I’m away this week lecturing on a cruise, but with the significant news this week about Andrew’s successful legal challenge, I wanted to record an episode of the Lownie Report Podcast to share my reaction.
We discussed why the initial reaction to the news was somewhat overblown, why, while a considerable error has been made, it doesn’t mean the investigation is over, and why it’s significant that the judge has allowed the police, for now, to keep the evidence that they gathered.
We also looked at the sustained briefing from Andrew’s camp in recent weeks about being welcomed back by high society in Norfolk, and I discussed what my sources have been telling me about how Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor is feeling increasingly confident and buoyant.
I also discussed how what we already know about Andrew’s, and indeed Peter Mandelson’s, behaviour is extraordinarily damaging regardless of whether charges are brought, and why this is still the tip of the iceberg in a scandal that will continue to bring into the open shocking revelations. I talked about two very significant cases in the US that may further enlighten the public as to Andrew’s behaviour.
We also cover the King’s role in all of this and why his weakness as a monarch is creating a power vacuum that is allowing royal disruptors such as Harry and Meghan to fill the gap.
It is truly shocking that Pizza Express has conducted an internal inquiry into Andrew’s supposed visit while the Palace continue to sit on 33,000 emails which they have had for years and which may prove Andrew’s criminality.
Multiple sources have also been telling me for months that protection officers and others have been warned to remain quiet. This is in stark contrast to the King’s personally signed statement that the police would have ‘our full and wholehearted support and co-operation’.
Indeed, had it not been for the Epstein emails being released, Andrew would still be a Prince living at Royal Lodge, and the Palace would have been perfectly content to continue to cover up his decades of misdeeds—an abuse of power for which no one has ever been held to account or is likely to be.
It is therefore critical that this wider picture is remembered as briefings and commentators get into the weeds of the police investigation, because this scandal will continue to damage an institution that is more vital than ever against a political landscape that is so volatile.
Queen Elizabeth II and King Charles III both had an opportunity to grasp the nettle and declined, so we will unfortunately have to wait and see whether a future King William finally decides to deal with the Andrew problem once and for all.
