The tsunami of Jeffrey Epstein material released this month has been both horrifying and gratifying. It makes clear the extent of Epstein’s penetration of world elites – potentially even at the direction of various foreign intelligence agencies – and that this is a story as much about national security as financial and sexual irregularities. The lack of any proper oversight of the royal family may have given both the Russian and Chinese intelligence services their entry point into the British Establishment. The depositions also confirm the accuracy of what I had discovered researching Entitled: The Rise and Fall of the House of York, which was published last August. Some of that material was cut for legal reasons or because the publisher did not trust one of my sources, and I look forward to reinstating all the Peter Mandelson information for the paperback in May.
The worry of being sued weighed heavily with the publishers and we went through several drafts for the lawyers – a fetish for women’s underwear allowed; other private interests disallowed. In the end, we plaited together what we could and only two people have threatened to sue (apart from Sarah Ferguson, who did so before I had even written the book). Prince Harry objected to a reference to a fight with the former Prince Andrew, where he defended the honour of his then fiancée Meghan Markle, which I thought was one of the few positive bits of coverage Harry had received recently. His useful intervention propelled the book to No. 1 on Amazon and in the Sunday Times. The other was Donald Trump, who put pressure on my publisher’s American bosses – though the company only had British rights – with regard to a reference to Melania. In both cases the publisher decided that prudence was the better part of valour and removed the offending two sentences. Inevitably, the book’s detractors now use the deletions as evidence that nothing could be trusted in the remaining 140,000 words.
When the book was published, I was accused of writing salacious gossip, lambasted for suggesting Queen Elizabeth II had protected her second son. Several media interviews – many of which had already been conducted – were cancelled. For more than a decade I feel I have been a minority voice calling for greater royal transparency, a desire driven not by republican sentiments, but as a monarchist calling for the royal family to make itself fit for purpose in a 21st-century democracy. It is reassuring to see that all those politicians, journalists and historians to whom I reached out in vain for so many years are now manning the barricades.
Critics complain the book may bring down the royal family. My own feeling is that they have done that themselves by failing to address the ‘Andrew problem’ earlier. Numerous high-level officials raised their concerns over many years with the late Queen, only to be sent away with a flea in their ear. Protection officers were offered a choice – stick with the business-class flights and five-star accommodation, or go back on the beat in Brixton. Ambassadors who wrote disobligingly about the special representative for trade found their next posting was to Lagos. Journalists who raised the issue first encountered denials and then, when the information proved to be true, legal threats. The ABC network was strong-armed into dropping a documentary, which included an interview with Virginia Giuffre, years before the story broke, by the threat of being denied interviews with members of the royal family. Epstein abused countless young women in the ensuing years, although Andrew has always denied involvement in any wrongdoing. Since publication there has been a steady stream of former staff, diplomats, naval colleagues and school chums who have come forward with their own stories, appalled by the behaviour of the Yorks, whom I have christened ‘Bonnie and Clyde’. The result will be a new book to be called Untitled.
What needs to happen now? First all the files on the former Prince Andrew’s time as a special representative need to be released by the FCDO and Department for Business and Trade so we know who accompanied him and on whose account business was done. My sources tell me the taxpayer was even picking up his massage bills, approved by officials. We also need a parliamentary inquiry questioning on oath the hitherto silent former heads of UKTI, ambassadors to Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan, Libya, China, etc, to understand what went on. Likewise, Buckingham Palace needs to come clean on what they knew, when, what they did and will do. The Rwanda scheme is no longer an option for the former Knight of the Garter and I can’t see him staying in Sandringham. If charges are levelled for misconduct in public office, he may even follow his fellow royal, King Juan Carlos, in a flit to a country with tougher extradition laws.
I hope Entitled did something to loosen the earth and that, as a result, the mainstream media have been emboldened in their investigations, but this crisis for the monarchy has principally been driven by social media. It was public pressure that persuaded the media and parliament to raise wider questions about royal privilege and accountability – not least the public accounts committee looking at Crown Estate leases. This is long overdue, and I hope we will see greater parliamentary scrutiny, less opaqueness over the finances of the Duchies of Lancaster and Cornwall, the removal of royal exemptions in the Freedom of Information Act, the unsealing of royal wills and even a royal register covering royal business interests. There is also a great deal of scope to open royal palaces, such as Buckingham Palace, with art currently stacked in some of the nation’s museums. This is an opportunity for the monarchy to repurpose itself for the 21st century. I hope they will take it. Ironically, the former Prince Andrew could be its saviour.
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