Is the King losing his grip on the Prince Andrew crisis?

0:02Emily Maitlis:This is a Global Player original podcast. How long have you known about Andrew and Epstein? Have you asked the police to cover up for Andrew? Have you asked the police to cover up for Andrews, Charles? What do you think? Should the MPs be allowed to debate the royals in the House of Commons?

0:23Jon Sopel:That is the scene in Litchfield this morning, outside the cathedral, as the king is heckled about his brother.

0:34Lewis Goodall:It's not very often you see a monarch getting doorstepped in this country. But has the king failed to get to grips with his Andrew problem? And is he in danger of falling out of step with public feeling? Welcome to the News Agents.

0:53Emily Maitlis:The News Agents.

0:54Jon Sopel:It's John. It's Emily. And it really is striking to hear the king being heckled. You just don't expect it, you know. If it's kind of we're streeting out on the streets or Keir Starmer or Kemmy Badenock, yeah, that's what happens. The public shout at you.

1:10Lewis Goodall:And to be fair, this was a heckle outside a cathedral on a walkabout. We don't know if it was inspired by a Republican activist group. It's certainly been promoted on Republican websites. In other words, we don't know if it comes with a particular political bent or whether it does speak more widely to where the public mood is right now.

1:29Jon Sopel:And this comes as a story emerges today. Look, we've had the whole thing last week about the prince living in Royal Lodge in Windsor Great Park, the 30 bedroom mansion or whatever, where he hasn't been paying rent for the past 20 years. He paid some money to do the place up when he first got the lease on it. But apparently he's there forever. And there is enormous pressure for him to move out. And the story in Today's Son is absolutely kind of a jaw dropper in that apparently the prince has recognised that his time is up there, that he needs to move out of Royal Lodge. But by the way, I don't need one house.

2:04Jon Sopel:I need two. I need one for me and one for Fergie. And yeah, they're both going to be in Windsor Great Park as well. So I'll have Frogmore Cottage, which is where Prince Harry was living for a while. And Fergie will have Adelaide House, which is where the Prince of Wales, Prince William and Kate are moving out from and moving out of to move to the new home. So what the public is being asked to buy the idea that instead of having one property, they now have two, even though I'm not sure what responsibility the taxpayer has. for Sarah Ferguson, who is no longer a member of the royal family, who is divorced from Prince Andrew.

2:47Lewis Goodall:Yeah, I mean, it was not surprising to hear that the palace hasn't confirmed this and Prince Andrew has not commented on this. So this is just at the moment what we have sort of read from the runes. But what I can do is take you behind the curtain. Are we still saying the curtain?

3:02Jon Sopel:You would love the phrase behind the curtain.

3:04Lewis Goodall:Under the bonnet. Yeah, under the bonnet. To what happened on Thursday night, which was really quite odd. when we got wind of a story that might be developing around Royal Lodge. And the palace told ITN and the press association, in other words, the big sort of wire service of broadcasters, to crew the gates outside Windsor Lodge at 8pm. Because, and this was a phrase they used, there may be passing traffic, right? Nothing more was said, there may be passing traffic. and so PA was sort of thinking about who do they send. They ended up sending freelancers. In other words, you don't send your big guns, you know, your staff people, unless there's a set piece, you know, a sit down or an actual event, but you would send a freelancer to sort of spot passing traffic.

3:54Lewis Goodall:The BBC, I understand, deployed a helicopter and there was a question over whether there had been earlier in the day a meeting between Prince William and the princesses, Beatrice and Eugenie, saying, you guys have got to get your dad to move out of Royal Lodge. Otherwise, we will start re-examining the state of your own titles. They are at the moment allowed to be princesses, but there was a bit of pressure, we understand, being put on the princesses to say, you know, this is going to happen. And obviously, you can see why Andrew, as a father, would want to kind of keep his daughters happy and keep their titles in place come what may.

4:37Lewis Goodall:So what we learned was going to happen on Thursday was that Prince Charles, fresh from the Vatican, his audience with the Pope, was going to come via Royal Lodge to be seen, in other words, to be sort of reading the riot act to his brother. And nobody was going to film the conversation, clearly nobody was going to see him sort of stepping out the car. But there was going to be the moment caught on camera of King Charles's car heading towards Royal Lodge. What happened, I understand, was that the palace then got very nervous and when they saw the choppers and the helicopters, they thought, this has all got too big, this has got out of control.

5:20Lewis Goodall:They cancelled the whole thing. The king just went straight home, never came by then. And I heard from somebody the next day who just said, I was lucky enough to be stuck outside Royal Lodge in a storm last night for five hours. The Palace told us to go down there. Then they chickened out when broadcasters sent massive resources, including the chopper. It was all a bit bonkers. Now, Bucky and Palace are angry with us, saying the media created a circus. So they called off whatever was going to happen. And then this person puts the circus was all of their own making.

