Bonus Episode: The Andrew Story

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1:38Allegra Stratton:Bloomberg Audio Studios.

1:41Harry Wilson:Podcasts. Radio. News. Hello.

1:47Allegra Stratton:This podcast is a place where every week you can hear one essential conversation. But the arrest of Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, the brother of King Charles, puts the British royal family and the UK into such uncharted territory that we thought we had to talk about it. And so we are in this bonus episode. This is the Michelle Hussain Show. I'm Michelle Hussain.

2:21Allegra Stratton:There are news alerts that spark a sharp intake of breath. And then there are the ones of a different degree, the ones which stop you in your tracks. And that's what Thursday morning in our newsroom was like, replicated in many places, I suspect, across the UK and the world as news broke of the arrest of former Prince Andrew. Now I've been involved in coverage of the British royal family a lot over the years. I've done live commentary on occasions from weddings to the late Queen's funeral to King Charles' coronation. These are times when you immerse yourself in their world, the ceremonies, the history, the underlying effort to show purpose and relevance and value today.

3:10Allegra Stratton:I've had a sense of behind the scenes too in a Kensington Palace interview with Prince Harry and Meghan Markle when they got engaged. So given that, there was a lot running through my mind as the Andrew News came in. And for this conversation, I've brought together two colleagues, Allegra Stratton and Harry Wilson, to look at the broader picture of what this means in public service, for government and how it all goes back to Jeffrey Epstein. Allegra is a contributing editor to Bloomberg, who previously worked at the top of British politics for former prime ministers Boris Johnson and Rishi Sunak.

3:47Allegra Stratton:And Harry's a reporter on Bloomberg UK's finance team. He's been involved in working on Epstein's emails before the current files were published in the US. And he's broken stories about Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor much earlier, back in 2020, for example, on links to another financier. We recorded mid-afternoon in London to get Harry and Allegra's take on an extraordinary story. Harry, Allegra, welcome. Thanks for being here. You've both got different expertise and knowledge that you're bringing to this conversation through your experience in your reporting. I want to start with what we know, what we've learned through this extraordinary day.

4:30Allegra Stratton:Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, younger brother of the king, arrested on suspicion of misconduct in public office. It happened in the morning UK time, about eight o 'clock. The former prince was taken into custody, police said. Two properties were being searched. We also knew that from the police statement. And in one of those details that just stays in your mind, it happened on the day that the former Prince Andrew turned 66. He's previously denied wrongdoing in relation to his association with Jeffrey Epstein, but there are clearly multiple implications from the dramatic events of the day. Harry, take us through the allegation first of all, misconduct in public office.

5:14Allegra Stratton:What might that mean? What does it seem this relates to?

5:17Mishal Husain:this looks like it relates to his uh about a decade that he was the uk's trade envoy so from 2001 2011 andrew had an official role as a basically globe-trotting uh business diplomat for the uk and in that time he met countless heads of state businessmen all sorts of people but obviously what we're really interested in here and what is the the center of this this case will be his relationship with jeffrey epstein and the allegation that he was passing on sensitive government information to Epstein, as well as some of his associates, that is essentially what this case is going to come down to, that that sensitive information that he handed on amounts to an abuse, misconduct in public office.

5:58Allegra Stratton:Because as it appears from emails in the Epstein files, it appears that in this trade envoy period, he gets information relating to visits he's been on, and he passes that on to Jeffrey Epstein.

6:11Mishal Husain:Yes. So Andrew, for a start, made a number of trips every year. He would go to the US, he'd go to the Middle East a lot. He was traveling all over the world. And on these trips, he would have these meetings with, for instance, heads of state. He would meet fellow princes, kings, presidents. And in these meetings, he would often be shared into highly sensitive information. He would also get government briefings before that, which would have sensitive UK government information. and it appears that he on several occasions shared that information that those briefings with Jeffrey Epstein as well as other associates.

6:51Allegra Stratton:Allegra we first the day started with the news from the police later on we had a statement from the king himself as you read that what did you think?

7:01Harry Wilson:Well I think that the king has had to go into survival mode for the monarchy I mean all the polling shows and we all know it from our own lives that the monarchy is held in very high regard but even so the nature of these allegations and just the sheer detail that we're all seeing the unseemly relationship between Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor and a convicted paedophile has meant that the king had to act very quickly you saw it I think it's last week when they put out a statement saying talking about their profound concern and you also the other thing that that King Charles has to deal with is that kind of generational difference with his son and with that generation of the royals where there's just again a sort of zeitgeist shift and a totally different tolerance for some of these allegations that are emerging.

7:46Harry Wilson:So I read the statement that came from the palace and from the king as him having to move very, very quickly to protect the institution.

7:54Allegra Stratton:Because the wording is really striking. I have learned, this is the king's statement, with the deepest concern, the news about Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor and suspicion of misconduct in public office. I mean, there you already have a distancing, right? It's not as far as you look at this statement my brother there's no sense of yeah yeah um and the king goes on to say what now follows is the full fair and proper process by which this issue is investigated in the appropriate manner and by the appropriate authorities in this as i've said before they have our full and wholehearted support and cooperation and the line that stood out i think to well certainly to me and i'm sure to everyone let me state clearly the law must take its course.

8:34Allegra Stratton:Incredibly strong words issued within within what a couple of hours of the news breaking.

