Punishing Prince Andrew – would losing Royal Lodge be enough?

0:00How does a banana trigger a CIA-backed coup? Do AirPods herald the arrival of a new global order? What do LED lights say about the future of humanity? I'm Ed Conway, and in each episode of my new podcast, Stuff Matters, I take an object, crack it open, and reveal the world-shaping forces hidden inside. This is economics told through the things we think we understand. Search Stuff Matters on your podcast app to listen and follow. Prince Andrew is finally edging closer to leaving Royal Lodge, his Windsor mansion, but will that be enough to contain the public anger at him? I'm Gareth Barlow. This is the Sky News Daily.

0:42How does a banana trigger a CIA-backed coup? Do AirPods herald the arrival of a new global order? What do LED lights say about the future of humanity? I'm Ed Conway, and in each episode of my new podcast, Stuff Matters, I take an object, crack it open and reveal the world-shaping forces hidden inside. This is economics told through the things we think we understand. Search Stuff Matters on your podcast app to listen and follow.

1:31Just one heckler there, shouting at the king, who was then told to be quiet by the rest of the crowd. The heckler, not the king. But it does show how difficult it is for the royal family to put a lid on the scandals that surround Prince Andrew. Removing his titles doesn't seem to have worked, and mostly removing him from public view hasn't stopped the laser-like focus on his past. So what about downsizing him from the very grand royal lodge with its 30 rooms to something smaller? Would that be enough to satisfy his critics? With us to discuss all of this is Rhiannon Mills, our Royal Correspondent.

2:04Gareth Barlow:I just think what is so fascinating about this story is you just have to look at the constant headlines. This is not going away. There is just this constant public pressure to want to know why exactly he's still in that enormous house. And I think for the Royal Family, they were hoping that him publicly giving up his titles, well, the use of them at least, was going to be enough to shut it down. And actually, in some ways, it reminds me of that Newsnight interview. That was meant to do the same thing. And it didn't do that at all. It just blew it up even more. And that, in a way, kind of being part of the Royal Beat, it feels like that's what's happened this time around, really.

2:41The big question is not so much will they go, it's where do they go? Yeah, and I think this is what I found really fascinating

2:49Gareth Barlow:over the last couple of days, is that everyone keeps talking about two properties that we've heard a lot about sort of over the last few years anyway so Frogmore Cottage which used to be Harry and Meghan's home and then Adelaide Cottage which the Prince and Princess of Wales have been living in with their children but they're imminently moving out of so apparently there have been discussions about whether or not those two could be appropriate properties for both Prince Andrew and his ex-wife Sarah Ferguson but what it's got me thinking is, is that really the best fix to all of this? Because you still have two really nice properties there, lavish properties on the Windsor estate in that prime position near to Windsor Castle.

3:32Gareth Barlow:So for all of those who are clamouring for him to be punished more, for him to be moved into less luxurious dwellings, I'm not entirely sure that this is really going to be the right answer. The reality is, though, that he's not going to move to a two-bed duplex new build, is he? He's going to have to stay probably somewhere within the confines of the royal estate, some household that to some degree has taxpayer money in it somewhere. And that's been the focus on Royal Lodge and the way that that's all funded. Surely if he goes to Frogmore or to Adelaide, then the financial questions, they don't really go anywhere.

4:10They maybe just get a bit smaller.

4:12Gareth Barlow:I think there's a couple of things there. of course it was amazing last week we saw actually his rental agreement with the crown estate and we found out that when he moved in there back in 2003 he paid a million pounds he also paid 7.5 million pounds for the refurbishment so not small change there but then it transpires that he's been paying peppercorn rent for over 20 years in essence nothing and I think that particularly sat very badly with people during a cost of living crisis. And when people look at the allegations against him, his links to Jeffrey Epstein, but I just think that was the thing that was really hard for people to swallow, the sense that he'd been paying no rent.

4:54Gareth Barlow:I think what's interesting is, why would the royal family want to keep him there? Is it that out of sight, out of mind for the public, but within the confines of the establishment for his big brother? I've been talking to sort of palace insiders about, well, surely he's got to move out of Royal Lodge. It is seen as this kind of status symbol. It's this massive house. And actually, what they've said to me is over the years, there's kind of been a sense that, do you know what? It's actually better to keep him on the Windsor estate. They can see what he's doing, but also from a security perspective.