5:52Jon Sopel:Well, you see, what's so interesting about that, and we discussed it last week on the podcast, is that what you want is a bit of transparency at the moment. And everything is so opaque. It was all so kind of unclear what actions are being taken. And in the great tradition of the royal family and the relations between government and the royal family, it's all nods and winks and sort of behind closed doors and little whispers in ears and a bit of pressure being applied here and there, but no transparency. And I think there just needs to be a bit more transparency in all of this. And the idea that, you know, the story today of, well, you know, Andy wants a house, but he also wants, I'll go if I can have a house on the Windsor Great Estate.

6:35Jon Sopel:And also I want Fergie to have a house as well so that we can be near each other, but not together. I mean, these aren't little, I mean, they're called cottages. They are not tiny little two ups, two downs with an outside toilet. They are quite sizable. I mean, Frogmore Cottage was originally a 10 bedroom cottage. that was being contracted to five bedrooms when it was done up by Harry and Meghan. It's got a yoga studio and all the rest of it. It all sounds rather plush as it is now. So the idea that poor old Prince Andrew is going to have to live on this humble little, you know, Gillies cottage.

7:09Jon Sopel:He's not going to use the yoga studio, is he? I don't, I can't see that being overly used, to be honest. But I just think that this is so, again, tone deaf that you think the public are going to buy, oh, that's all right. You're out of, you know, it's all so fanciful to so many people who are trying to get on with their lives and trying to hit their mortgage payments that he's living rent free in this huge mansion. And we'll have two smaller ones instead if that's, you know, if that's the price we've got to pay. I don't see that washing with the public. And it's really interesting as well that you have the Liberal Democrat leader, Sir Ed Davey, now talking openly about how I want to debate on all of this stuff in the Commons.

7:48Jon Sopel:I want to see the head of the Public Accounts Committee perhaps calling Prince Andrew to give evidence about the lease and what's going on. And this is a shifting. Parliament doesn't look like it's ready to do the old opaque thing anymore. It wants a bit more transparency.

8:04Lewis Goodall:I think if you go back to the heckle, what is interesting is that it's not about the houses. It's not about the number of bedrooms. It's not even about public money or the transparency you're talking about. It's about something much, much more sinister, which is whether King Charles himself was aware. Complicity is a really complicated area, isn't it? Because, you know, was there stuff that the royals knew about his friendship? Yes, I'm sure there was. But did they want to air as public, you know, dirty linen? Of course they didn't. But does that become Charles's issue now? If Charles was the one, King Charles was the one who was actually having these talks, you know, because it's kind of been accepted that the Queen didn't really go far enough.

8:51Lewis Goodall:So King Charles thinks that he's taken on the sort of, you know, the fight now. And he's being pressed by William, who really wants this sorting out before he becomes king. And we just don't know when that is. But I think, you know, to start now pulling the monarch into these questions of complicity in sex trafficking is a whole different. I mean, it's a whole different, darker area of questioning, isn't it, than the number of bedrooms in a cottage?

9:22Jon Sopel:Yeah, but I don't think that does apply. And I don't think the public think that. I think that, you know, when you did the interview with Prince Andrew, it was obviously the queen that was on the throne. She didn't go far enough. He was the favoured son. And Prince Charles has moved to try and kind of push this along and clearly wants him out of, you know, Royal Lodge in Windsor. And he's trying to facilitate that. But he can't go on TV and do it, you know, sit down and do an interview and say, right, Andrew, you've got to go. You're out. It's over. He can't do that. So he's trying to do it in his own way, which probably isn't fast enough or, for an awful lot of people's tastes.

10:01Lewis Goodall:I mean, just sorry, but the Thursday night, I think the Thursday night kind of shit show, to be honest, is so representative of that, isn't it? It's like, we want the media to come, but not too much media. You're the palace. If you say we want the media to come, the media turn up, right? We want you to get a shot of passing traffic, but we don't actually want to tell you what's going to happen exactly and what that will involve.

10:24Jon Sopel:The idea that these are taps that you can just turn on and turn off as though you are in total control. Anyone who's dealt with the media or press handling knows that that is impossible. If you're going to give a message that something substantial might be happening, my God, there's going to be news interest. Get a hire of helicopters. Let's get shots from above. Let's get crews on the ground. Of course, they're going to send. Everyone is going to send to that. I think the interesting thing as well that's happening is that Ed Davey talking about, you know, know he needs to you know we need to debate this in parliament he needs to come before a select committee i get the impression that that has got the tacit approval of downing street not because they think it will happen but they think that this is another piece of pressure that can be applied to prince andrew that maybe if you don't start playing ball you're going to be hauled before a select committee to answer for yourself and that won't be a good look i don't believe that's going to happen but in the in america the oversight committee which is investigating exactly the issues you talk about about the epstein affair about the paedophilia about the girls being trafficked to his island and all the rest of it that is under investigation what happens if prince andrew is invited to testify before a congressional committee it would be explosive if he went and the questions are pretty obvious that you would ask and there would be no deference from members of a congressional committee.

11:56Jon Sopel:They got rid of our, you know, royal family and, you know, back in George III's time. They don't need to...

12:00Lewis Goodall:I think Americans have got more deference than we have.

