The Royals with Roya and Kate - 2026 And The Crowns Next Tests

Episode Date: January 11, 2026

As a new year begins, the monarchy faces fresh tests. Roya and Kate, joined by Jeremy Griffin, look at what lies ahead – from the latest Epstein file revelations about Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor and scrutiny of royal finances, to a possible US state visit and Prince Harry’s return to the UK courts. So, how will the final weeks of last year shape the Crown’s challenges in the months ahead?Guests: Jeremy Griffin, executive editor, The Times and Times RadioListens: Power, politics and the PalaceImage: Getty Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hello and welcome to the Royals. I'm Royne Nika, Royal Editor for the Sunday Times. And I'm Kate Mansy, Royal Editor for the Times. We're heading into 2026, but the Christmas news cycle has been anything but quiet for the monarchy. Just as the palace was surely hoping for a fresh start, a series of stories has brought new challenges. The further release of the Epstein files in the US once again brought Andrew Mountbatten Windsor back into focus. It raised questions about whether this was the most damning moment yet or simply the latest twist in a long-running story the palace no doubt wishes to leave behind.

So what are the biggest challenges ahead and what might be in store for the Royals in 2026? Well, for a start, nearly two years since the King's cancer diagnosis, his cancer treatment will be reduced. So could the King beat his own record for public engagements again? The King is also set to visit America, following the success of President Trump's second state visit last year. So what could Charles' state visit mean not just for the monarchy,

but for his relationship with Trump? And to help us navigate what promises to be an eventful year ahead, we're pleased to be joined by the executive editor of the Times and Times Radio, Jeremy Griffin. Welcome, Jeremy. Thank you, Kate. Thank you, Roy. Thanks for having me. Thanks for joining us. And last time we saw you on the podcast, it was very much the other way around, Jeremy. You were grilling us gently at the Channel Literatured Fest.

Towards the end of last year. And it was a very heavy time, actually, on the roll beat, because it was just days before the release, of Virginia Jouffre's posthumous memoir, Nobody's Girl. There was a lot going on. The spotlight was again on Andrew. It was a kind of extraordinary end to the year for the Royal Family. What did you make of it?

Yeah, well, thanks for that. It was a gentle grilling. It was sort of gasmarked too. I hope you're going to keep it around about a little bit more to the breath. I remember that conversation. Well, one of the reasons, remember it well is I think I'm writing a few days earlier one of the Sunday newspapers had disproved a line that Andrew had given in his famous Newsnight interview about when he had last

had contact with Jeffrey Epstein we were sitting there discussing this and what would happen to Andrew over the course of the next few weeks and months I think and I remember us discussing whether there were any options left open to the king with regard to what he might do about Andrew's position and there was some talk at the time you'll remember about whether he might lose his titles and how easy that would be and, you know, letters patent and the procedure that would be involved in that. And I think we all felt, I certainly felt the time that it might be that Charles wanted to do that, but actually you would find it very difficult to do so. That was how that conversation ended up. And then I got in my car the following day

to drive home. And before I did, I checked the Times app. And the lead story in the Times app was Kate's story about the fact that the Duke was about to lose his titles. Well, the then Duke was about to lose his titles. The Duke of York. And that, the lead story. And that really set off a chain reaction stories that really lasted for the rest of the year. So it was an incredible acceleration that felt to me in a story that hadn't plateaued as such,

but we hadn't had any major new developments for a while and then all of a sudden at the start of that week a few days before we had that conversation, something happened, which was a catalyst, that changed the shape of the Royal Family forever. Well, if you think that's how 2025 ended, doesn't really feel like the end of that story, does it? I mean, what do you think you're sort of hitting on a really interesting point,

which was it had stalled that story, but then all his titles were taken away, and it makes you wonder, what did they know, what did they fear was coming, that they really needed to act then. And of course, over Christmas since then, we've seen all sorts of Epstein files being released in the rest. Do you think this is going to overshadowed the rest of 2026?

