Trump: King Charles would have stood by me over Iran

0:03The Telegraph.

0:10Donald Trump has told The Telegraph the king wouldn't abandon him like Starmer has, referring to the Prime Minister's dithering over interventions in Iran. Our Deputy Royal Editor Victoria Ward joins us to ask if the king is the only one who can mend the special relationship. And two people we won't be seeing at the Royal Easter Service this weekend are princesses Beatrice and Eugenie. Are the sisters being ostracised like their father over the Epstein scandal? Welcome to The Daily Tea with me, Tim Stanley. And me, Rachel Johnson.

0:55Rachel, I have a confession to make, which is that I fell for The Telegraph's April 4th. The one where Ed Miliband told the nation to drink cold tea to save energy. Yes, I thought that was real because he previously said we should drink warm beer to save energy. So why not cold tea? Well, I sort of agree with you, Tim. I think it's not a bad idea. Maybe it'll become government policy. Maybe it will. We're joined today by Victoria Ward. That's who you can hear speaking. Our deputy royal editor to talk about all things royal. Were you fooled by it? I wasn't. I wasn't. But I'm looking out for the April Fool.

1:30Can I just say, Tim, it's always an anagram of the words April Fool. So if you see Olaf Aprio, it is. But also, if you clicked on his name, he only writes one thing every year. Published on April 1st. That's the key. But it was cleverly written. They said that Miliband was going to promote sort of World War II-style slogans like, iced is nice and hot not. I can see that. It's quite believable. Yeah, we've had all the COVID slogans and everything. We're going to start by talking about our big scoop today, which is that Connor Stringer, Washington, D.C. correspondent, has spoken to Donald Trump.

2:09I don't know how he's pulled this off, shouting through the letterbox, ringing up. This is not an April Fool. He rang up Donald Trump and Donald Trump answered. Extraordinary, isn't it? But he spoke to Donald Trump and Donald Trump told him with regards to Keir Starmer and his dithering over intervention in Iran. The president said that he thought King Charles would not have abandoned him in the same way. He said, I think he would have taken a very different stand, but he doesn't do that. I mean, he's a great gentleman. Talking there about the king is a great gentleman. This is against the background of the other half of Conor's scoop, which is that Donald Trump told him that he is considering taking the United States out of NATO, calling the alliance a paper tiger.

2:54People are becoming more critical of Trump. Even Alex Jones, the conspiracy theorist, has pointed to the size of his ankles and suggested he might be going senile. Rachel, has the president finally totally lost it? It's such a hard one, Tim. I mean, I think that he has this low intuitive cunning that will stay with him however disinhibited he is, however unpredictable he is, however he pivots from one thing to another, from one day to the next. I mean, just on the right, at the moment, he's saying that we're going to, you know, finish the job and also that he's going to withdraw and he wants us all to steam in and take our own oil for ourselves.

3:34So he's impossible to parse in this way, Tim. He wanted us to participate, but he doesn't care if we didn't because our ships are just toys and our soldiers don't really fight anyway. But now if we want to get oil from the Strait of Hormuz, we need to join in and do it for him. Right. Do it for ourselves. Do it for ourselves. Because he's got his own oil. Right. He's doing it for us and he's not going to do it anymore. But what I do find intriguing, Victoria, is American attitudes towards the royal family and what role they think they have in our governance. So he did say in this statement, I know the king wouldn't intervene.

4:08But for him to say, I think the king might have done things differently, implies that it's Charles's role. Implies that the king will stand by Trump no matter what, doesn't it? They're such good friends. Right. And he's so loyal. The king is so loyal to the president. Yes. He's always got his back. That's what Trump thinks, isn't it? That's how he sees the world. Loyalty might be part of Charles' character, but I don't think Charles shares Trump's politics or view of the world. Probably not, but it doesn't matter in Trump's world, does it? That's how he doesn't care. He's got the royal family up on a pedestal.

4:41He loves the king. He loves Prince William. He makes no bones about it. He loved the late queen. He's got such admiration for the royal family that it's kind of blinded. He doesn't necessarily need to see or care about the politics of it or how the British state system works. It's a personal thing for him, and they're great mates. Trump can remember at six years old watching his mother watch the coronation of Elizabeth II. Goodness, that shows his age, doesn't it? And we often forget his mother was Scottish from the islands. Yes, that's the key, isn't it? I think that's where it stems from, isn't it?

