whatever the short-term disagreements that politicians have, we really are cousins across the ocean. And crucially, it was also a very funny speech.

8:35Camilla: Very funny speech. Lots of lovely lines in there about how the British considered 250 years ago to be the other day. A comment about the British trying to redecorate the White House in their own name in 1814. Lots of little jokes. I think Trump had made a comment that if it wasn't for their involvement in the Second World War, we'd all be speaking German, to which the king reported. If it wasn't for us, you'd all be speaking French. Now, you could have perhaps some years ago been worried about whether King Charles had the capacity to be the very accomplished statesperson that his mother was. Actually, haven't we seen this week that the longest-serving heir apparent in history is actually rather good at this?

9:15Well, I think you've got to remember that, as you say, he was in that role for 70-odd years. But it was amazing that this is his 20th, as he pointed out the other day, this is his 20th visit to the States, and he's met 10 presidents going back to Eisenhower when he was a child, actually met him, and sat in the Oval Office with Richard Nixon. I think at one point Nixon was trying to marry off his daughter to Prince Charles years ago. And so he has got all that experience. And that's what makes Trump, you know, that's what really tickles his fancy, that, you know, it obviously goes back to his Scottish mother who adored the royals.

9:50And as a child, he watched the coronation with his mother. And he absolutely loves Charles. And they seem to have a very good rapport. And he will take from him things that he wouldn't take from anyone else. So, you know, as he joked the other day, that Charles managed to make the Democrats stand up, which he'd never managed to do in Congress. And anyone else, he'd be seeking to get revenge. But from him, he takes criticism about, you know, veiled criticism about Ukraine and other things. So that's, I hate to use that phrase, soft power of the monarchy. But I've just used it. But it's that sort of reaching the things that other people can't reach because of the history and the stages.

10:25The brilliance of the speech was that both left and right could listen to it and think he was speaking to them. Get something from it. Because Donald Trump came away from his meetings with the king somehow thinking that he had endorsed the war against Iran. But she clearly hadn't he'd probably just reiterated the government's position. But he said he'd said that in private I think they said his word. Yes, but you could arriving and could could listen to all the stuff about Magna Carta and say This is great But a left wing could listen all the stuff about stat about the environment and standing by Ukraine I think this is great He reminded me of a Pope in the sense that every Pope always doesn't says the same thing But they said in their own way and likewise with monarchs They all do and say exactly the same thing Elizabeth the second said all this sort of stuff but she had her own manner and her own character but each pope brings a different personality to it and likewise charles brings his own personality lady c which seems to me to be quite mischievous he's got a good sense of humor yes he does have a good sense of humor but also the virtue of a monarchy as opposed to republic is that the monarch represents all the people all the time even if the people don't like him or agree with him.

11:33A republic is headed up by somebody who is elected by the people as a representative of his party or her party. And so a monarch will have a far more wide-ranging view of things and understand that today's politics are controversial, but there is an overview that links the past to the future in the present, and that political disagreements are often temporary. And I think this is the virtue of monarchy. And we see it in, for instance, the way the king or the late queen or the other monarchs function. And I mean, Monarchs can accomplish things that presidents can't. And presidents push one particular agenda.

12:33A monarch is both leftist and rightist, and as well as centrist, all at the same time. And Charles showed that very well in his speeches, because he drags in the permanent aspects and throws in the temporary, more controversial ones, and then sometimes the more controversial permanent ones as well. And that word permanence is so important because we've just got rid of our hereditary peers. We are still in the process of demolishing and stripping away aristocracy. But the beauty of aristocracy is it embodies history. He can stand up there and talk about things that happened 200, 300 years ago and you think his family was involved in that in some way, that actually it's in the blood.

13:17He is like living heritage and that's invaluable. It's the actual experience as well, isn't it? I mean, the Queen, you know, she met every president, she had so many prime ministers throughout the Commonwealth as well. And all prime ministers have said that they used to love going to see her for the weekly audience because they knew it wasn't going to be leaked and they could tap into her experience. I mean, how many people could meet the prime minister of Canada? And they met his father, who was the prime minister of Canada as well, for example. So it's that experience that you can tap into with a monarch who's been around a long time, and that's the same with Charles, I think.

13:47Camilla: But what's he actually like? because I thought that the speeches, all of them, reflected a degree of pragmatism. You look at him and Trump and you think, these aren't natural bedfellows. On one hand, you've got an eco-warrior who people consider to be quite introspective, quite intellectual, quite left-leaning. Those aren't any words that you'd ever use to describe the US president. And yet, they seem to be quite close. We know as well that in between Trump 1.0 and Trump 2.0, So Charles, with his black spider memos, maintained correspondence with Trump, even when Trump was in the political doldrums.

14:24Camilla: I mean, did he see something that the rest of us didn't because nobody was expecting a second term from this man? I mean, this is on one hand a king who's described as somebody who has several eggs boiled for him in the morning so he can pick the right one. And another that is able to ignore all of the noise around him and go ahead with this visit and handle it very, very diplomatically. diplomatically, Lady C, what is he actually like? Well, I mean, I think you've touched upon an aspect which is you're born into the position. You don't choose it. You are trained for it from birth. And you certainly rebel against it when you're younger.