What's your prediction? Well, I think it depends a little bit on what else comes out, because as we know, there are hundreds of thousands of documents that haven't been released with regard to the Epstein Fars. So it depends very much on what comes out of the US on that front. I mean, it's not going to be forgotten. There was that release just before Christmas, which included emails that Jelais Max wrote. Really unsavory emails.

Yeah. I mean, the King will have hoped that, you know, the action in October into November would have definitively sort of stemmed the flow of stuff around Andrew. But over Christmas, we saw just an... in some of the release of the Epstein files, pretty horrendous stuff. Well, yeah, I mean, we should probably unpack some of the stuff that was released. There was 11,000 documents, but like you say, we now understand that to be maybe even 1% of what is yet to come. There was an email exchange, wasn't there, between Gilae Maxwell, who's currently serving time in prison in New York for, she's been convicted of sex trafficking.

Between her, we know she was a very good friend of Andrews and someone called A in emails. Of course, you know, Andrew who's always denied any wrongdoing, we must absolutely, you know, continue to say that. But there was an exchange, an email exchange between them saying, have you found me any more inappropriate friends? And then a reply from Galane Maxwell, there was a signature of an A from Balmoral. We don't know definitively it was Andrew Matt and Wyneser, but we believe he was at Bamar at the time. Pretty unsavory stuff. A photograph as well of him lying across the laps of five women at Sandringham. It just sort of just kept it all going, doesn't it? It felt like for the first time that there was more to it as well,

that we saw correspondence between Galeem Maxwell and a contact in Peru, where he was about to go in 2002, in which she seemed to be procuring intelligent, pretty and fun women from good families for this invisible man. There is no suggestion of illegal activity on the Peru trip. Yeah, well, whoever A was in his emails, it was pretty grotesque what she seemed to be asking for. So, you know, I think Charles did do his best to kind of courtarise this

when he saw to it that Andrew lost, well, initially the dukedom and the Knights Gartre, I think, but then eventually he had his prince title rescinded before. Yeah, at the end of October, he had that prince title. Exactly. And that was from the king himself. That's it. And interestingly, as we've talked about on the podcast before, I know Roy has mentioned it, is the king then actually saying

that they had the utmost sympathy for the victims of Epstein, which something obviously Andrew had not said prior to that. Yeah. Well, Charles comes across as a very empathetic man. As I say, I think he did his best to quarterise the situation. He did, but the Andrew problem rolls on. Well, that's the thing, because it's not in Charles' control, isn't it? It's not in control of the Royal Family this story.

And the key problem, coming back to the question about how it might unfold over the course of the next year, it will, I think, depend largely on what else comes out, notwithstanding the fact that what we've seen already is highly suspicious and pretty grotesque. But you've hit the nail on the head. The Royal Family are not in control of this story. Yeah. The King can take as drastic actions. as he likes, like removing all the titles, which was massively drastic, but they're not in

control of it. Apparently we're told only 1% of the Epstein files have been released. That's right. That's right. So who knows what else is going to come out and whatever does come out, even though Andrew has now been siphoned off to wherever he's going to live on the Sandringham estate, the point is that that photograph, for instance, that was taken, anyone who's watched the King's speech will recognise that that room where, you know, the young Princess Margaret and Princess Elizabeth spent Christmas with George V, and yet here's Andrews. Andrew sort of draped across the laps of, I don't know, half a dozen anonymous women, and then you've got the emails as well.

So the point about that is all of that allegedly happened when Andrew was a fully paid-up, working member of the Royal Family, not in the last sort of couple of years where he's been sort of gently pushed to one side. The question now is, do those pictures, which put up Epstein and all of that at the heart of the Royal Family, does that have a material impact on the monarchy as it stands? Well, I think if it comes to like that there were people within the Royal family itself or within the household who knew what Andrew was alleged to have been up to, then that will have a very damaging effect. There are question marks over that, aren't there? When he's going on official overseas tours, and we know because we travel with them all the time, there is an entourage, there are private secretaries, there are press secretaries.

There is absolutely no suggestion that those private secretaries or press secretaries knew exactly what was going on. But those questions will keep being asked. Yeah, quite rightly. Because it's difficult for member of the royal family to, you know, I suppose go on those trips, do all that stuff without any questions being asked. Yeah. And I mean, what's interesting in the Epstein files, you can see it all being released in the States. But it does bring the story back here to the UK.