5:31Gareth Barlow:And then you sort of add on to that, OK, if he's kicked off the Windsor estate, what does it mean for his new neighbours, wherever that may be, in terms of the security set up around him? And actually, do they want to force that onto other people? So again, it just makes you think, OK, so maybe for us and members of the public, it might not quite sit right that he stays on those beautiful grounds of the Windsor estate. But actually, from a practical perspective, is it the best answer? And dare I say, they can keep an eye on who goes to visit. Yeah, well, exactly. And there's, of course, today been stories again about the likes of Jeffrey Epstein, Ghislaine Maxwell, Harvey Weinstein, all spending time at Royal Lodge because they're invited to this party at Windsor Castle.

6:22Gareth Barlow:But we have to keep saying, and Prince Andrew used his kind of rare public statement to say this, he vehemently denies any allegations against him. he denies doing anything wrong. But yeah, there continue to be lots of questions around Prince Andrew, the contacts that he's built over the years. And look, I've spoken to Andrew Lowney, the author who wrote the kind of most recent book about the Yorks, who says it's been really difficult to get any kind of transparency about Prince Andrew's contacts over the years, even through government departments that he's put freedom of information requests into, and documents appear to have sort of disappeared.

7:00And then for the king personally, you see him praying next to the Pope. The first time in over 500 years that the head of the Catholic Church and the Church of England have done so. And on the front pages, it's everywhere. On one paper's front page, there was then a story about Royal Lodge and Andrew. Even in that moment of half a millennia's worth of history, Andrew still manages to steal some limelight.

7:19Gareth Barlow:Look, I'll give you a little bit of a peek behind the curtain, if you like, of the chaos of dealing with this job over the last week or so. So Thursday was a really interesting case in point. We were constantly being briefed. Ice front, focus on this huge religious historic moment. This is a big deal. This matters more than you could possibly know to the king. This is huge when it comes to his legacy as monarch. Anyway, he gets on the plane to fly home. We're all doing our packaging around king, pope. Big moment. And then we're starting to be told that maybe we should get cameras outside of Royal Lodge.

7:55Gareth Barlow:Q, absolute chaos. Chaos in terms of speculation about what was going to happen, what we might see, and what exactly this all meant. Anyway, that was kind of around five o 'clock in the afternoon. By the time we got to eight o 'clock in the evening, there was further briefings of, no, no, no, nothing to see here. Nothing's going to happen. And it was really, really peculiar. And from doing this job for a very long time, for me, when there were rumours about something happening later on. It didn't sit right. I was thinking, why on earth would they blow up their big day of meeting the Pope? But it just gives you some idea of that clamour for there to be movement on this, for something to happen.

8:38Gareth Barlow:But also, sadly, for the royal family, the fact that this continues to be a massive distraction. And it's not just dragging in the king. There's also Prince William, the Prince of Wales, talk about the fact that he's had conversations about what his uncle's future looks like, talk even about allegations of him kind of putting pressure on his cousins. What do you make of this? He's kind of buzzing around in the media and your laugh tells me what I think you think of this. I love it when a big raw story blows up because everyone's got an opinion, everyone's got a source and everyone's got a kind of insider, everyone has contact.

9:17Gareth Barlow:What I can, I would say, pretty much say as fact is I think that Prince William definitely has been heavily involved in these conversations around this. He's a very principled man. I think he probably has got to the stage where, look, as an institution, it has been felt they needed to respond in a more robust way in terms of the allegations that were coming out against Prince Andrew. Would he put pressure on his cousins? I'm not entirely sure that's his style. Also, I think those girls are under enough pressure anyway. And this is Beatrice and Eugenie? I think you just have to feel sorry for them, don't you?

9:56Gareth Barlow:In the last month, they've had stories about their mother, Sarah Ferguson, writing emails to Jeffrey Epstein, seemingly apologising, although she said she was being blackmailed, and then all of this around their father as well. But yeah, I have no doubt that Prince William, probably Queen Camilla, have had a big role in terms of the movement that we've seen so far, especially when the king is a man who he doesn't really like confrontation but also I think what's what's really interesting is yes you've got the crown estate they deal with the lease but there is no doubt there have been family discussions about Royal Lodge which I think seems to be kind of the big sticking point at the moment and I do wonder how much the thoughts of Queen Elizabeth II are still at play within all of this.