15:04And you don't like the constraints and restrictions. But as you get older, you realise that the childhood training and the experience and gradually you grow into the expectations of the role and you live up to them and you understand the spiritual aspects and the rewards of executing the role effectively. That's happening to William now, isn't it? You can see that with William. He didn't really want the role at all when he was younger. He hated the idea of being king. But now I think he's He's grown into the role, and sadly it might not be that far away, but when he does become king, and he's got to be ready for it.

15:46So he's certainly stepped up to the place a lot more in recent years, hasn't he? But I think anybody in a position of responsibility, I mean, the royals are in a position of great responsibility, but people in positions of lesser responsibility, they also at times don't like the pressure. I mean, if you had a pound for every time I said, I hate my life and I wish everybody would just F off. You know, you would... Have you ever heard you say that? I do say it often. But the fact of the matter is I'm not swapping anything because that's just blowing off steam. And Charles and William are both well-known to have very bad tempers as well.

16:33But they're not trying to escape, and I'm not trying to escape from my responsibilities. I live up to them. But the fact of the matter is you don't have to like them. And there are times when you don't like them. But that doesn't mean you don't understand what they are. And as you get older, you see there is a reward in living up to them and doing a good job. And that in a royal comes from training from birth. And I mean, William was lucky because his grandmother did what her grandmother, Queen Mary did with Lilibet, Elizabeth II. And, you know, where the grandmother stepped in and said, no, this child needs to be shaped.

17:16And William and Charles don't have as natural an empathy as, say, Harry and Charles had, which is ironic. When William was at Eton, he used to wander over, didn't he, to Windsor Castle and see the Queen for tea quite frequently. just the two of them having tea and she would talk him through the future and what to expect and that was a very close bond I think and that's why he would never want to let her down, the late Queen and that's why I think in recent years he's come to realise that he does have this role, he won't just opt out of it like Harry has and I think he'll be a good king. He might be a bit woke for your liking possibly on certain subjects.

18:00Is he woke? Well, I mean they all are woke. I mean, you know, everybody has always said about the royal family, you know. I mean, Prince Philip was very pink, and Lord Mountbatten was so pink. I mean, you know, and as for Lady Mountbatten, Edwina, aside from being the biggest sort of giver of her favours, you know, and she was also... She was a generous lady. She was a generous lady.

18:30Camilla: I'm just reminding the lawyers listening to this that we cannot defame the dead. Carry on, Lady C. Thank you so much. Well, I mean, even Prince Philip used to say as an insult to Sarah that she's just like Edwina. Sarah Ferguson? Yeah. But the point I'm trying to make is that... You've got to be careful with Fergie because Tim has got a soft spot for her. Fergie and Angela Rayner, although you famously... all right. You can't, no, and you... It's a redhead thing. You can defame the living. Sarah is living. We just don't know where. We don't know where she is. I mean, to be fair, just on that point, Prince Philip and Fergie, I think you wrote that Prince Philip once described Fergie as, quotes, odd and pointless.

19:20Yeah, but he... So harsh, isn't it? And he did allegedly have an affair with her mother as well, of course, which... What?

19:26Camilla: Mike, if I could drop this, Mike, I would. but I'd better not but again they are both dead but yeah he did describe her as odd and pointless and he wouldn't be in the room when Sarah Ferguson on occasion she was invited up to Balmoral even long after the divorce the moment he knew that she was arriving he would leave and he just wouldn't see her at all and he just couldn't understand why she and Andrew were still living under the same roof for what 30 years after they got divorced or 20 years after they got divorced he just couldn't understand it but was that because of toe sucking because obviously they're all at Balmoral.

19:58No, it wasn't just...

19:59Camilla: The papers come out, Fergie's going up to the order. That didn't help. You can eat buffet for a full English. And the next thing, she's confronted by her own worst nightmare. Yeah, she came down to all the papers, pictures of her having her toes sucked. So it was... Well, imagine that. Can you imagine? Darling, in fairness to Sarah, she wasn't having her toes sucked. Johnny Bryan was kissing her foot. I did make this point myself, Lady C. And Tim said, I'm not sure if there's a clear distinction there. they weren't actually being sucked but they were being caressed so toe sucker sounds better though what i don't understand about what i've never understood about royal journalists is on the one hand you you do a lot to explain to us the mystique of royalty yes and then having built them up you tear them down i know well which is it do you do you think well if you're dealing with a family family that's not so much nuclear as thermonuclear you can't help but cover the explosions when they go off.

20:55Right. But I feel the late queen wasn't like that. And that's why I liked the late queen. Listen, we all like the late queen. Because I didn't know anything about her.