You know, we've now got a Surrey police saying they're going to look to international agencies to find out about some of the allegations. So it does bring the question as to whether UK police forces will start talking to the FBI, whether the FBI have more of a remit to speak to our. Andrew on some of these matters and problem trundles on. I think it's highly unlikely that we won't see more material that raises questions about Andrew's conduct because if you think about it, it's quite helpful for the US to be able to push this story towards our shores and keep it away from their own.

Buckingham Palace didn't. There was no official response to any of the latest stuff that came out over the Christmas period from the Epstein Files, but there was a very interestingly timed interview which the Queen gave to BBC's Radio 4 Today programme. Of course, it was pre-recorded before all this came out. But the subject matter was fascinating because Camilla was talking to John Hunt and his daughter Amy, John Hunt, the racing commentator, his wife and two of his daughters were brutally murdered. And Camilla, during the course of that very, very poignant conversation, very difficult conversation about, you know, the most extreme form of domestic violence and violence in a relationship, talked about her own experience of of a sexual assault when she was young. One of the things we have talked a lot about on the podcast is the very fact that Camino, obviously, a long-standing campaigner on this issue.

She has done a lot for many years on it. So does the Duchess of Edinburgh. And that has become increasingly, not tricky, but the friction between that and what we have seen come out of the Epstein Files and with Andrew's conduct has been marked. So the timing of this was really interesting.

Yeah, it was one of the worst things that we heard about, I think, over the last couple of years that crime. I really, really like Camilla. I think empathetically and intellectually, she's almost the exact opposite of Andrew. And she showed that when she sat down with John Hunt. And it would have been quite easy for someone

who was less emotionally deft, if you like, to have used it as a way to get their own story out again because we knew a bit about what had happened to Camilla because it was revealed in Valentine Lowe's book that we serialised it in the Times and the Sunday time. We had him on the podcast talking about it. Okay, yeah. So we knew about it.

So this was the fact that she was attacked on a train as a teenager and fought off essentially a sex assault. Yeah. But this was the first time she had actually spoken about it herself. Yeah. We got the chance to hear her speak about it personally. But she didn't let it overshadow John Hunt's story, the story of what had happened to his family. And she recognises, as you say, Roy, she has been campaigning on this issue for a long time. But she recognises that it's not an issue that has gone away.

If anything, it's gone in the opposite direction, it's got. It's a societal problem, violence against women and girls. And it's important for someone in her position to use what she referred to, I think, as a tiny soapbox to campaign against it. And that's what I felt she was doing in that interview, but in a very, very sympathetic way, which allowed John Hunt to speak very personally and movingly about what he had been through and about how he still talked to his wife and daughters. I thought the whole thing was superbly done, very naturally done. and it just left me in awe of Camilla. I always think she'd be quite a good journalist, actually, because when we do see her sitting down with people,

they do open up to her. She's a good listener. She is a good listener. She gives them chance to talk. She asks really insightful questions, and she's really interested. I'm old enough to remember her coming into the Times newsroom once, but about 15 years or so ago when we're in a different building.

And she performed very well in news conferences, very interested in the story. She came in, sat down, had a cup of tea, and saw what we did for the day. I agree with you. She would make a good journalist. I was on a wrong. My evil newspaper then, Jamie. Imagine that. And I remember her coming into newsroom then and talking and actually being introduced to her for the first time. And she's also very good at flattering people when she wants to. Because she said, oh, so how long have you been doing this brief? And I said, you know, a number of years. And she said, oh, you must have started in the cradle. And I thought, very clever, Camilla.

She didn't say that to me. But she's been quite bold, hasn't she, with domestic violence. I think, you know, some of this stuff, she's sitting down with rape victims. She's now told us about her own experience. She said that it's kind of. of lurked at the back of her brain. She'd almost tried to forget about it, but these things, you know, as these things do. So she's got a really good understanding of it, but she hasn't shied away from what could be quite a thorny subject. No, it's not natural territory for a queen historically.

