Titles and entitlement: Prince Andrew’s unanswered questions

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. Coming up on the Sky News Daily, from playboy prince to royal pariah. He may no longer call himself the Duke of York, but the questions around Prince Andrew's conduct continue to pile up.

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. If he's capable of sweating, then surely he'll be doing so now. Hi everyone, welcome back to the Daily Whirlick. No surprise, we're going to be discussing Prince Andrew yet again.

1:23Why? Well, he released a statement late last Friday in which he said he was relinquishing his titles, including him being the Duke of York. That alone would be enough to talk about, but since then it's been alleged that he tried to dig up dirt on Virginia Giuffre, the woman who alleges she was forced to have sex with Andrew, along with his friend Jeffrey Epstein. The Prince vigorously denies all allegations. We know that Virginia was paid£12 million to settle her civil case in the United States. She sadly took her life back in April, but this week her memoirs are being published posthumously. And no doubt there will be fresh detail and accusations.

2:01In short, if the palace thought they had put this one to rest, they were much mistaken. In fact, those already critical of the monarchy see this as another reason to renew their opposition to the royal family. Here's Graham Smith from the anti-monarchy group Republic. The whole problem here is the Ra family have built up this lines of defence of secrecy, of deference, of people getting very upset if you even suggest anything offensive about them. And at the end of the day, these are just very ordinary people in a weird situation, which has allowed them to think that they can behave with impunity and get away with anything.

2:38And it's time that we strip away all the nonsense about titles and royalty and blue blood and all the rest of the nonsense. This is just a bloke who is facing serious accusations and he should be held to account. Rhiannon Mills is Sky's royal correspondent. Rhiannon, that statement from Andrew was put out late on Friday. Was that an attempt to bury the story, do you think? Look, it is not the first time that I've had that kind of seismic statement drop in my inbox very late on an evening when it comes to the royal family. But what I've learned from experience is that when these things break like this, it is because they have decided they had to act now and they had to act fast.

3:17But this is the British royal family. And this is Prince Andrew. And this is Jeffrey Epstein. And there was no way that this was going to be brushed under the carpet. It literally blew up again around Prince Andrew. And it attracts global headlines. They know that this is going to attract attention. So no, I don't think the Friday evening thing was deliberate to try and kind of get it buried. Remind us what they said, because it all related to Andrew and his titles. What was interesting about it is it came from Prince Andrew. However, listen to the amount of times that the family are mentioned.

3:52So in discussion with the king and my immediate wider family, we have concluded the continued accusations about me distract from the work of his majesty and the royal family. I have decided, as I always have, to put my duty to my family and country first. I stand by my decision made five years ago to stand back from public life. With His Majesty's agreement, we feel I must now go a step further. And that's where he then announces that he is no longer going to use his titles and his honours. They are being relinquished in terms of the use, but they are not entirely taken away. Simple question. Who is the Duke of York?

4:30It's Prince Andrew, isn't it? Yes, it is. Those titles are extant, as it was described to me, but he simply will not use them. And that's where... So it's all he's got to do is change his headed notepaper. Ultimately, yeah. And that's the problem for some people. That's why some say this has not sort of drawn the line under it that many would like to see. However, speaking to those at the palace, there was a decision that this was ultimately the swiftest way to do it, which gave the deserved and necessary outcome, is how it was described to me. Because I find it fascinating. Why has it happened now?

5:09You and I have done podcasts before, haven't we? About these allegations against Prince Andrew in terms of Geoffrey Epstein and Virginia Dufresne. So what made this moment different? And for me, the family had just had enough. So when you say the family, Charles or William? I think it's really interesting to talk about the king, first of all. Ultimately, he, of course, would have been central to the discussions and the overall kind of how are we going to sell this to the public. However, he is a man who does not like confrontation, just like his mother, especially when it spills out into the public.