21:02Camilla: No. She was just a head on a coin. That's right. Well, a face on a stamp. Lovely lady. All right. Well, on that note, because we didn't... To respect someone, you can't know too much. What was it Montaigne said? No man is worshipped by his butler. That's right. Yes. We don't want too much of the Wizard of Oz curtain pulled back. And that's the problem with Harry and Meghan. and Spare and Netflix and Oprah, it all said too much. But we'll get onto that in a minute. Because we did mark the 100th anniversary of the Queen's birth last week, can we have your best Queen anecdote, please, Lady C? OK.

21:37When I was doing my Diana book, I lived in the Cundey Street Flats in Lochmore House, and one of her former ladies-in-waiting, Mrs. Osborne King, lived upstairs and she was always in and out of the Cundey Street Flats. To those of you who don't know, the Cundey Street Flats were four blocks of flats which were the grace and favour flats of the Duke of Westminster and it had the highest concentration of aristocracy and royalty in the world. For instance, Lord Hume of the Harsel lived there Lady Milford Haven lived there. David Mellor's girlfriend, whatever her name is.

22:20Camilla: Antonia de Sanchez. No, no, no, no, no, no. Penelope Cobham. I'm sorry, I thought you meant the one that he had the affair within the football shirt. Ronnie Merrill. So anyway, I was on the ground floor. And because we had a heavy concentration of conservative members of Parliament, House of Lords, as well as Commons, living there. You had the security people running in and out with their cars and the barrier that would be raised by MacDonald, who was the porter, and the inn would screech at 80 miles an hour, well, to not exaggerate, 40 miles an hour. And, of course, a load of us had dogs. And Janet Milford-Hagan said to me, she said, you know, Georgie, they're going to kill one of our dogs.

23:13And about a week or two later, the queen is visiting, and I open up my front door, and there is the queen. And as she sees Tum-Tum and Pops Miranda rush out, and they would screech to a halt, which they always did. And she's a dog lover. And as she sees them, she jumps to open up the outer door and she doesn't realize the problem. And she was quick as a flash, let me tell you, the Queen. Always, I mean, she was on the ball till the day she died. Anybody who tells you that she was gaga, she wasn't. Anyway, she opened up the outer door and as she opened it, I didn't care that it was the Queen. I only cared that she was endangering Tum Tum and Pops Miranda's life.

24:09And I screamed, don't do that. But she'd already done it. So I shot out. And she really was very quick on the uptake. She immediately realized that something was amiss. And she kept the door open as I shot out. And I saw they were okay. and then I came back and I said, I'm awfully sorry, Your Majesty. Very silly of me. She clocked the danger. I'm surprised you did take her out, Lady C. So that's my best story of her, which I think shows so much about her. Is this a separate book you've written about? Actually, it figures in the memoirs of Tum Tum, with love from Pet Heaven by Tum Tum, the spring of Spaniel.

25:02Love that. Phil! My story is slightly shorter. I always used to feel a bit sorry for the Queen because we've followed her all over the world and people are so nervous when they met her that they'd come up with some really sort of banal conversations or questions and you could see her eyes glazing over and she had to be polite to people but we were at a press reception in Australia in 2002 on the Golden Jubilee tour and we were meeting the Queen and Prince Philip And in fact, it was the day after he'd made one of his infamous gaffes when he'd said to an Aboriginal leader, do you still throw spears at each other?

25:37And I was actually the only reporter in the room when he said this, and he was chatting to this Aboriginal guy, and he's chatting away, and his face just fell, and I thought, he said something here, and he walked off. And I said to the chap, what did you say? He said, do we still throw spears at each other? And this made big headlines the next day. Anyway, the next day at this press reception, the Queen came over, and this photographer started brigading her with this story about how he'd come up from Sydney the day before on an internal flight and he had to eat his lunch from a cardboard box or something.

26:07I don't know why he was telling her this story, but she looked board rigid. And she was actually eating a canapé at the time and she dropped it. It all crumbled in her hand. And to my astonishment, she bent down and picked it up, which I just couldn't quite believe. She didn't eat it, but she put it on the side. And anyway, maybe as a way of getting out of the story and listening to this photographer. And then Prince Philip came over and he looked at us all. And he said, the trouble with you lot is you've got no sense of humour, a complete absence of humour. And the photographer said, oh, we thought it was very funny, sir.

26:43And he said, you just pretend to be funny. And then he just walked off. But I mean, he didn't really mind. I mean, what I liked about him was he wouldn't apologise for something he'd said. You know, if he'd made a so-called gaffe, he sort of stuck by it. He didn't like a politician enter an apology the next day. But as I say, I think the Queen, when you think she did that for so many decades, having to be polite to people and listen to them and look like you're interested, I thought that was what she was best at, actually trying to sort of, you know... And you're seeing that with Charles on this tour, talking to dozens of people, and it's quite hard work.

27:16Tolerance in abundance.