5:15Absolutely, and he does have this profound respect for the monarchy. My mind flashed back to 2008 when Sarah Palin allegedly, in a sort of briefing session with a Republican aide, was asked by the aide, how would you respond if Gordon Brown, then Prime Minister of the UK, pulled British troops out of Iraq? And she said, well, I'd have to open a dialogue with the Queen. Just speaks of a total misconception about how the British system works and reminds me, I once wrote a book about Munich in the 30s and discovered that Hitler was cultivating ties, obviously with the aristocracy, with the Londonries and all the kind of the posh knobs who had kind of houses in Park Lane and he'd invite them over to the Partait Hugs and to the rallies and so on.

6:03And that's why he became friends with Unity Mitford because he thought the House of Lords was the important bit of our legislature, not the House of Commons. And he thought that's why he seduced all the Lords and then it was all mutual and Ribbentrop. went to all the parties in London and he thought it'll be fine. And, you know, they're all on my side and then I can take over Britain. But many of those aristocrats found von Ribbentrop to be vulgar. Well, he probably was vulgar. My point being that not only is it misunderstanding of constitutionally how we work, it's a misunderstanding also of the English culture.

6:41But taking this back to Trump, I think the same misconception applies, as with Sarah Palin, that actually the Queen and now the King have any role whatsoever in geopolitical decision-making, and they simply don't. He may do a touch on the tiller occasionally, but it will be very coded if he does address Congress. I mean, he's going to address Congress, isn't he, Vicky? Having said that, I'm not sure many British people really understand how the Supreme Court works, and the way in which many Europeans acted as if striking down Roe v. Wade had affected Europe, sort of implied that we had a misunderstanding about the impact of American judicial decisions upon the rest of the world.

7:21I think we did. I think people, women, just worried that the rollback of reproductive rights in the United States, so they devolved to the states, could mean there might be a similar rollback. But my point is, I'm not sure Europeans understand. Trumpy politics came in. That could happen here. I'm not sure Europeans understand American constitution either. But also, to be fair to Trump, The royal family, Victoria, is an extension of the British state. And we now have a big visit coming up of the king to America. And in a way, it's perfectly timed, isn't it? As these Trump quotes to Conor speak to, because relations between Keir Starmer and Trump are at an all time low.

7:58I think we can all agree. Trump doesn't waste an opportunity to fire off all these criticisms and tirades against the prime minister. and then we've got the king sweeping in just at the right time to maybe try and smooth soothe these choppy waters a little bit and the king is probably the only person who can do that. So in a way this misconception about how the British Constitution works and who's got the power plays into the government's hands in a way because they need, it's helpful to them isn't it that Trump has this such great respect and perhaps misconceived notion of the king's powers because it's useful for them and they need to try and keep this special relationship back on track.

8:36I think it's very helpful for Keir Starmer this visit too because it shows there can be balm in Gilead and the king can go over to US 250, which is obviously celebrating the 250th anniversary of its independence from Great Britain. So it's an immensely symbolic visit that should go ahead, however bad the special relationship and threadbare the special relationship. and here can leave Charles to do consummate diplomacy even though they're having their no kings movement there, they seem to want ours and he can carry on with his hapless bollard, I will be the man of inaction act, which I think is actually working quite well for him it does, it's working fantastically well we've talked a lot about the soft diplomacy the power haven't we, we've spoken on here before about the king's soft power and soft diplomacy and it's crucial now And these are the kind of moments where you see how important that is.

9:34Do we know if William is still going in July? We think William is going. They haven't formally announced it, but that's the plan to tie in with the World Cup. And what do we know so far about what the king will see and do in America? So all we know so far is that they're only in the States at the end of April, last week of April, I think for three days, they're going to Washington. There'll be a big, all the bells and whistles of a big state banquet at the White House. The king's going to address Congress. we think they're going to pop to New York and there's going to be another additional visit on the last day in a rural location and we don't know what that's about yet I wonder what that would be oh and also I think there's a feeling in the States that they can never compete with the UK's ability to put on this big pomp and pageantry show the white tie side of things they know they can't compete with that but what they can do and they do very well is big military shows so they're going to put on a big show of military might for the king and queen.