5:45However, I think his son, Prince William, and look, we've heard this very recently, he is a man who's already said when he becomes monarch, there will be change. and look, did you see the pictures of him standing next to Prince Andrew at the Duchess of Kent's funeral? He just looked furious. He just looked mortified that his uncle was there standing next to him and trying to talk to him. So I think in the end, Prince William, who we know is a very principled man, has said, enough. We need to be seen to be acting as an institution in terms of addressing these ongoing issues around Prince Andrew, not just because the distraction from their work I think that came across loud and clear in that statement but also because of the issues at play the fact that you are talking about one of the the world's most well-known convicted paedophiles most prolific convicted paedophiles you are talking about Virginia Dufresne who sadly took her own life earlier this year in this new book she will be talking about those horrific incidents of abuse.

6:51And for the royal family, I think that is why now. So practically, whilst he remains a prince, he remains the Duke of York. I mean, those things can be taken off him, can't they? But it would take Parliament to do it. And we have already had backbenchers saying, well, this needs to happen. We need the bill to go through in order to completely remove him of those titles. Now, some people say, well, why can't the king do it? since Magna Carta, it's been there written down that in order to get rid of those peerages, it has to go through Parliament. Now, the Palace would say the reason they did all of this in the way they did was because that would take up precious parliamentary time.

7:27So we wait to find out whether or not there will be this clamour in terms of pushing through a bill. I just think what is fascinating at the moment is that you have government ministers saying, well, we'll wait for the king. We'll wait for the king to kind of make a decision on this. I would say get your deck chair out. You would literally have to wait and wait and wait and wait because it's not going to happen from that side I don't think. There would I think need to be the political pressure for it to go further certainly when it comes to those titles such as Duke of York. The very latest on Andrew is that he stands accused of attempting to, for want of a better phrase, dig up dirt on Virginia Dufresne.

8:11That's hugely damaging. The Met Police have already said that they are going to investigate. He's accused of going to the Queen's deputy press secretary and his close protection officer and saying, look, here is Virginia Giffray's date of birth and her social security number. I want you to dig up information about her. Ultimately, you have to remember that Prince Andrew, by doing that, was ultimately asking his protection officer to potentially commit a crime themselves by trying to dig up information about a potentially innocent individual. We are talking about a situation in which, with the Metropolitan Police saying that they are investigating, there exists the very real possibility that Andrew could be interviewed by the police and perhaps even under caution.

9:00We wait to see. It's been interesting, though, talking to palace sources. What they have stressed to me is the severity of what we're talking about now in terms of the allegations. And they have said that the royal family believe that all of this should be examined in the proper and fullest ways. He's not above the law though, is he practically, in the way in which that the monarch is? No. Was he ever questioned by anyone, do we know, about those allegations that Virginia Giffray made of him? No, as far as we know. And of course we should mention again, and we will be saying in an awful lot during this podcast, those allegations strenuously denied by the Prince.

9:39Well, in the bottom of his statement, that was what was so interesting for me in terms of that statement. Yes, it was about putting his family first, but actually he used what was a very rare public moment. We've not had any statements from him for years. And he used that statement to again say that he vehemently denies all of those allegations against him. Another detail that emerged over the weekend. What of Sarah Ferguson and their daughters? It is alleged that they met with Jeffrey Epstein again after the man's conviction. This again ties in with a story that you were talking about a few weeks ago in terms of Sarah Ferguson actually sending an email to Jeffrey Epstein.

10:22But again, it's that slow drip feed, isn't it, of the different stories that keep coming out in terms of just how close those connections were between Epstein, the Duke of York, the Duchess of York, but also, yeah, Princess Beatrice and Princess Eugenie being there in his company. But they clearly, as Sarah Ferguson said in her statement, like many people, they were taken in by Jeffrey Epstein. You also have to remember that Newsnight interview that Prince Andrew gave in 2019. At no point did he apologise for being friends with Jeffrey Epstein. And actually his advisor at the time, I said to her, why has he not apologised for being friends with Epstein?

11:04And she said at the time he didn't regret it. So much of the commentary, so much of the coverage around this story has forgotten about, I think, the person at the centre of it, Virginia Giuffre. So let's talk about her and her memoirs are coming out. And you, in fact, have a copy in front. We have. We've managed to get one from a bookshop. It wasn't actually due to be released until Tuesday. I'm still to read this one, so I don't know exactly what's in it. However, we have had some extracts that have been released. an extract last week where it's heartbreaking to read how she was drawn into kind of that web really of Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell in it.