27:17Camilla: To be fair, Prince Philip didn't like photographers in general. Do you remember that? Towards the end of his life, where he was in that set-up, having to have a group photo and just yelled at them, like, just effing get on with it. Just take the effing picture, yeah. I love Prince Philip. I thought he was divine. Was he? He and Sean Connery, in their heyday, were the two, I would say, the two most attractive men I have ever met. Really? Oh, and I've had quite a history of having had a very attractive boyfriend. Have you, Lady C? What was so charming about both of them? I wouldn't have said it was charm.

28:01They shot testosterone. Did they? Sounds messy. No, they rarely were. And Prince Philip was... No way to behave at a dinner. But also he was a great flirt. I mean, you walk into the room and he'd say, we're looking hot tonight, sort of thing. You know, he was, I think people misunderstood him because he needed to make his role interesting for himself. And he was extremely intelligent. And he was also very cutting edge in many ways. I mean, he's one of the fathers of the modern ecological movement, which people don't even realize. And I think he wanted to make life more interesting and tolerable for himself.

28:47and the Queen had a very phlegmatic personality while he had a far more challenging personality and he would say things just to be provocative.

28:59Camilla: Yes. And really, I think it was a sort of type of humour that were prodding. I don't think he intended to cause offence. No, he didn't intend to offend anyone at all. It was just his way of trying to liven things up, make conversations but as you say when he when he joined the royal family he was felt like an outsider and that's why he actually tried to help princess diana and at first you know sarah ferguson and kate when all the others came in he he knew what it was like to be an outsider and the courtiers made life difficult for him and there was no there was no handbook for being a consort was there and so he had to make it up as he went along and it was to his credit that he found you know the duke of edema award scheme and all these other roles that um and supported the queen for all those years so and many of the courtiers in those days were insufferably snobbish and full of themselves and they were they were so impressed with themselves that when prince philip and let's remember prince philip was far more royal than the queen and when prince philip uh was engaged to the queen one of them saddled up to him and said something about our you know sort of learning the routes at Windsor Cost, he said, thank you very much, Mary.

30:16Mother was born here.

30:18Camilla: Yes, exactly. What a great line.

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31:08Camilla: Shall we move on to, let's get some... The future of the royalty. Well, no, I think we should move on to the two names that may divide this audience. Yes, the future of the royalty. No, I think these two. Yeah, that's who I'm talking about. Oh, you're talking about Harry and Meghan as the future of this institution, Tim Sadling. Well, sometimes when we say we're going to discuss Harry and Meghan, people go, oh, do we have to? Who wants us to discuss Harry and Meghan? There you go. Yes, who doesn't? No, come on. You're at the wrong event. I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry. We'll do a political one another day and you can come to that, sir.

31:42The intriguing thing is that they didn't seem to be involved in the king visiting the United States.

31:47Camilla: Well, why would they be? They hate Trump. Well, I know, but you'd have thought they'd have tried to get him, bought a ticket or something like that. Well, they might have tried to get a table somewhere and charge people to attend and take selfies with them, I guess. But also, why didn't he visit them? because he was on the East Coast and they're on the West Coast? Right. It's just a strange family, don't you think? My mother would be furious. You were in the area and you didn't call. Sorry, darling, 3 ,000 miles is not in the area. No, it is. It's a big old contest. Well, let's talk about Harry and Meghan.

32:18Camilla: We had mixed reviews to their recent tour of Australia. It basically demonstrated the problem that has faced the couple from the very beginning of Megxit, this idea that they can both be royal but also financially independent. So we have confusion about what's all this about, and it's probably best exemplified by a piece that I wrote about the fact that Meghan has commercialised her wardrobe. So if she wears a dress, even if it's to meet cancer sufferers in a children's hospital, it's on a website, and you can click it, and you can buy it, and she'll get a share of the proceeds. that is not typically how royal visits operate but then they're not real royals are they Phil so maybe they can just go and make hay this this is exactly what the queen was trying to avoid half in and half out they're trying to have their cake and eat it they're trying to make money and commercialize their activities and then they go on a sort of quasi royal tour to Australia been on several others as well to many other countries and sort of you know go to charities and go to hospitals and open things and pretend that they're still royals and it's it's exactly what the Queen was trying to avoid.

33:26And so you have to say at the moment, to some extent, Harry and Meghan are winning. They're getting what they wanted, which is now whether William, when he becomes king, will deal with this in a very, very sort of, you know, strict way and make moves to cut them out of the line of succession or stripping of their titles. Will he do that? What's your instinct on that? I don't know. I mean, I don't think the king wants to do that because he thinks it might make it worse and it might antagonise them. But it is a very, very difficult one because I don't know quite how they're going to get around this problem of them trying to have one foot in and one foot out and in terms of their relationships they're still as far apart as ever I don't think there's any chance of a massive reconciliation but Harry wants to come back for the Invictus Games and try and get his father along to that and there's all sorts of rumours about them coming back to live here I don't think that's going to happen at all I don't think Meghan would want to do that and I think she realises how unpopular she is I mean when people put their hands up and say we'd like to talk about them, you know, is it because they're the couple you love to hate or is it because, you know, you genuinely like them or is it just because they're, you know, they're controversial?