10:30Is the famous ballroom in the White House going to be ready for the banquet, do we think? I don't know because it's being renovated, isn't it? I don't know whether it's going to be ready. He's knocked down half the White House and he's building, and apparently he's put already two gold statues of himself inside a library in the White House. No, no, no. These were proposed drawings of the inside of his library, although he has said he doesn't like museums or libraries. That doesn't surprise me somehow. Presidential libraries are normally where you locate all the physical papers from a presidency.

11:00No, I know it's not his presidential library. No, I know, but the problem is that now no one uses physical papers. So we are left with this question of what is the point of a presidential library in the 21st century? Because you can't have shelves of emails, right? So it does just become a conference and convention centre. But one of the images he shared had this extraordinary golden statue like Saddam Hussein or Kim Jong-il sort of waving and him talking in front of it. What a time to be alive. Yeah, but it's funny. I remember when I covered Trump's visit in his first term to Buckingham Palace, and I saw his helicopter descend into the palace, this enormous beast, like a massive butterfly.

11:39And then along the road, pootled along then Prince Charles with Camilla in a vintage car. And he was driving. Brilliant. And it's so funny that in America's mind, we are the imperialists, and we are the people with all the pageantry and all the show and they are the little republic of ordinary citizens. But their head of state goes around in this preposterous helicopter and ours just, or our head of state to be, just poodles along in this little car, like Toad. They don't need to be necessarily showing it off. That's the point, isn't it? Well, let's talk about some spares. We've covered some heirs and some kings, but let's talk about some spares.

12:17Victoria, Sarah Ferguson, where is she? Where is she? Who knows? I think the last time Sarah Ferguson was seen in public was December the 12th. And she has gone, properly gone to ground. There's been a lot of rumours about where she is. There was a rumour the other day that she was staying with Priscilla Presley, who's a friend of hers in Los Angeles. That's been scotched. There have been rumours about rehab and Swiss clinics. Rehab? I heard about the Swiss clinic, where like 20 ,000 euros a day clinic. And the latest rumour is that she's been seen by Sandringham locals. We don't know if this is true.

12:51coming in and out of Andrew's new home in Sandringham. But no actual sighting? No actual, well, we haven't seen her. No photographs. We haven't seen her, no photographs. Are the press staking out Marsh Farm Victoria? I think they largely are, yeah. Because there's been stories of Andrew's caravan in the grounds, hasn't there recently? Did you see that? It's got some caravan in the grounds. What was that? What was the point of that, Victoria? I don't know. It looked like a kind of prefab unit, maybe for his storage stuff? I don't know. I can't imagine he's going and sitting in the caravan. Maybe it's his presidential library.

13:22Well, she's also, of course, facing pressure from US lawmakers to give testimony to the House Oversight Committee regarding the Epstein investigation. If we haven't seen her, I guess we don't know the answer to this question, but will Fergie go? I think it's highly unlikely. If they pay. Highly unlikely. Yeah. That'll be cut out. Maybe when she's trying to resurrect her public image and she needs to be back on the forefront of people's minds, I'm not sure. I was doing some reading in advance of this. It's always important to know your subject. I won't hear a word said against Fergie, of course, but I was reading back an old Oprah Winfrey interview she did.

14:00And this was after the second big catastrophe in her life. This is the 2010 scandal when she was caught selling access to Andrew. For half a million. Right. And this was just before the William and Kate wedding. and she put herself in a Thai spa. She ran away to a Thai spa. She said that she felt she needed to almost punish herself and she wouldn't go to the wedding, so she was going to isolate herself. And she had this wonderful line in which she said, you know, I just thought through all these terrible things I've done and, you know, I've really beat myself up over it. So I thought about that for about three hours.

14:34And it was the fact that the introspection lasted three hours she could put a precise... I'm quite impressed, to be honest, that she had any introspection at all. But apparently she stayed in this Thai spa, which didn't even have a TV in the room. And she thought, I'm just not going to watch the wedding. I don't want to do it to myself. I don't deserve this. But she eventually broke, rang a friend in England and got them to hold the telephone up to the TV so that she could listen to it. But she heard afterwards that apparently Andrew had kept a photo of Fergie in his wallet throughout the wedding.

