Full transcript
0:00Tell me a little bit about your book
0:01before we get going.
0:02>> Royal and national debt. This is about
0:05the finances of the royal family and
0:07really it poses the questions to how it
0:08was
0:09that a family which was bankrupt in 1760
0:13is now worth billions.
0:16Where does that money come from? It
0:17hasn't come from betting on the horses.
0:19So, where does it come from? So, the
0:20book goes into the various ways in which
0:22they've accumulated wealth. Most of
0:24which is frankly from the public purse.
0:26>> Mhm. One of the people that we've been
0:28looking into, everyone's been looking
0:29into, is Prince Andrew, of course. Uh he
0:31now has no title, no anything really.
0:34So, how is he affording to get by?
0:37>> Well, we don't know that really, but
0:38obviously he had some money given to him
0:40in in in in a trust.
0:42>> Mhm.
0:43>> Um I think from the Queen Mother
0:44originally and then I think probably
0:45from his mother. But it's true that the
0:48amount of money he spends
0:51uh is uh in excess of what he clearly
0:53earns. I mean, all he's entitled to now
0:55is a naval pension, which is about
0:5620,000 lb a year.
0:58>> Mhm.
0:58>> When uh the Queen was around, he got a
1:00quarter of a million a year in from uh
1:03through the Duchy of Lancaster. But even
1:05so, that was well below what he was
1:06actually spending. We do know that in
1:09his time as trade envoy, he was very
1:11busy
1:12um arguing for uh deals for himself
1:15rather than arguing for deals for
1:16Britain. Mhm. And in my book uh I set
1:19out some examples of of the dodgy
1:21dealing which he had, which
1:23proved to be quite lucrative for him.
1:25>> Mhm. So, he was on 250 grand a year,
1:27basically. That's And it wasn't
1:29>> naval pension and 270 was all we
1:31officially know about.
1:32>> But that pension, was he Was he getting
1:34that?
1:34>> He was getting that from his time in the
1:35Royal Navy.
1:36>> Oh, right. For since he was what, 20
1:38something?
1:39>> Yeah, I mean, that that he was obviously
1:40in the Falklands War and everything
1:41else. So, 20,000 lb a year is what he
1:43got from that. I mean, that's peanuts.
1:45>> Mhm.
1:46>> Particularly when he's half supporting
1:48Sarah Ferguson.
1:49>> Mhm.
1:50>> Whose tendency to spend money is
1:51legendary.
1:52>> Still a good deal of money though, isn't
1:54it, for the average person?
1:56>> What, 20,000?
1:57>> Well,
1:57what, 270, yeah. Well, it is. I mean, he
2:00he he he used to live within his means
2:02now because the king, I think, has cut
2:04him off
2:05from uh that the the royal finances. Uh
2:08and I think that was done to try and
2:09force him out of um his property in
2:11Windsor.
2:12>> Mhm.
2:12>> Um and clearly cuz Charles wants to
2:15distance himself from Andrew and say,
2:17"Nothing to do with me, mate." Uh which
2:19is easier said than done, actually. We
2:21can go on to that if you like.
2:22>> Mhm.
2:23>> Um but, you know, he's clearly had money
2:25from other sources. I mean, let's face
2:27it, he had this chalet in Switzerland, a
2:29ski chalet, which cost um I think about
2:3315, from memory, 15 million pounds.
2:35Um where's that come from? How can you
2:37afford to do that? Sarah Ferguson bought
2:39a house in Mayfair for 4.2 million.
2:41Where are all these money pots of money
2:42coming from?
2:43>> And they don't just inherit money, the
2:45royals. They don't just sort of wake up
2:46or be born and have millions in their
2:49bank account.
2:49>> Well, I mean, I think that there's a
2:51tendency to make sure that when children
2:53are born,
2:54um trust funds were established for them
2:55to make sure they're not poor and keep
2:58them going. That's one thing that they
2:59do internally.
3:01Uh the royal family also has great
3:02investments in offshore uh businesses,
3:06uh sometimes in very dodgy regimes,
3:08uh which are frowned upon in terms of
3:11where money should go.