It's not. But she's made it natural territory for a queen now. Yeah, she has. You're right. It's not the sort of very necessary expect the queen to go into. But, you know, it has personal resonance for her because she was a victim of assault at an early age. Notwithstanding that,

It feels to me as though it's a subject that she would have become involved with anyway. And I think it's a great service that she's doing to women and girls in this country by continue to campaign on that. So you can imagine, I think, behind the scenes, the fury that she must feel at the way in which, you know, the Andrews story is overshadowing the good work, not necessarily just of what she's doing, but her husband, the king. And his legacy and his reign, that must be a source of extreme frustration, which is why she's probably supported the king in that way. I'm sure that's the case because knowing as we do that she feels so strongly about this issue, how could she possibly identify with someone who is alleged to have done the things that Andrew has done? And you can see it by, you know, not just the physical distance, but the emotional distance, but it's being put between the senior members of the Royal Family and Andrew Mountbatten, Windsor now.

You don't just see it with the King and Queen. You see it, of course, well, you two know much better than I do, with the Prince and Princess of Wales as well. These are campaigning royals who, whether or not you actually agree with them on all the subjects that they're campaigning. They are acting, they think in the public interest, and certainly with Camilla, you can't argue that's not the case. So, why would she have any understanding or any empathy with Androva what's happened over the last few months and years? Let's look ahead to what is the emerging picture for the royals in the coming year. there's also a thorny subject of royal finances, of course,

which are going to come under intense scrutiny. The Public Accounts Committee into the Crown Estate will reveal this year more about the property deals between the Royal Family and the Crown Estate. Follows obviously Times revelations about the fact that Andrew Mountbatten and Windsor paid a peppercorn rent for years, two decades on the Royal Lodge. Andrew paid a £1 million premium plus £7.5 million. up front for refurbing and agreed to pay a peppercorn rent if demanded.

He'll be moving out this year to Sandringham, we're told. It's a bit of a can of worms, isn't it, Jeremy, about what we might uncover. Yeah, I think... It's not just going to stop at Andrew, is it? No, this was another thing that happened towards the latter end of last year, because obviously there's been discussion about the raw finances for many years, and arrangements have been changed. You know, they would change when the coalition government was in place all those years ago

as to how the raw family was funded. But we saw a big reaction when we published that story about Andrew paying a peppercorn rent at Royal Lodge. So much so, actually, that then I thought, well, why don't we just try and find out what's happening with some of these other Grace and Favour homes as well? So then a few weeks later, we found out that Edward and Sophie, two very well-respected rules, actually, will have a sort of similar arrangement in place for Bagshot as well. And I think people are rightly, you know, going to ask questions about why people of their students. status are able to pay such small sums of money to stay in such, you know, palatial homes. We should add, I think we should add that, Andrew Safi never did pay a sort of a lump sum,

didn't they up front of the bagshot? They do. In 2007, Edward's company paid £5 million up front for a 150-year lease, and the ongoing rent is peppercorn. But you're right, they have a very fair, there's a big dispute over whether it's commercial rent they pay every year over backshot. and even though they're working royals, the Public Accounts Committee, as you say, Parliament is now going to ask questions about that arrangement and others.

That's right. That's right. And that's completely fair. But that's just one aspect of the whole Royal Finance discussion. Now, I don't pretend to be an expert on the ins and outs of it at all. But I think that hair is now running. And there will be probably greater public scrutiny of the way the royals are funded and the fairness of those arrangements over the next few months than there ever has been. I think one of the things we should look ahead to as well. I mean, we talked about, we've talked about the Epstein Files, we've talked about you mentioned it's interesting. Perhaps some of that, you know, there's been a heads up to try and shift attention away from what's happened in America with the Epstein Files. But we are going to have a lot of royal engagement with Trump in America this year because it's been widely reported that the king is looking at making a state visit to America in the spring. Kate wrote a piece over Christmas that, As well as that, we could see William go during the World Cup.

We know he's president in the FA. We know he loves his football. The World Cup is in America and Mexico and Canada. There's a big anniversary of independence this year. So we might have a two-pronged pinceau approach by the royal family, reciprocating that incredibly lavish welcome we saw laid out for President Trump and Malani when they came here. Why do we think that's important for us to be doing? Why are we possibly sending a double-headed over to America?