34:30I think 75 % of people in this country, certainly over a certain age, don't have any time for them, I'm afraid, because of the way they treated the Queen in her last years.

34:38Camilla: Let's do a quick straw poll before Lady C comments. Interesting to know. Who wants to talk about them because you love to hate them, first of all? Okay, that's about half the room who wants to talk about them because you love them there's one chap over there a brave trap that we might come to later and he can tell us he can extol the virtues of harry and megan um ladies i don't hate them i don't hate strangers i just find it very odd that people are over excited about the subject it's just no it's like an attractive young couple who are making telly and good for them oh well they're making headlines so good for them there's a good question from ben do we think Operation Thor is real or imagined?

35:22Camilla: Operation Thor, to explain, is the foring of relations between Harry and Meghan and the rest of the royal family so that there will at some point be a reconciliation. Yes. Lady C, do you think there really is a move to... It's ridiculous. Right. I mean, first, I mean, Operation Thor, with due respect, is an invention of the media so that it can keep on having content. And anybody who thinks to the contrary, and I'm not saying that there aren't people at the palace who will feed this fantasy, but the fact of the matter is the whole thing's ludicrous. William, I don't think, well, my information is William will never forgive Harry, and he's quite right.

36:09Camilla will never tolerate Meghan and Harry after what has happened. Charles is a little bit more wishy-washy, which any parents would be. Now, Harry and Meghan, Meghan especially, is very provocative. She's far more intelligent than Harry. But both of them have shown a disregard for their responsibilities and their duties to the institution. the institution I'm sorry is not a cow for these two greedy suckers to grab onto and milk for all it's worth financially we are speaking about an institution that is intrinsic to this nation's welfare at the moment because this is our institute this is our form of government and they have not cared about trashing the institution lying about the British press and the British public's reception of Meghan.

37:13I mean, if you listen to Meghan and Harry, the way they presented, everybody was a terrible racist from the world go. And the British public and the British press absolutely gave her a hard time from the beginning.

37:26Camilla: Well, I think actually, memories are very short, and it's all been painted as if she wasn't welcomed with open arms. I think she was welcomed with open arms by the British public and the British press. I think the narrative changed after the wedding, and my theory on that is a fairly basic logistical one. Before the wedding, the palace was able to keep a lid on negative stories about their increasingly difficult behaviour. You know, she's nicknamed Duchess Difficult, he's nicknamed the Hostage. It's all getting a bit difficult. What happened is the lid came off all that because they got married, and in the run-up to that wedding in Windsor in 2018, other external people ended up observing behavior that was troubling and then reporting it to the press and the whole kind of pandora's box opens and it's at that point the palace simply can't keep a lid and that's why you then got stories about air fresheners being demanded in uh saint george's chapel and tiara gate and in the case of the big story i wrote you know tears over bridesmaid dress fittings that's how that kind of all came loose and then weirdly you have the couple actually vindicating everything journalists like us had written about behavior but also operating in a silo because they confirm all of it in oprah on netflix and in spare weirdly tim camilla i've never known a bride that didn't go bridezilla over her dress or didn't have an argument with a member of her new husband's family i mean i've got a bridesmaid in the audience.

39:00Camilla: She can confirm. Did I turn into a guy's dinner? There's a shaking of the head. Right. The point is that I understand and we can all understand on this panel because we've already dealt with the historic nature of the institution to which these people are born into. These are people with staff. These are people who are actually encouraged in a way to be demanding, be it how an egg is boiled, whether a car door is opened, how a corgi is handled. But what we also know that there were two sides to the story. I'm interested to ask, I mean, are you saying that you would welcome them back? You think they have a role to play?

39:35If they came, suddenly you said we're going to come back, you think the British public would welcome them? No, no. They could go and walk about. No, I think they've, no, you're right. They've made a choice. And it was a choice where they said, I'd like to have my cake and eat it. Yes, they would like to keep the title, but also be independent. The idea they can come back is ludicrous. I just think 30 years ago, we'd be saying all of these sorts of things about Charles and Diana. and then 30 years later we're saying didn't Charles do an amazing job when he went to Washington DC now that's partly because our attitude towards people changes as we get older and we forget things that have upset us but it's also because the amazing thing about the monarchy is its ability to institutionalize people in it so that it's not about them had they remained within the monarchy in the same way that you look at someone like Prince Edward just gets on with it Princess Anne But they haven't.

40:23That's the point. But they haven't. No, they've left. They've walked away from it. They've walked away from it. And that's the sort of... After less than two years. They didn't really give it a go, did they? They had left the Garden of Eden. They walked out of the... They ate the fruit. They walked out of the garden naked. Fine, I get that. But you take my point that much of the things we're saying about Harry and Meghan, how awful they are, some very similar things are said about Charles and Diana Thirteen. Darling, let's remember... Yeah, but nobody left. Sorry, can I say... Let's remember who wrote the first book that on Mars Diana.