10:44Gareth Barlow:One Royal source said to me that because of the proximity of Royal Lodge to Windsor Castle, actually in those final years of Queen Elizabeth's life, Prince Andrew, Sarah Ferguson and their two daughters often were the most regular visitors to see Queen Elizabeth. So while we have a new king, you do wonder how much he would want to be going against his mother's wishes in terms of his brother. It is political as well and politicians are always slightly wary and they're also limited in what they can say and do regarding the royal family. But there is push within the Lib Dems. There's also moves potentially within the National Audit Office to kind of look again quite forensically as to Andrew's situation.

11:30And that's going to continue to kind of drip down on the royal family.

11:33Gareth Barlow:Neil and I were talking about this and Neil said to me, oh, is this kind of the end for the royal family is this kind of the nail in the coffin. And I said, actually, where are our parliamentarians in all of this? This was on the Monday. And actually, there hadn't been anyone coming out very publicly saying enough is enough. And then, of course, we have had the Lib Dems say, no, no, no, we will push for this to be debated in Parliament. We wait to see whether or not that will happen. Ed Davey, though, of course, was also saying that they'll kind of be led by the Public Accounts Committee to see whether or not they are going to look into it or not.

12:10Gareth Barlow:But it's been so interesting, I think, to see particularly number 10, the Prime Minister saying, we will be led by the King on this one. But then the Lib Dem saying, no, no, this is the moment when we need to debate this. And also, yesterday, we saw outside Litchfield Cathedral, you alluded to it earlier, the King being heckled. I think since his cancer diagnosis, yes, early on in his reign, we saw eggs being thrown and things like that. But since his cancer diagnosis, there's been a quiet around him. So actually, it was quite something to see somebody very loudly heckling him, mentioning Jeffrey Epstein's name in front of the king.

12:51Gareth Barlow:But it shows that there is, while it was, yes, one lone protester, there is certainly more noise around this than we've seen in a while. Royal families, royal households of days gone by used to have quite an established mechanism for solving issues like this. It was sending the unwanted members of the family into exile. Does that translate into 2025? I keep thinking about that and whether it will work. Does it really work to have him cast out? Look, in the papers there were discussions about could he move to somewhere like Abu Dhabi? We know that during his years as trade envoy, he built up some very close relationships with some of the Arab royal families, other important individuals around the world.

13:39Gareth Barlow:I'm not sure that entirely works. It doesn't necessarily shut down all of the other questions. You still have the involvement of the Met Police, who've said that they are looking at the claims that he may have asked one of his close protection officers to dig up dirt about Virginia Dufresne. And it was interesting last week speaking to someone within the palace who specifically said to me that the allegations were being looked at seriously and with grave concerns and that they do believe that they should be looked at in the proper and fullest ways. that is the jeopardy I think for the royal family at the moment is there are all of these different moving parts where we could see inquiries we could see investigations and and look next week I'm going to Brazil with Prince William for his his earth shot prize we know he's going to then go to the cop leaders summit where he will deliver a speech that is a massive week for Prince William yes we've seen earth shot prize before but but it's being seen as this is him positioning himself as a global leader.

14:42Gareth Barlow:If we have more drip, drip, drip of stories about Prince Andrew, that is not going to be great for him and his team. Rhiannon, thank you so much. Obviously, Prince Andrew has vigorously always denied the accusations against him. And you can hear more from Rhiannon about Andrew's difficulties when she spoke to us when it was announced he was giving up his titles. You can find that in your daily podcast feed too. And last month, Neil Patterson spoke to royal biographer Andrew Lowney about Sarah Ferguson following more revelation about her links to Jeffrey Epstein. Find that in your podcast feed or watch the whole episode on YouTube.

15:21How does a banana trigger a CIA-backed coup? Do AirPods herald the arrival of a new global order? What do LED lights say about the future of humanity? I'm Ed Conway, and in each episode of my new podcast, Stuff Matters, I take an object, crack it open, and reveal the world-shaping forces hidden inside. This is economics told through the things we think we understand. Search Stuff Matters on your podcast app to listen and follow.