I just think that, you know, we know that Trump responds to that kind of approach, don't we? And so if our relationship with the United States, i.e., the relationship between our government and the U.S. administration, is important to us, which clearly it is, then it's quite a good use of what the state has to offer to send Charles and other senior members of the rules over there to, I don't know, keep stroking Trump's ego as much as anything else, I think. I don't particularly have a problem with that. I think if it's beneficial to us, then that's the sort of thing you actually do expect your head of state to do. Well, you know that he would love to have dinner with the king, you know, much more than he would with Sakhir Stama, for example. So it's a kind of a ploy that Stama can use, isn't it? In all those sort of diplomatic conversations he's having.

SEPDAO royals to stroke Trump's eager. Well, that's basically what's happening, isn't it? I mean, it's probably not the job description that they, but it's the job description that they're, to be honest, that they are fully across because they know it's part of what they do. They're totally across it. We saw them do it last year. Of course, exactly.

We had the state visit last year, and I think Charles accepts that and understands. it. Now, what Charles makes personally of Trump... Who can say? Who, yeah, exactly. I will sit here and scratch my chin for the rest of the day over that. But she is interesting more than any, isn't it? Because it's the 250th anniversary of independence. The late Queen went over 50 years ago to mark the 200th anniversary. This is a point at which Trump, on his own soil, can say, you know, we defeated the British.

It would be an interesting visit. I have no doubt that he will dig Charles in the ribs quite literally if he gets the chance to do that. It is really interesting. It's also interesting in other discussions. We've seen what Trump has done in Venezuela over the course of the past week. There have been this ongoing row about what he might do with regards to Greenland. Canada, that question over Canada still keeps, you know, rearing. And Charles went to Canada for eight a day. Charles is a king of Canada. To speak in Parliament, to open Parliament, to basically it shot across the bows of Trump. What effect does it have for Trump? That's the thing, I wonder. Does Trump go, that's all very nice?

and then he gets onto business and thinks so, well, Britain could do what it likes. Does it really have an impact? I think in the short term it does. I mean, he was very complimentary about Britain, obviously during that period when he was over here and shortly afterwards. Well, it was shortly afterwards.

I mean, he's not single Britain out over the last few days, but he's not been particularly complimentary about, for instance, Europe over the last few days, which he probably still sees Britain as part. It's interesting. I think you've just made a really interesting point. There is a limit to how much. much impact the royal family has with Trump because it's clear he loves spending time with

them and he loves the sort of sheen that rubs off on him when he's around them. Also, he thinks with the images that project back in the States. But he has been rumbling on still about Canada. He has been making noises about Canada. People, you know, still talking, he's still talking about that issue. I think Trump gets loads out of it. I think there's a bit of a question mark over what we get out of it. Well, that was sort of what I was driving at, really. I think it's interesting, you know, if he's making big claims about Greenland, which is owned by Denmark, which is a European ally of Great Britain, what power can the King have to say?

Certainly the King's influence hasn't been seen when it comes to green issues on any Trump policies. I don't think the King will have any influence over the discussions with regards to Greenland. Because as you say, it's part of the kingdom of Denmark. Britain doesn't really have anything to do with it other than as an ally of Denmark. If the conversation were to progress once more

to the future of Canada and what the US might like to make of that, you might see some more royal visit. We might well do that. We might well do. I do think that the benefits of these visits are probably quite short-lived. They're not going to affect Trump's foreign policy at all. What they might do is they might win us some more favourable terms with regards to tariffs and things like that. They might do. Well, this is where the government comes in, isn't it? Because the King can do his bit. William can do his bit and they feel like they're doing their job and seem to be doing it very well. But is Stama really leveraging the royal family in the right way? like Roya says, are we really getting our bang for our buck when it comes to these things? That's a question for the politicians, surely,

to make sure that if they're rolling out members of the royal family, with seemingly really positive effect, surely they should be getting something can return. Behind the scenes, those conversations have to be taking place. I think that's very fair. We have to have something tangible in return, basically. We're going to go and prostrate ourselves in front of the president. Speaking of America and the Royals in America, we have Royals in America already. Of course, we have the Duke and Duchess of Sussex, firmly ensconced in California for the past six years now, coming up to six years since they left, which we've hit.