15:08She said that, did she? Yeah, she said that. Yeah. But my point is, there is a pattern of behaviour here. When there's a crisis, go away to a spa. Go away to a spa. That's her happy place. Cut everybody off and then come back renewed and ready to go again. Yeah. She said in that interview that she... Well, you see, everyone's saying that it could be Fergie who could really bring down the royals if she does her tell-all book. But she's written several tell-all books before and they've not told very much. This is the juicy, unvarnished truth this time, because what has she got to lose?

16:05which brings us neatly to Beatrice and Eugenie or Eugenie as I think her friends call her or as her... But posh people is pronounced urgent. But I heard that the security, close protection for the royal family, call them beetroot and aubergine, which I can at least pronounce. But to say it brings us to them. And actually, I think that the status of those two royal princesses really does put a crimp in whatever Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor or Sarah Ferguson does. Because I think all they can live for now is them and their two daughters. So, you know, the idea that Fergie could go off and do an Oprah as Harry and Meghan did, which caused immense damage to their position in the royal family, I think it's unlikely.

16:59I don't think they're that self-destructive. Do you think she'd have the foresight to recognise that it could cause huge problems for her children and grandchildren? Yes, I think she does. Well, let's hope. I mean, an hour in a spa would tell you that the last thing you should do is destroy your children's future. And they are very close. Both of them are very close to the grand. They're very hands on grandparents. You know, they're close to the girls and they're close to the grandchildren. Right. But they're not entirely free from speculation about their relationship to Epstein. They're not. They're in a right old pickle.

17:33I think it's fair to say, isn't it? Because these documents that have all come out over the last few weeks and months, they're named in it hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of times all the way through them and it largely related to when they were adults so they went willingly it seems with their mother to see Epstein when he'd just come out of prison they seem to have been the recipients of quite a lot of money it's just they're in it up to their necks by default they're kind of in the mess that their parents have created and they've been dragged into it but they were adults they weren't children when a lot of this stuff was going on.

18:08So there's a tricky line now for the king to navigate in terms of how they're treated. And we've had lots of rumours about whether they'll be ostracised entirely or whether they won't. But I think the messaging from the palace has always been quite consistent, and that is that the king is very fond of them, very fond of them, and he wants to try and protect them as best he can. But he also recognises that he doesn't want their presence at royal events to be a distraction. Well, there's a very important one coming up, which is the Easter service. Easter Sunday, which is traditionally a time when the whole family gathers en masse and we see them all parading into St George's Chapel in Windsor in their finery, lots of lovely photographs, everyone having a lovely time.

18:49And this Sunday, Beatrice and Eugenie are not going. And that was a decision taken in conjunction with the King, certainly made with the King's agreement. And I think the general reading between the lines, everybody recognises that if they had been there, they would have been the story. Everyone would have focused on the fact that they were there, their presence. Here they are, front and centre again, back in the fold. And the royal family doesn't want that. It's too soon after, you know, their father's only just been arrested. It's too soon to do that. But I think in the longer term, I think they probably will be gradually brought back into the fold.

19:25Victoria, how does the palace transmit this huge piece of news that Beatrice and usually aren't going to be attending the service? in Rome, St. George's Chapel. Well, on this particular occasion, as is often the case, it's unofficial, so it's not a statement that's come from the palace. It's when these little unofficial bits and pieces are relayed to us. It's often done by the great medium of WhatsApp. And on this occasion, there was just a quick note saying, off the record, but this is happening. And everybody duly reported it. Right. Do we have any insight into how this is affecting Beatrice and Eugenie's relationships?

20:07I think the two of them together are very close. They were on holiday skiing, I think, together last weekend or the weekend before in Verbier, we know. Oh, good. Hold on, I've exclusively revealed that Fergie and Andrew have managed finally to sell their chalet in Verbier because I was there two weeks ago and I heard it. You're the only person not there. Yeah, everyone was in Verbier, Tim. And anyway, they've sold the chalet. And I know to whom, but I'm not going to reveal the name. It is a brick. I might tell you afterwards. Tell me later. Tell me later. Tell me later. We'll talk later about that.