12:03Jon Sopel:Oh, I don't think they would. I think that if they... And it's interesting that there are now two or three members of the committee who've come out and said, yeah, Andrew needs to come and testify before this committee. If they call him and he goes, it will be electric. And if he then says, I'm not going...

12:17Lewis Goodall:I mean, he literally couldn't set foot in the US, could he? He could.

12:20Jon Sopel:He could, but he wouldn't. And then he would be saying...

12:23Lewis Goodall:There are a lot of people who'd like to see him tried there.

12:24Jon Sopel:I mean... Yeah, but can you imagine, can you imagine the storm that will be provoked if Andrew says, you know, I'm going to plead the Fifth Amendment and not come before your committee. I'm going to stay silent rather than, you know. That would be a terrible look to our closest ally that he would say, I'm not going to go. And so it may be that, you know, I just don't think he's got any good options right now. And I think that, you know, trying to parlay a second house for Sarah Ferguson in the midst of all of this, you know, good luck, mate.

12:58Lewis Goodall:Well, I mean, they've sort of been hustling for decades, haven't they?

13:02Jon Sopel:I mean, it does look like that. Yeah. It really, you know, the Andrew Lowney book, which we kind of spent an episode on this podcast talking about and, you know, speaking to Andrew Lowney. The business activities of Andrew and Sarah Ferguson are as astonishing as any of the other allegations about, you know, Epstein and the rest. Because you think, wow, there is stuff going on here in his business activities that is just jaw dropping. I think the other thing that this focus is doing is making some people compare the Eugenie situation with the Harry situation, funnily enough, because Prince Harry, as we know, been

13:48Lewis Goodall:sort of cut off, you know, no bodyguards, you're not doing a royal job anymore, off you go. and the princesses have retained their title. They don't have security, but they've been allowed to sort of go out and earn their own money and still support the family and retain their titles. And I guess there will be some people saying, I don't understand the discrepancy there because they've managed something that sort of seems to work all round. Yep, they've got jobs. You know, one works in an art gallery. They sort of, they've actually earned their own money, but they do step in. You know, they do form part of the royal coterie at Christmas and Easter and all the rest of it.

14:27Lewis Goodall:And they will retain their own titles. And I guess there are some people now saying, well, why doesn't that apply to Harry? Why was it an all or nothing position for him?

14:37Jon Sopel:Well, I suppose 6 ,000 miles is the answer. I mean, the fact that Harry is chosen to be 6 ,000 miles away, whereas Beatrice and Eugenie are still in the UK and available for royal duty. Do you really think so? I don't know. I mean, he said he wanted to step back from royal. He wanted to be half in, half out. And he was much closer in the line. You know, he was the third in line, wasn't he? I mean, he was, you know, the heir's brother. and so he would have been you know much higher up the royal pecking order the son of the king whereas you know eugenia the sort of part of the hangers-on of the royal family and you know do important stuff and open things and whatever else but they're not as playing a central role so it would have been much more it's much easier for eugenie and beatrice in a way than it was for harry to kind of have a half foot in foot out kind of way of doing it yeah i mean it's

15:32Lewis Goodall:very hard isn't it to cover a story like this without getting sucked into something that feels like sort of parry match royal gossip you know this is not meant to be a sort of itemized discussion of each member's worth in the royal family but i do think it takes us back to that central issue which is where is the public now on the andrew case when prince charles was heckled what i really want to know is were there people in the crowds thinking this is absolutely appalling or were there are people in the crowds thinking, good on you. Both.

16:03Jon Sopel:Yeah. Both. I think that, you know, if you look at the video of it, you can see a woman who's obviously a femme royalist turning round to the heckler and saying, oh, shut up, shut up.

16:14Lewis Goodall:Because they've come out to see the king. Because they've come out to see the king and they think it is disrespectful

16:17Jon Sopel:and they think that the king is our monarch, our head of state. You should treat him with more respect than that. And the fact of the matter is that that person who was shouting was not being very respectful and because he was shouting at the king i think the public feel simultaneously that they want to be protective and respectful to the royal family but they want this sorted out and where things are at the moment is not a good place and when you start to hear that parliament is getting involved i think it's really good analogy to talk about is this parry match gossip because parry match gossip is what are they wearing oh they wore that dress once before when they were at the you know this isn't what this is about this is much bigger than that and it is about what you do about an errant member of a royal family that are still our heads of state and it seems that no one is able to quite get a grip on it which is what we're talking about today and the question of when that grip will happen i guess you know unusually i'm gonna try and step

17:19Lewis Goodall:into Andrew's head at this point because that is not a perspective that you hear very often. But you could see in his imagination, he thinks there is no end to this. You know, he could move out of Royal Lodge, but people would still be complaining about the next house he got. He could, you know, pay back some of the money, but he probably can't afford to pay back 20 years of rent. So is that ever going to be enough? He's given up his Duke title, but he hasn't given up his Prince title. Like, where does this end? He'd be thinking, you know, do I have to actually, you know, cut off a limb before people leave me alone.