40:48I did. And so I actually lived through the whole thing. And Diana was, Charles was much misrepresented. Diana was very naughty, let me tell you. I can, from personal experience, and some of what I would never be able to say publicly. But no, there are literally things I couldn't repeat. But Diana, if you think that Meghan didn't flick a few light switches with Harry because of familiarity, you're wrong. Because Meghan exhibited traits that Diana possessed. Diana, however, had virtues that Meghan doesn't have. and Diana, whatever her failings and they were, for every virtue Diana had, she had a corresponding failing sometimes in excess of the virtue and I've also written a book about I'm the person who wrote the first book about Meghan and Harry and how I came to write the book was people started to complain to me about Meghan's conduct, that she was unmanageable she was uncontrollable and she was trying to exploit the monarchy in a detrimental way that would impact adversely upon the prestige of the monarchy and that's how I came to write my book on Meghan and Harry I had no interest in Meghan and Harry I knew Harry and William when they were growing up and their children they used to play with my children etc but I really you know different generation no interest quick thought from Phil

42:33Camilla: and then we are going to send our very best wishes to the head of legal at the Telegraph and move on to the slightly safer territory of Prince Andrew. Phil, quick final thought. I tend to agree with the basic thrust of Lady C that I don't think Meghan's heart was ever in his. I think she never intended to stay in the royal family and a lot of excuses were made up to leave. But I'd love to hear from this one guy over here. We will. We will get a microphone. Who wants to defend them. We'll get a microphone in a moment to the Meghan fan in the room. Shall we move on to somebody whose reputation is so in the doldrums that it's impossible to defame him now?

43:11Camilla: The former grand old Duke of York. Phil, you are a York aficionado. What went wrong there? Well, you put your finger right there. I actually started covering the royals in 1986 when I was on The Sun and I was a general news reporter and the then editor, who some of you may have heard of, Kelvin McKenzie. There was a hiss. A difficult man to work for in those days came up to me and said, right, you're doing the royals, because Diana was enormous and everyone was concentrating on her. And then Prince Andrew got married to Sarah Ferguson. So they needed two people covering it. And I went all over the world following her.

43:50And so I've seen it 40 years. So to see it right through to this situation now is just quite extraordinary, bearing in mind that in 1986 it was only, what, four years after he returned from the Falklands as a war hero, in inverted commas. So it's quite a sad decline. Now, I don't defend anything that he's done. His association with Jeffrey Epstein was clearly a very, very stupid thing to do. And to carry on seeing him after he'd been convicted of sex offences was just suicide. And I don't have any sympathy for what's happened to him. So having said all that, I am intrigued to wonder what he's going to do with the rest of his life.

44:25I mean, he's never actually been charged with any criminal offence. Maybe he will be. We'll see what happens. I have my doubts about that. But that investigation is going to go on for quite some time, I think, both the financial and other investigations. I have to be careful.

44:39Camilla: Well, he's being investigated for potential misconduct in public office, but we haven't had any charges brought yet. No charges and no arrests for any sexual misconduct. So what he's going to do with the rest of his life, I've no idea. I mean, it wouldn't surprise me if he eventually moved to Abu Dhabi or somewhere else. I mean, there's no way in the world he's ever going to go back to America, where he fears getting arrested or lots of other countries where he might be extradited potentially. So it is a very, very sad decline. But obviously we have to remember that the girls that were involved in this, I'm not sure that they were all completely innocent victims at the time, but I'm sure a lot of them were.

45:17and looking back on his behaviour it's clearly involved in a very sordid set-up but what he's going to do now and what Sarah Ferguson's going to do when she finally decides to come back and face the music having been travelling around Europe and in various places over the last few months she can't hide forever so I'm not quite sure what either of them are going to do with the rest of their lives but it's still got the potential, particularly her she could write another book for example and blow the lid off a lot of secrets she's got. She's got any more secrets? It's awesome, yeah.

45:49Camilla: Once you've seen the Epstein emails, maybe not. Lady C, what do you think? Well, I take a very measured view of the whole thing. First of all, Andrew, what he did with Virginia Giuffre was not illegal in this country. And I struggled... Allegedly did with Virginia Giuffre, because he denies any sexual contact with her at all. Yeah, and he says that, in fact, he says that he never, ever... But even if he did... Well, it's more than likely that they did meet because there's that photograph, and whether it's been adjusted or not... I don't think it has been. Whether it has is moot, because the fact of the matter, I have posed for thousands of photographs like that, And I would not be expected to be accused of anything on to order.

46:47He simply has his hand around her waist, and it's a perfectly anodyne photograph that she sent to her aunt. Look, I met this prince. She boasted about it and sent it to her aunt. And there's been so much emotion in the whole matter, some of which is irrational and some of which is political. There's no doubt that Jeffrey Epstein was a sleazebag of the highest order and a pervert, but I have to tell you, I know as a fact, because one of my best friends, who's godmother to my son, Dima, Jeffrey Epstein tried to steal her flat in Belgravia from under her in the early 80s or mid-80s. And he was a hate figure in our circle thereafter.