20:41It's good for you. But they had a chalet. Yeah, they had a lovely big. 18 million or something. Wooden. I mean, a really beautiful chalet. Because I had a quick look at it. And was that shared between Andrew and... Yes, and they shared it. And it's apparently quite dilapidated inside. Oh, interesting. Unloved inside. And so it's going to have a refit. a bit like the state of the entire York family isn't it it all looks lovely but don't look too far inside let's get down from the slopes so yes and then we've had a lot of controversy well there's been a lot of speculation and rumour about Princess Beatrice's marriage to Eduardo how can I say this correctly?

21:22Eduardo, we know him as Mapelli Motzi because he was on Instagram promoting his business in Florida not very long ago when all this scandal was unfolding and people think he should be here at home with Beatrice, but who knows what's going on there. OK. Will they be at Ascot? Well, there's news today that it looks like they will be at Ascot. So for the last few weeks, everyone's been reporting that they're going to be cut out and they won't be invited to Ascot. Again, a bit like Easter Sunday because it's a bit soon and the king needs to have a bit of space. But the sun, it was a story in the sun today that says the king has invited them to Ascot this year, or he's going to invite them to Ascot, and the palace have certainly not denied that.

22:03So it looks like maybe they will, which might be the first step perhaps. Maybe it's considered to be enough water under the bridge and it'll be the first step in the PR battle, I don't know. Coming up, Harry is still in court and some of what's being revealed arguably does not play to his favour. Victoria, you've also been in court, haven't you? Been in court forever. For only 11 weeks. and you've done a big wrap-up feature I have on Prince Harry versus Associated I mean this is the male this is the male obviously this is a group of very high profile celebrities and including Baroness Lawrence the mother of Stephen Lawrence the murdered teenager who is a sort of trophy witness but the case hasn't gone entirely just remind us what it is they are they're arguing so it's always we often describe it as Prince Harry's privacy claim but yes there's seven of them Prince Harry Baroness Lawrence has been described in court as the trophy claimant brought in as a national treasure because there's a sense that the campaign is behind this claim.

23:07They're all hated. They wanted to get some public sympathy, so they wanted to find a national treasure to back their cause that the public might get behind. And her son was murdered. Of course. So there's Harry, Baroness Lawrence, Salton John and his husband David Furnish, Liz Hurley, Sadie Frost and Sir Simon Hughes, who's the former Lib Dem MP. So the seven of them joined forces and they've accused the Associated Newspapers, published with the Mail and the Mail on Sunday, of a whole raft of unlawful activities, phone hacking, blagging, those claims of burglary which got later dropped, all sorts of nefarious activities, which the Mail has very, very strongly defended.

23:50It's been fascinating. And, of course, the Mail journalists have been paraded in court, as have their text messages. And some of them are quite fruity between Daily Mail journalists or Mail on Sunday journalists and the Duke of Sussex, which has been quite surprising, hasn't it? It is surprising, yes, because Prince Harry gave evidence at the beginning of this trial and stood up and said, I was not friends with journalists. I met this particular journalist, Charlotte Griffith, the former diary editor of the Mail on Sunday. I met her once at a party. I found out she was a journalist the next day and immediately cut off contact.

24:27And then we see, disclosed as part of the evidence, was this stream of quite extraordinary messages sent on Facebook over the course of about six weeks, end of 2011, beginning of 2012, where they used very intimate language. Harry was telling her that he missed her movie Snuggles together, who has streams of kisses on the ends of messages. Wish you were here, you missed a great party last night. Very interesting. It just certainly doesn't go with the idea that they met once at a party for one night. This is before he got married, we should add. This is before he knew Meghan. Right, before he even knew Meghan.

25:03And Griffiths reportedly used nicknames for Prince Harry like Mr Mischief and H-Bomb. Yes, he did. And Harry reportedly called her sugar and joked about being able to, quote, drink her under the table. He did, yeah. It suggests that they were on much more friendly terms than he suggested himself in court. Well, I mean, could he have lied under oath? I mean, Griffith sent a message to Harry saying, talking about a fun weekend of naughtiness. And Harry himself wrote, such great, you know, I've never had such fun, this great weekend. Great crowd. Yeah, we need to get the gang back together and stuff.

