[laughs]

Well, there's a simple way to determine what the answer is, which is at that point, Andrew had coverage and continual support from police protection officers, royal protection officers.

So there's a... there'll be a record.

The Metropolitan Police will have a record as to which officers are with him on that particular evening and where they were.

So I wrote to the Metropolitan Police and said, "Can you tell me, please, where your officers with Andrew were on that particular evening?" They refused to do so.

So it's a matter of secrecy, effectively, and exempt under the Freedom of Information Act.

So that's another example of why information should be released to the public.

Hmm

[laughs]

Um, that's one thing.

The second thing is that, and this is why it's current, is what did Charles know at the time? What did the Queen know? If they were bailing him out, they would have asked questions, they would have known what that was about.

Even if, even if they didn't bail him out, the fact that he was giving 12 million pounds to someone, they would have asked questions even in private, say, "What's this about? What have you been doing?" So, you know, the idea that they're taking action now, and Charles are trying to get credit for taking action now, I'm sorry, he's 15 years too late.

What was he doing back in 2011?

Mm.

So with a, with a monarchy, you end up with someone you can't control.

And let's just remember that had Charles died before William was born, we would now have King Andrew I on the throne.

The royal family in Britain lives an exceedingly exalted life away from other people.

They have far more money than anybody else in the country, near enough.

They've got acres and acres, literally, of land.

William's just commandeered 150 acres in Windsor Great Park to go around his new house and put a fence up around it.

With that planning permission, I might say, or any consultation.

Really? Yes.

A symbol.

Also, they're not a symbol of multiculturalism, because although Charles may want to be so, he is there as a Protestant king as head of the Church of England.

Well,

the French have handled these matters rather better than we have, in my view.

And on a serious point, there's a question to be asked, perhaps as a dissertation for somebody to write, as to... to what extent the royal family benefits the country and what extent it disbenefits the country.

And you might say, well, it's obvious because people heard of it.

They've seen films about it.

They come to Britain for tourism and so on.

You might say that's an obvious point, notwithstanding the financial issues I raised today.

How is Andrew being pushed out? How has that affected Beatrice and Eugenie? Are they still part of the royal family?

On the crimes that we are witnessing, whether it's on children and paedophiles and this and whatever, I think I'll scream and go into a bit of a rage too, Michelle.

Lessons to be learned is one of the worst phrases I've ever heard, actually, because they never are learned and they repeat themselves.

Men learn from mistakes how to make new ones, is what the old saying goes.

Look, I mean, there are two observations I've got here.

The first one is that if you've got a situation where you've got two different versions of what's happened, which is one from the person who was stabbed in this case and one from the person who stabbed him, the police's job is not to come down on one side.

It's to say, I recognise there are two sides, I will investigate that further.

Secondly, if someone says they've been stabbed, you've got to look at that first, because that could be life-threatening, as it was in this case.

This British culture.

Mm.

And, uh, uh, and again, in the book I, I make it clear that amazingly perhaps, um, Edward VIII was subject to telephone tapping by MI5.

Um, the, the prime minister and the home secretary went along to MI5 and arranged for him to be telephone tapped.

That's how serious the matter was.

So with a, with a monarchy, you end up with someone you can't control.

And let's just remember that had Charles died before William was born, we would now have King Andrew I on the throne.

So you know, po- you know, a republic gives you the potential bad people as presidents, but at least you can vote them out.

It's, otherwise, what is a nation?

[laughs]

... um, in terms of reversing 1760.

And George Osborne, who was the chancellor in sev- in, in 2011, very foolishly went along with this, and linked the money the, the Royals got directly, uh, with, um, the profits of the Crown Estate, this public body that's the Crown Estate.

It didn't go directly from the Crown Estate to, to the royal family.

It went to the Treasury as they always have done but then an allowance was made to the royal family based on, uh, the profits of the Crown Estate.

This is completely ludicrous because the, the Crown Estate's a property body-

[laughs]

Was out shooting in Sandringham, and a member of the public took a photograph of Charles shooting, and Charles immediately phoned up the police and said, "I've been photographed by this person.

Yeah.

Well, I mean, by all accounts they're better parents than they were as the royal family.