8:39Harry Wilson:As I say I think for many royal watchers there's a sense that the statement that they released sometime last week was an indication that it's sort of almost the green light that there is an acceptance that the charges now being levelled at his brother now warrant you know another level of interrogation. In some ways, this has been quite a slow burn. As you said, Harry, these are allegations from 10, 15 years ago. And though there's been this incremental and ever more serious action against Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, former Prince Andrew, you're still sometimes wondering, have they actually got on top of this?

9:24Harry Wilson:I mean, looking ahead, they've got a very torrid, you know, few months to a year or more of, you know, the king and queen due to go to America and so on. They're going to be facing more and more questions, not fewer and fewer.

9:38Allegra Stratton:And they have had questions shouted at them on this subject. As things stand at the time of recording, there are no charges. He's been arrested. He's been in police custody. There are no charges at this moment in time. Harry, talk us through these links with the world of finance beyond Geoffrey Epstein, which is obviously the most controversial at the heart of this. But what were Prince Andrew's business dealings? Were they business dealings rather than all on behalf of the UK?

10:08Mishal Husain:So Andrew has had a lot of inadvisable associations over the years with people in the business world, in the finance world. Most particularly, many people might know the Roland saga and his links to David and Jonathan Roland.

10:25Allegra Stratton:You wrote about this some years ago now.

10:27Mishal Husain:Yes. So Andrew was essentially an unofficial door opener for the bank. He helped get clients. He took the Rolands on business trips. They introduced themselves as his business advisors. I mean, most memorably to me, they made a trip to North Korea and were introduced as the business advisors to Prince Andrew. So they traded on these links. And to my mind, when we were reporting on that and knowing, obviously, the Epstein connection, it always seemed to me very likely that Andrew had had some kind of business relationship with Jeffrey Epstein. I didn't see it ever as a purely a story of potential allegations around sexual wrongdoing.

11:10Mishal Husain:I saw it also as a potentially a business story because Jeffrey Epstein was a very transactional individual. And Andrew had obviously already had these business relationships with the Rollins. And so it seemed to me natural that perhaps, you know, there could be some kind of business links there with Epstein, too. and I think what these emails are now showing is that that does seem to have been the case, that he was sharing information with Epstein and I don't think we've really got yet to the bottom of how financially lucrative that might have been for Andrew, whether there was some kind of payments or that kind of thing.

11:44Mishal Husain:We're in the early foothills of these emails and I think there's probably plenty more to come.

11:50Harry Wilson:Allegra? I mean there's a sort of stepping back, not to talk about specifics, but I mean there's a tension isn't there? What do you do with the spare, as they are known? What do you do?

11:59Allegra Stratton:Well, the trade-invoi rule was sort of seen as a safe thing that he could do after he left the Navy because of exactly this thing. What's he going to do with his life?

12:07Harry Wilson:But, I mean, looking back at it, how could it ever be safe? I mean, it's sort of, you know, what's this guy doing? He's being put into a business relationship or a business situation. Why? What do people think they're going to get from this individual if it's not proximity to power or whatever?

12:25Allegra Stratton:The public line would have been he's flying the flag for UK business at events around the world. I remember being at Davos in 2015 where he was, as he did at Davos, I think pretty much every year. He'd be hosting an event on behalf of the UK government. But that was the year that Virginia Giffray, her allegation against him became public. And of course, the massive scrum of the media attending this event was not because of British business. It was because of what was then a controversy surrounding him.

12:56Mishal Husain:Yeah, I mean, I think one of the interesting things here is the extent to which Andrew was, you know, on the one hand, publicly, he was being the face of British business. But what we're seeing now, there was another side as well, which was he was doing seemingly potentially a lot of self-dealing. He was using these links publicly to promote British business. But there was always a side to it where maybe he was doing something for his own account. And obviously, there's always been questions around how was Andrew able to afford the lifestyle he had? You know, he travelled on private jets. He had top of the range Rolls Royce cars.

13:32Mishal Husain:He had numerous holidays. He was living the life of someone who was a billionaire and yet with no discernible income to show how he could afford it.

13:41Allegra Stratton:Supported by his mother in her lifetime. but it's hard to imagine that that was to the tune of the lifestyle he was leading.

13:49Mishal Husain:Yes, we know the source of income that he has. He has famously his naval pension of I think about£25 ,000 and his stipend from his mother was about£200 ,000. And then obviously potentially it was up for private income but it never seemed to kind of match up to the lifestyle he was living.

14:10Allegra Stratton:Allegra, you worked at the highest levels in government. What was the kind of view of, I mean, we know that the official line is that the royal family do tremendous amount of PR, essentially, for the UK. But what was said behind the scenes about the more minor royals like Prince Andrew?

14:27Harry Wilson:Well, I have to say during the time I was in government, actually, this issue was probably in abeyance, actually. It was possibly one of the, when we were in the, I was in during the pandemic as well. So it was one of the more, the less noisy periods in all of this. It was before, I think, I'll have to check, but I think it was before the Maitlis interview.

14:46Allegra Stratton:It was, I think, after the Emily Maitlis interview with Newsnight, which was when the Queen essentially removed Prince Andrew from public life. But it was before things became.

14:59Harry Wilson:He, I don't know if this is hugely useful. I can't honestly remember a single, I can remember conversations about Charles, but I can't remember conversations about Andrew.

15:10Allegra Stratton:And do you think there are implications even for the UK reputationally?