25:39I don't know whether we can specifically say he lied under oath. He was quite vague about it. He couldn't quite remember. but there was a lot of discussion about dates and when these parties were, and he was vague and said, I can't remember, I don't think I've done this. But it just all, in terms of the bigger picture, suggests that there was a lot more going on behind the scenes than perhaps he has admitted or can remember. And it's the significance of this that his claim that he's always tried to keep the press at arm's length and that they invaded his privacy is challenged by the possibility that actually he was good friends with a diary journalist.

26:16Yes, and also there was another Mail on Sunday journalist as well, Katie Nicholl, who both Charlotte and Katie Nicholl gave evidence and said, we were part of their social circle. We hang out with their friends. We had mutual friends. A lot of these stories that we were reporting, these quotes and these snippets and all these little pieces, we were getting directly from the horse's mouth because we hung out with them. We were friends with their friends. We were going to these parties. We were there. and Harry said, this is absolutely not true. My social circle wasn't leaky. I wasn't friends with these people.

26:47We knew who they were and we steered clear. Therefore, he's arguing people could only have found out these things about me from hacking. Exactly. So when there's quotes and bits and pieces that he's saying, it can only have come from hacking. Now, there hasn't been any specific evidence that he's been able to point to where he says, look, my phone was hacked on this date and this is the message and here's the evidence. But there's a lot of inference. So he's saying it can only have been hacking. Victoria, add that together with the fact that he did the sit-down interview with Oprah. He also published the fastest-selling non-fiction book of all time, which was Spare, his autobiography.

27:25I mean, male editors such as Paul Dacre, who can argue that Prince Harry has invaded his own privacy, seems to maybe have more traction than Prince Harry realises as he gives a speech. in Washington yesterday, bemoaning the fact that the press has been intruding on him since birth. I mean, how do you think Prince Harry really will come out of this, if not legally, reputationally? I think Harry has to get a win reputationally for himself, doesn't he? He won. He's had two wins. He's gone after the Mirror and he's won and he's gone after News Group and they settled out of court and he got an apology and it was hailed as a big victory.

28:06The stakes are high with this one because Associated Newspapers has never admitted any kind of hacking. They haven't been paying settlements. No, Paul Dacre denied it at Leveson. And that's been a big part of this trial that David Sherborne, the barrister for the claimants, has repeatedly come back to the Leveson inquiry and tried to suggest that Paul Dacre was lying on oath at the Leveson inquiry. And the judge has constantly tried to bring it back into the specific claims and said, this is not a public inquiry. We're not turning this into a public inquiry. But yes, it's important because there's been no admission of any guilt on behalf of the male newspapers and the male are defending themselves to the hilt whereas the sun and the mirror and the news of the world had all when these when prince harry's claims came to court they'd already admitted to certain things and were settling making settlement so this is a different bar so it's that's why the male was such a big catch for the claimants and the campaigners and the lawyers behind this because they want to be able to stand up and say the male were doing it too the male's been a target for them it came it became clear over the course of the trial with loads of the emails that have been sent as far back as 2015, 2016, that these campaigners, they were specifically targeting the male.

29:15They wanted to catch them. The big, powerful male group that they were convinced had been lying, that Paul Dacre had been lying. And why should they retain a clean sheet while the others have all been found guilty of all this unlawful activity? And so they've gone for them. The Telegraph has not been accused of any of this unlawful behaviour, I want to make clear. But Victoria, as a Royal correspondent how would you uh respond to harry's broader point about the privacy of people like harry i mean why why should we have the conversation we've just had about various royals their relationships etc what is the public interest there's a public interest because of who they oh i mean it can go too far of course i can i do recognize that it can go too far i don't think we can justify digging into personal lives and private events and private this that and the other but there is a recognition amongst the royal institution that people are interested in them as people and in their private lives and they have to be able to give a bit of that.

30:13William and Kate do this quite well. They're very guarded about their private life but they recognise that there's an interest and they have to feed that public interest somehow so they've released these photographs and they take their children to certain engagements and they release photographs of their children. Harry's argument is always that yes, I can do these Oprah interviews and I can write my book, but that's on my own terms and it's my information to tell or tell as I wish. And it's not for somebody to come and talk to my friends or hack my phone, as he claims, and report all my private information.