3:12And they say they get no particular
3:14benefit from that, in which case the
3:15question is why don't they just go down
3:16to Barclays and put it all into
3:17Barclays? Um they must get some benefit
3:19from it. And this came out with the
3:21Paradise Papers and so on, which showed
3:23some of the investments that that they
3:24had made. So, that's one source of of
3:26money they get,
3:27uh which helps them along the way.
3:29And of course, beyond that, uh we know
3:31that, for example, Andrew and Sarah
3:33Ferguson got money from Epstein.
3:34>> Ah. So, that's yeah, that's the big
3:36part, isn't it? And how how much was he
3:38getting? Do we know?
3:39>> Well, we don't know definitely. We know
3:40that she borrowed borrowed money and
3:42Ratcher Comers borrowed money uh from
3:44Epstein, uh never gave it back as far as
3:46we can tell. Uh we also know that um
3:49Andrew was involved in various deals
3:51with people around the world which
3:53sometimes
3:54involved Epstein.
3:56Uh and at least Epstein got the
3:58information back and we're to ask what
4:00what he gave Andrew by way of return.
4:03And of course that's the matter which
4:05the police are currently looking at. Uh
4:07the misuse of public money public
4:09office.
4:11Um and in fact that the allegation from
4:13the emails which came out in in the
4:15states
4:16was that Andrew was passing on highly
4:18sensitive financial information from the
4:21British government at a very very
4:22challenging time for this country at the
4:25time of the banking collapse in 2000 and
4:27eight, passing it to Epstein who would
4:29then pass on to his mates in the
4:31American banking industry. And as as I
4:33made clear in the article I wrote for
4:35the for the Daily Mail, if you pass on
4:37sensitive information to a a party
4:39outside this country,
4:41potentially damaging this country,
4:42there's only one word for that, treason.
4:45>> And is that one of is that Do people
4:47still go to prison for treason? Cuz that
4:48was the one that you can get executed
4:50for.
4:51>> Well, you could get executed until 1998
4:53um
4:54when the Labour government came in under
4:56Blair abolished the death penalty.
4:57Hadn't been used of course since um 1945
5:00when Lord Haw-Haw was executed, you
5:03know, the the traitor who um
5:05did radio broadcasts with the Nazis.
5:07He was the last one to be executed. But
5:09it still was on the statute book as was
5:11um I think piracy in the high seas. But
5:13all these offenses which were there
5:15historically were abolished in
5:171998. However, it's still a crime. Of
5:20course it's a crime,
5:21uh treason.
5:22>> With a long sentence?
5:23>> Yes, absolutely. And the the thing is
5:26that I understand the police are now
5:27looking at whether that would apply in
5:29Andrew's case
5:30because the offense which he has been
5:33interviewed for, arrested for,
5:36with this um uh maladministration in
5:38public office,
5:39um that's reasonably difficult to prove.
5:42Um treason's much less difficult to
5:44prove.
5:44>> Oh man. It's an interesting one, isn't
5:46it? Cuz like all all the newspaper uh
5:48the headlines were all about the the sex
5:50stuff and the
5:52abuse of of of, you know, underage girls
5:56and things on on Epstein Island. And
5:58what he's actually maybe going down for
6:00is is maybe Would you say it's less uh
6:03sensational in in sort of newspaper
6:05terms?
6:05>> Less sensational newspaper terms, but
6:07actually in some ways, and I don't wish
6:09to minimize the impact on the
6:11on on the uh on the women and girls who
6:13were exposed by Epstein.
6:14>> Mhm.
6:15>> But the fact is that uh Andrew's
6:17treatment of public money and the way he
6:19behaved as trade envoy was absolutely
6:21scandalous in my view.
6:22And uh I've said for a long time that
6:25the big scandal in the royal family is
6:26finance, not anything else.