47:41Camilla: He was a fraudster. He was a trickster. He was a confidence man. He was a deplorable human being. He was supposedly a financial genius. I think he did have a level of genius in terms of manipulation. Sure. But I think he was undoubtedly a sleazebag. But none of us, and we badmouthed him left, right and centre, None of us knew anything about the sexual aspect of his life. And nowadays, the media and the politicians would like everybody to believe that everybody had to have known everything. Nobody knew anything, even after he pled guilty to soliciting a minor for prostitution. That's what he pled guilty to.

48:29even after that he kept on saying to people oh you know I'm just a john I I didn't realize that

48:39Camilla: the girls were underage and Andrew stayed with him post-conviction in the same way that Peter Mandelson did and that is the error here he might not have been found guilty in a court of law he's been found guilty in the court of public opinion that that was an irretrievably immoral and idiotic thing for the son of the late queen to have done and he lied about it yeah they said they hadn't maintained contact post-conviction both andrew and fergie hadn't just maintained contact but close supportive we're going to help to exonerate you type of contact having lamented the situation that his victims found themselves in they were proved to have been liars and that's the problem Fergie took money from him.

49:22Fergie took money from him. Yeah, but Andrew, I think, was more an innocent than Fergie because she owed him a great... He gave her a considerable sum of money, far in excess of what has been publicly reported. I know this because one of my closest friends is the ex-wife of one of Andrew's closest friends. So we all have been talking forever about it.

49:51Camilla: Well, I think Andrew Lowney's also written that. Do you think, do you want to see, Tim, the Andrew formerly known as Prince, back on the scene in any capacity soon? No. No. Of course I don't. And I think, I don't want to raise them again, but I think one frustration from supporters of Meghan and Harry as they feel that the family did far more to back him and support him than it did them. And his alleged crimes are far greater than anything they're accused of. Well, I certainly think the late Queen had a blind spot, a bound of his activities, and a soft spot for, it's often said that Andrew was her favourite son.

50:34I don't know how true that is or not, but certainly I think she tended to look at him through rose-tinted spectacles and didn't really want to know what he was up to. And that's probably part of the problem, that she should have said something or someone should have taken him to one side years ago, particularly after Epstein was convicted and said, look, you can't keep seeing this guy. You can't keep gallivanting around the world. And sex was his big thing, Andrew. He's never smoked. He's never drunk. He doesn't take drugs. But he was certainly enjoying himself in other ways.

51:08Camilla: No, but with great power comes great responsibility. Absolutely. I'm not excusing you. Famously said. I mean, he was a prince of the realm. He should have behaved better. I'm not justifying it at all. And also, by the way, I always find it curious. Everyone's like, why didn't his mother have a word with him? Why didn't his father? Why didn't Prince Philip turn around? And he was somebody who was backward in coming forward. But Camilla, you are assuming that the Queen and Prince Philip knew more than they knew. The point I tried to make a little earlier was that nobody in social circles knew anything about Epstein's decadent.

51:47Everybody knew about him being deeply dodgy financially. But nobody knew anything about him. He kept the secret very well, even after he pled guilty. And let's remember, the people who associated with him afterwards were legion, because he simply said, oh, I was basically a victim of a scam. Well, let's discuss the two people who might take our minds off these trials and tribulations, William and Kate. Do they have it in them to rescue this institution?

52:20Camilla: Does it need rescuing as well? Well, as I was saying earlier, I think William's growing into his role. Kate has obviously had this unfortunate setback with her health, but I think she now seems to be getting back to full health and hopefully she's very much on the mend. The three kids look very well adjusted, very happy. I think they've obviously... We've got to wait a few years before they can possibly start doing royal duties. My one big fear is that it is all rather hanging, depending on them. There's that photograph we saw the other day of the working royals on the anniversary of the Queen's 100th birthday.

52:51What would have been the Queen's 100th birthday? And apart from Edward and Sophie, everyone was way over 75, I think.

52:57Camilla: Yeah, it looked like it had been taken in an old people's home. Well, you know, so, you know, Edward and Sophie are doing their bit to a certain extent. Sophie, I think, is quite popular, but it's all hanging on William and Kate and their children in the future, and that is a hell of a burden on them and a big responsibility. And, of course, the late Queen was terrified when she learnt that William was in the habit of flying a helicopter himself from Norfolk, where they were living at Amner Hall, down to Windsor or down to Kensington Palace. with the children. And obviously if a helicopter went down and they were all killed, we'd be back to Harry and Meghan next in.

53:34And she told him to stop flying all the family together because she was horrified that if foggy conditions or something, you know, accidents can happen with helicopters. So it's very much depending on them. And, you know, I think they've done the right thing to keep their children out of the limelight. I was just come back from holiday in the Scilly Isles, actually. And they were down there a couple of weeks ago. They go there quite often to the Isles or Scilly into Cornwall. and they just love getting away from it all and Taxi Driver was telling me what a marvellous family they were and how much they were.