But nevertheless, you know, they've been in the public eye, they've been disgraced.

They've disgraced themselves actually, but it's now been revealed, and it must be difficult for the girls to, or women, sorry, to deal with that situation.

However, we do know that they've taken advantage of, of their dad's connections, uh, around the world, so I'm afraid they've got questions to answer too.

Um, and they've kept themselves at a very low profile, but I think at some point they're going to be dragged into things and I, I believe actually Andrew Lownie is producing a book on, or at least an update on this book, which will have more information about those two in it.

Mm.

He could have been come in, he could have been in, interviewed under caution, and that wouldn't have enabled the police to go through and rake through his properties.

Yeah

...

the, the, the connection.

In 1760, um, when the royal family was basically bankrupt, the king at that point had been financing the elements of state, including the armed forces and the civil service and customs and all the other things you have to ...

Excise people have to pay for in those days.

And obviously that was a big drain, and he would get some money coming in from, um, uh, from, um, uh ...

Well, there was some financial streams of money coming in from excise and so on, but it wasn't enough.

Oh, wow.

Mm.

Harry and Meghan have gone off to California.

But what we haven't got slimmed down is the bill.

The bill's going up, and this is very dangerous for them.

And I don't want to bore you with statistics, but let me give you one.

In 2011, the last year of the civil list, before it changed, they got 7.9 million direct from the government.

Forget all the other benefits, but just that one issue, 7.9 million in terms of the civil list.

Sure

It's on the map.

Yeah.

Usually that mansion is, like, dark, and nobody's there.

But last week, cars, black, black SUVs were seen.

I agree.

And then there was a, a shot of her, what looks like her best friend Abigail, who was, like, on the balcony.

So obviously-

So that's the big part, isn't it? And how much was he getting, do we know?

Well, we don't know definitely.

We know that she borrowed money, inverted commas, borrowed money from Epstein, never gave it back as far as we can tell.

We also know that Andrew was involved in various deals with people around the world, which sometimes involved Epstein.

And at least Epstein got the information back and we have to ask what he gave Andrew by way of return.

And of course, that's the matter which the police are currently looking at, the misuse of public money, public office.

And the fact that the allegation from the emails which came out in the States was that Andrew was passing on highly sensitive financial information from the British government at a very, very challenging time for this country at the time of the banking collapse in 2008, passing it to Epstein, who would then pass it on to his mates in the American banking industry.

Were you doing the FOIs and things as well? I know Andrew Looney was doing those and wasn't getting any answers.

Were you doing the FOIs and things as well? I know Andrew Looney was doing those and wasn't getting any answers.

No, Andrew Looney's done some fantastic work on FOI.

But I mean, I have to say that the amount of stuff he's got back in terms of answers is pretty pitiful, which shows the Freedom of Information Act doesn't work when it comes to the royal family.

You know, I was asking parliamentary questions, which are more difficult to evade than Freedom of Information questions.

They're much more immediate because you get an answer in two weeks or even less in a parliamentary question.

And the fact of the matter is, and this is a great issue which Andrew and I share a view on, which is that the exemption, effective exemption of the royal family from freedom of information is a disgrace.

They are part of the public sector.

Yeah, he sold the Swiss chalet, I think, presumably to pay for the Virginia Jiffrey money.

How would you respond? Good morning.

I think that's where the majority of people are.

There are people who are monarchists and who see nothing wrong with the monarchy whatsoever and won't hear a word against them.

And there are Republicans who won't hear a word for them.

But I think the majority of British people are in the middle where they're prepared to have a monarchy, but they want a monarchy which is much cheaper and much better value for money without the tax exemptions, without the free deals, without the sweetheart deals that we're seeing coming out in the papers today.

I think that's where people are.

Is that necessary?

No, it's not necessary.

Yeah

...

the, the, the connection.

In 1760, um, when the royal family was basically bankrupt, the King at that point had been financing the elements of state, including the armed forces and the civil service and customs and all the other things you have to ...

Excise people have to pay for in those days.

And obviously, that was a big drain.

And he would get some money coming in from, um, uh, from, um, uh, well, there was some financial streams of money coming in from excise and so on, but it wasn't enough.

Mm.