6:29Uh and I was asking questions about this
6:31when I was a member of parliament back
6:32in the 20 years ago. And in my book, in
6:35fact, at the back, there's a
6:36parliamentary answer which lists all the
6:38countries Andrew had been to
6:40between 2001 and 2008 at that point uh
6:43as trade envoy. And what you see from
6:45that is a huge number of visits to a
6:47very small number of countries,
6:49all of which are in the Middle East or
6:50the Stans,
6:52all of which have dodgy regimes,
6:54and all of which are are are uh ones
6:56which value contact with the British
6:58royal family. Well, put two and two
7:00together, and what do you get?
7:01>> Bloody hell. It's crazy it went on that
7:03long. And were you Were you doing the
7:04FOIs and things as well? I know Andrew
7:06Lownie was doing those and wasn't
7:07getting any answers.
7:08>> No, Andrew did Andrew Lownie's done some
7:10fantastic work on FOI, but I mean, I
7:11have to say that the amount of money
7:12he's the amount of stuff he's got back
7:14in terms of answers is pretty pitiful,
7:16which shows the Freedom of Information
7:18Act doesn't work when it comes to the
7:20royal family. No, I was asking
7:21parliamentary questions, which are more
7:23difficult to evade than Freedom of
7:25Information questions. So, much more
7:27immediate, because you get an answer in
7:282 weeks or even less in a parliamentary
7:30question.
7:32And the fact of the matter is that and
7:33this is a great
7:35issue which Andrew and I share a view
7:36on,
7:38which is that the
7:39exemption, effectively exemption of the
7:41royal family from freedom of information
7:43is a disgrace.
7:45They are part of the public sector. They
7:47have public money. They perform public
7:49duties. And anybody who does those
7:52things, whether it's a local counselor,
7:54or whether it's a member of the
7:56head teacher in the school, or whether
7:58it's someone in the health service, or a
8:00government minister, they are
8:01accountable. And you can ask about those
8:03particular functions. There's an
8:05exemption for the royal family.
8:07And it's got worse over 20 years because
8:10back in 2000 or thereabouts, when the
8:12act was being put together,
8:14I asked the relevant minister
8:16um at the time in a parliamentary
8:17question um whether the royal family
8:19would be treated the same as any other
8:21bit of the public sector. And I was
8:22assured he would be.
8:24I was assured he would be. Well, that's
8:25all gone by the board. And at the same
8:27time as the Freedom of Information Act
8:30has widened in terms of
8:32what's caught by it. For example,
8:33Network Rail never used to be there and
8:35it's now been brought into the act.
8:38The only body to go in the opposite
8:39direction is the monarchy.
8:42And why has that happened? Because The
8:44Guardian
8:45pursued uh these so-called spider
8:48letters, which Charles had written to
8:50government ministers. Spider letters
8:52were in Charles quite improperly was
8:55writing to ministers
8:56making the highly political points and
8:58arguing for political positions. For
9:00example, in favor of fox hunting, in
9:02favor of um homeopathy,
9:05uh saying there wasn't enough money
9:06spent on this particular area of of
9:07defense. You know, absolutely outside
9:10what he should have been doing. It's
9:11meant to be non-political at all. And
9:13The Guardian
9:15got hold of these letters and wanted to
9:16publish them. And there was a big fight
9:18with the government as to whether or not
9:20they would have access to those letters.
9:21Well, The Guardian won. Well done, The
9:23Guardian. And we saw 30 or 40 of those
9:26letters finally published, which is when
9:27we know that uh Charles was making these
9:30uh improper invest improper uh
9:32suggestions to government. Well, what
9:34was the reaction of Charles at that
9:36point? Was it to say
9:38hands up, I'm sorry, I shouldn't have
9:40done that. I became too political. I
9:42won't do it again. No, his response was
9:44to go to the government and say
9:46I've been found out. Can we now change
9:48the Freedom of Information Act so people
9:50can't find out in future?
9:52I I in other words, I'll carry on, but I
9:53want it to be I want to be tech
9:55protected so people can't find out. And
9:57that's what the government did. And the
9:59the act was changed to give him and
10:01William blanket exemption from
10:04from information release. And it's not
10:06just those two.
10:08Let's think about
10:10Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor
10:12and his famous expedition to either a
10:15nightclub in London or the Pizza Express
10:17in Woking, depending on your point of
10:19view.
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