54:01They enjoyed being down there and they just get away from it all and I think they've done the right thing to protect them but you can't protect them forever. They've got to get used to the fact that they are going to be in the spotlight, George in particular, a future king. So whether they're Molly calling him a bit too much, only time will tell.

54:17Camilla: Lady C, this probably best sums up the last question of the day and it's from Les. Is Les in the room? Les is at the front and he asks, do you believe the monarchy will still exist in another 100 years? I'm not sure the world will exist in 100 years as we know it. I think Lady C might. Oh, darling, I'm going to die in 2072. Right. Could you be a bit more specific, please? No, but fun and joke is that I think Charles made a huge mistake in slimming it down too much. I've been saying this for 20 years and Princess Anne finally jumped on my bandwagon, notice how I put that, and agreed with me. And I think it's a big...

55:05I always said, slimming it down, what happens if there's a problem with Harry or Meghan? Sorry, or Harry or William. The trouble is it's slimmed down by default, hasn't it, with Andrew leaving Harry and Meghan? Who else is there? Well, exactly. Well, there are the Edinburgh children, which of course because Charles wanted a slimmed down monarchy they weren't they didn't even use the title prince and princess to begin with it's not that easy to get rid of a monarchy in our political structure as it stands but certainly unless there is serious consideration taken to what needs to be done to protect the monarchy, not only against disinterest and against the liberality of the young, who often are not as monarchist as people who are a bit older, but there's also the issue of the commercialization of the monarchy via Harry and Meghan.

56:17but they need some young blood. I mean, that photograph of, you know, it looked like a geriatrics convention. No, it did.

56:29Camilla: I tell you what, we're going to end on a positive, because you've mentioned Harry and Meghan again. We have one more question. Well, I was going to step down and ask... But we do, from an S. Ferguson in the audience. Who asked if anyone has five pounds for bus fare. Oh, now. Now, I'm going to... You carry on speaking. I'm just going to get a microphone to the man. Oh, very good. Who wants to issue, I think, shall we give him a 30-second defence of Meghan? If you're up for it, sir. My name is Paul Dendall. Paul, you are the only person who put up their hand when you said you liked Harry and Meghan.

57:02Camilla: The whole room would like to know why. OK. Firstly, when you're a parent, when you're young, you're intensely ambitious. So Meghan was born on the wrong side of the track, so she's a grifter. Harry, you marry your mother. Harry married his mother in lots of ways. So I've defended. But if you think back to 2018, your point, if you remember back, Harry was on the up with Meghan. William was on the down because he was called lazy, etc. So then the deal was done with William and the press, and then the scales changed. And since then, Harry has had this thing against the press, against William that he feels he's been portrayed.

57:45Camilla: Would you like to join our royal panel when we are next in Werger? Thank you very much, Paul. That's a good defence. To be fair, well done.

57:56I did always think that we do need to reflect on that awful image

58:02Camilla: of those two princes following that coffin back in 1997. And those were two boys, and particularly Harry, who didn't think he could save his mother. He feels responsible because of his mother's death. And then when Meghan came along, and if she does have narcissistic tendencies, then one of those characteristics is to always be a victim. Really, in Harry, she found the perfect empath because she found somebody who wants to save her. And in a way, regardless of what we think of the couple, that might be a very good symbiotic relationship between the pair of them. People who sat in St George's Chapel and said, I'll give it a year, have been proved wrong, haven't they?

58:45Camilla: They're coming up to a decade married. Well, I've always said that it's an absolutely perfect foliadeur. And anybody who has studied the subject will know that there's no certainty that they are ever going to separate. Because, well, doubtless they will if she meets a billionaire, hopefully with a title. but definitely with at least a 450-foot boat. They are in many ways perfectly matched. People seem to think that a perfect match is your virtues. A perfect match is often not your virtues, but your failings. And so I agree with you. I think that I've always said when people say, oh, we give it five years, we give it...

59:36depending on the situation, they might be together forever. Meghan is the one, I would say, who has the ace in her hands. If it suits her, they will, and she can move on to something what she regards as bigger and better. Otherwise, I think they will stay together, barring if there is some dramatic explosion, which is what the royal family fared originally. I put this in my original version of my book, which was published in 2020, that the royal family fared that there would be some trigger which would make Harry explode, which would cause a cataclysmic incident. And then the German branch of the family said to me, quite a while after I'd published the book, actually, that they feared not only a cataclysmic event involving the two of them, but the whole of the family, which I thought was just beyond belief.

1:00:41But it shows what the fears of the family are or were. And I agree with you. I've never thought that it's a certainty that they are going to separate.

1:00:53Camilla: Okay. As I said, Tim, not so much nuclear as thermonuclear. about to blow up at any moment. Shall we bring it to a close there? Yes. Well, thank you, Lady Colin Campbell, for joining us. Thank you, Phil Dampier, for joining us. Thank you to the audience for being here. We will be back with The Daily Tea on Tuesday at 5pm. Thank you for joining us.

1:01:28Thank you.