Who actually gets money from the Sovereign Grant? We know obviously the King does, but how far down does it go?

go?Well, I mean, a lot of the money for the minor royals actually, as I understand it, come to the Duchy of Lancaster, which is a kind of royal slush fund that ought to have been wrapped up into the Crown Estate years ago.

Um, so, you know, the money does-- it's supposed to be used for things like overseas travel, but, you know, when I ask questions to the Foreign Office, it turns out the Foreign Office have been paying for overseas travel for the royals themselves.

So they're kind of double counting in a sense in that way.

And one other point just to make, if I may, may.

The Crown Estate is rather misleadingly named.

The Crown Estate is effectively a public body, and it has been a public body, uh, paying money to the treasury between seventeen sixty and twenty eleven.

What was the most shocking thing that you discovered that you didn't know before?

Now, how did they rescue themselves?

Well, there was a deal made in 1760.

When George III came to the throne, before that point, excuse me, before that point, the king or queen had been responsible for a whole range of public functions and funny than personally, for example, the army, the civil service, the customs officers and so on.

were all funded from the King.

That ended in 1760.

The deal in 1760 was that the public purse through Parliament would take responsibility for those matters which were general state matters in return for offloading that particular burden The royal lands, called the crown lands, would then be transferred to Parliament and it would become effectively public property.

And the third element of that agreement was that the king would be given an annual amount of money, called the civil list, in order to enable him or his successors to undertake their royal duties.

Norman, yes, greedy by your argument, but what fascinates me is a deeper question, which is how is it that the royal family has the power, the influence, to be able to achieve these outcomes? How is it? that Parliament doesn't legislate for completely transparent assessment of royal wealth? How is it that the tax breaks are achieved, that all of these favours are still enshrined in law? How?

Now, how did they rescue themselves?

Well, there was a deal made in 1760 when George III came to the throne.

Before that point, the king or queen had been responsible for a whole range of public functions and funded them personally.

For example, the army, the civil service, the customs officers and so on were all funded from the king.

That ended in 1760.

The deal in 1760 was that the public purse, through Parliament, would take responsibility for those matters which were general state matters.

In return for offloading that particular burden, the royal lands, called the crown lands, would then be transferred to Parliament and it would become, effectively, public property.

Yes, greedy by your argument, but what fascinates me is a deeper question, which is how is it that the royal family has the power, the influence, to be able to achieve these outcomes? How is it? that Parliament doesn't legislate for completely transparent assessment of royal wealth? How is it that the tax breaks are achieved, that all of these favours are still enshrined in law? How?

How does it work with us paying for the royals?

Okay, the first thing to say is that the royal family in this country costs many, many times more than royal families do in mainland Europe.

In mainland Europe, it typically costs between about 5 million and 40 million a year.

Ours costs monumentally more than that in all sorts of ways.

First of all, there's a sovereign grant, which is the main form of funding.

And this is the one that they publicize as being how they get their money.

The civil list it replaced in 2011, they got 7.9 million from the civil list.

They

We

don't have very much check because what happens is that it's very difficult for MPs to raise questions about their whole family.

You're discouraged from doing so.

I was the only MP in my 18 years in the Commons to be able to introduce a debate on their whole family's finances.

And the only way I was able to do that was by linking it back to an obscure 1993 Treasury paper.

You know, that's how difficult it is.

When you arrive as an MP, although you're elected, the first thing you have to do before you take your seat is take an oath to the unelected head of state and his heirs and successors, which, by the way, includes Andrew and Harry and others as well.

That's the cost of Crown Estate income, isn't it?

But it's not quite the same level as what Andrew's being accused of.

It's not the same.

And Andrew, as well as being involved, of course, in Jeffrey Epstein, which everybody's aware of, he's also been involved in behaving quite improperly in using his position as a trade envoy for this country to enrich himself.

to use that position for his own benefit, not for Britain's benefit.

And that, to me, in many ways, is a worse crime than what he may have done with Jeffrey Epstein.

And he's still not been brought to book for that.

There's a lot in my book about his association with dodgy people.

what i would say though is that harry and megan in my opinion anyway they they haven't seemed to want to do the duties that are part of being in the royals and yet and also wrote a book exposing a lot about them but continue to use the name the sussexes