30:46There's a very fine line, but they've got to recognise that there is a public interest in them because of the nature of who they are. If he and Meghan had, when they left the UK, just gone and lived in a log cabin, cut wood and raised chickens and never spoken publicly again, do you think journalists would have just left them alone? I think interest in them would have massively faded, but they've kept that interest up themselves. That's my point. By constantly giving these interviews and railing against the press and railing against the royal family. And they want to be in the public eye. Both of them do.

31:19It's very clear they don't make any bones about it, but they want to do it on their own terms. Yes. And they don't seem to recognise that you've got to give a bit and take a bit. And there's a line there. Well, they argue the nature of privacy is, I let you in when I wish to let you in. Yes. So you open the curtain when you wish to and you close it when you wish to and you shouldn't try and peek around it. But the only problem I have with that is that Harry and Meghan have done the equivalent of parading around naked in front of a bathroom window. I mean, okay, we shouldn't look, but you are parading around naked in front of a bathroom window and it is going to draw attention.

31:53Have you ever done that? Well, they need to... I saw someone do that the other day and I asked him... Naked in front of the window. It was an old, old man. It wasn't pleasant and I did not live. Where are you, Tim? I was walking my dog late at night. And I thought, you know, technically right now I'm peeping Tom, but also you are exposing yourself. Peeping Tim. Yes. I didn't look away very quickly, but you take my point. If you wander around without a curtain, it is kind of on you. And there's not much public sympathy for them because of that, is there? Yes. Going back to Harry and Meghan. Because they've put all this stuff out there and they've caused a huge upset and they've written about private conversations and all sorts of private things that have gone on behind closed doors.

32:32And they've monetised it and we all suspect they couldn't do anything else. And therefore there's no real public appetite to protect them or look after them or feel sympathetic towards them because of that. So given that they've sort of bombed on the West Coast, I mean the Netflix deal, the Spotify deal, all of that we don't need to go into, but the rumours about any rapprochement, not with William, but with his father, the king. How much credence do you place on them, Victoria? I think I would say never underestimate the love that a father has for his son. And I think it's a very different beast, the relationship between those two, compared to the relationship between William and Harry.

33:15Charles and Harry are in touch with each other. And he's the king's son. and I think Charles has stepped back from it and all this litigation has been a problem, the security, the fight over security has been a problem and we're still waiting for that to be resolved and the King couldn't intervene in that and couldn't be seen to get involved and didn't want to be seeing Harry too much while Harry was taking on the government essentially and fighting for this right to private protection, taxpayer-funded private protection. I think when that's done, I wouldn't be surprised, Well, depending on the outcome, because Harry's desperate to come back to the UK and spend more time here.

33:54I think Charles would want to see him. I think Charles would love to see his grandchildren. But the security thing is a line. I think if they can get past that somehow, that the two of them... I mean, Harry's never going to be turning up on Easter Sunday with the royal family parading into church. But I think the relationship between father and son will and can be improved. and I think there's a will on both sides probably for that to happen at some point The prodigal son can return Well, in some form maybe one foot The prodigal prince Victoria Ward, thank you very much Nice to be here, thank you for having me Before we go, we should mention that today the wildly popular flagship newsletter of the Telegraph from the editor is one year old And tomorrow's edition actually contains much more on Conor Stringer's incredible series of scoops about NATO, Donald Trump and the King, doesn't it?

34:48Yes, it is read by more than 850 ,000 people every day. Including yours truly. Of course I consume it with my cup of Ed Miliband mandated cold tea. And I like to read it every morning with a pint of warm beer. If you want to read more exclusive stories like we've been discussing today do please sign up at telegraph.co.uk forward slash from the editor, all one word. I'll be back tomorrow with Camilla Tominy, where we're doing a special about reforms performance in local government. Ahead of May's critical local elections, we're taking the daily tea on the road, visiting key battlegrounds across Britain and answering your questions with four special live events.

35:36Join me and Camilla, plus special guests, in London on April 27th, Cardiff on April 28th, Warwick on April 29th, and Worthing on April 30th. You can buy tickets now at telegraph.co.uk forward slash Daily Tea Live.