11:50She talked about having sex with Prince Andrew on three occasions, how it felt like he felt it was his birthright to have sex with her, even though she was only 17. because we have heard her story so many times in some ways we've become numb I would say and and it's it has I think you're right there's consistently been this sense of well what about Prince Andrew and it takes you away from the horrendous crimes that were committed against her so she would say although Prince Andrew denies them but then also within this book it says that a gagging order was put in place on Virginia Giffray in order to protect the royal family I have to say, talking to Buckingham Palace today, there's been reports out there that the family feel like there's more days of pain ahead.

12:36I think actually this does feel like a bit of a turning point where the royal family are going, enough now, enough. And actually, we do need to, we do need to remember the victims. But, of course, there will be those who will say, does it feel that he's been punished enough? What for Andrew now, though? Does he just continue to sit in the Great Lodge, you know, wonderful palace itself? I mean, they're again unanswered questions. So what we do know in terms of his finances, I think it's worth going over, is we know that he was cut off by the king last year because there were discussions about him selling off his pitch at Palace contacts to a business.

13:13And actually, some of the king's advisers met with that business because the king wanted to cut him off. So financially, he has been cut off by the king. I have always wondered how much Sarah Ferguson actually has helped contribute to the bills, because after all, she has been writing books. She's had more free reign to kind of go out and make money. Whereas Prince Andrew, of course, since 2019, 2020, has pretty much become a recluse. However, it's whether or not he's had some financial backing from, I don't know, royal families in the Middle East, for example, because they still hold him in such high regard by association.

13:55So it's whether money has come in that way. I have been told in the past that they have been given every assurance that money has been coming from reputable sources. But that is as far as I've managed to get. But again, it just feels like there are some fundamental questions being asked and they are not being open and transparent in the way in which you might expect them to be if they want to put the House of Windsor in order. What I find fascinating always about these stories is where are our backbenchers standing up and saying enough is enough? Where are they? Stephen Flynn from the SNP is one.

14:32They are small in their number and certainly not very loud in their number and that is what I always find fascinating about these stories is that in newsrooms, we can be outraged and disgusted that the Royal Family are not more forthcoming. However, the clamour publicly to find out more isn't necessarily there. Although I think with Prince Andrew, people will have been pleased that he is no longer using his titles. And ultimately, what you have to think is that this week, the Royal Family knew this book was coming out on Tuesday. I think they did want to be seen to be ahead of the game in terms of pre-empting those questions.

15:19And those have consistently been the questions. Why does he still have certain titles? Why does he live in Royal Lodge? In terms of the titles, in some ways that has been addressed. Some would say not enough. Royal Lodge, will that question answer itself? because can Prince Andrew and Sarah Ferguson actually afford to live in that house with still, I'm told, a large number of staff? And in the end, it may be their finances that make that final decision. Do you detect that we are finally edging towards that point where there is a public discussion about not just where the royal family goes next, but the future of the royal family?

16:01Whether or not ultimately, on a cost-benefit analysis, they're more trouble than they're worth? No, I really don't. Because I think when you look at the polling, there is still a huge amount of respect for Prince William, Princess Catherine, the King and Queen. I think they are still seen as an asset for Britain, for UK PLC. And in some ways, this story says it all. Where are parliamentarians kind of rising up and saying there needs to be more scrutiny? they're not really there, or they're certainly not very noisy or very vocal. And while members of the public will continue reading the stories about Prince Andrew, I think members of the public see him as almost separate from the likes of Prince William.

16:53And also there will be a sense of, well, they've done something. They have done something. But I appreciate, for some, that won't be enough. Thanks to Rhiannon and to you for listening. and as mentioned, we have covered this story before on The Daily. A couple of weeks back, I had an absolutely fascinating chat with Andrew Lowney. He's the author of Entitled, The Rise and Fall of the House of York and video of our conversation is available on YouTube. The link is in the notes attached to the podcast. The Daily is back again tomorrow.

17:28How 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.