Prince Harry, the Duke of Sussex, is going to be in the news a lot over the next few weeks because he's going to return to the UK as soon as within the next week for a very big, the final big trial against the tabloid press against Associated Newspapers Limited. He, Elton John, Baroness Lawrence, Elizabeth Hurley and several others, of course, with claims which A&L strenuously denies about historic phone hacking, unlawful information gathering. It's going to make a lot of headlines. It's another issue for the royal family that's sort of a rogue issue that they have no control over really, because Harry is no longer within the working royal fold. How do you see that playing out? Well, as you say, I think the rest of the royal family would rather it wasn't happening. It's going to make uncomfortable viewing, isn't it? It's going to make really uncomfortable viewing.

And in terms of the court case, well, let's see how that plays out. But, you know, what experience I have of stories regarding Harry is that wherever he goes, trouble or controversy tends to trail in quite short order afterwards. So, you know, without being unfair to him, because he hasn't got here yet, I'd be surprised if it was a straightforward visit. Well, that's interesting, isn't it? I mean, he always bakes the question every time he's not. the question every time he comes over, will he meet the king? He came over to the UK in September

for a few days and was able to have something of a reunion with Charles. They had a 50-minute meeting over tea at Clarence House. It seemed at the time to be the start of a rekindling of the father-son relationship. And shortly afterwards, it seemed to unravel, certainly in the press. There was a report in the Sun paper saying that Harry had given Charles a photograph, a framed photograph of his family. Now, Montecito reaction was that that must have been leaked by somebody at the palace who was intent on sabotaging, that was their word, that relationship between father and son. The palace then completely held their hands up saying, goodness, we're baffled and bemused by this. This is not true. And they felt slighted, having, you know, made the effort to make that

meeting happen. So very shortly after that, we understand this time there will be no meeting, I've been told there's no plans for any meeting between Harry and the King. He's most likely to be in Scotland. And certainly he doesn't want to get drawn into any active court proceedings. He doesn't want to be seen to be linked to that. And certainly a meeting with Harry would then link the King to those proceedings. So that's not going to happen. It's still the question about his security.

So what do you think Harry is still fighting for? Is it just a kind of railing against the press? Is it that he wants his family? Does he really want a reunion with his family? from your perspective of reading into it. It's like the above, doesn't it? I think, I mean, he's certainly railing against the press. I think he'd loved, you know, to have some sort of reunion with his family.

But he's kind of already said that that can't really happen on current terms. And I think this narrative will haunt his every visit until such time as that whole thing is put to bed. Because he has a father who has been, you know, suffering from cancer, as far as we know, for at least the last couple of years, been undergoing treatment. And it's well known that there's no. love loss now between him and his brother and sister-in-law. We're not even asking if Harry's going to make time to see. William, that question is finished.

People don't even query that anymore. Exactly. So it's a family tragedy being played out very much in the public eye. So every time he comes back over to the UK, until such time as some of those issues are put to bear, that'll be the story that's written about. Well, I'm sure we will talk about Harry a lot more in the coming weeks as we see him on these shores and we'll see how that trial plays out.

All of which brings us to the point of what does the monarchy look like in terms of how things are going to play out in 2026? We've talked about, at the Andrew Problem, we've talked about the Harry issue. Those are, you know, those are two sort of bumps in the road that are never going to be particularly smooth for the royal family, possibly more uncomfortable questions about royal finances. But there are some positive things to look forward to, aren't there? And we've had, I mean, we've had a, Kay and I have just been seeing images and pictures and words come through from the Prince and Princess of Wales, who've surprised NHS workers to do. at Charing Cross Hospital. We've had William talking about how important it is to recognise people that work for the NHS. He used to work for East Anglia Ambulance. He talked about Catherine's own health journey. She was talking to someone who volunteers in the chemotherapy department.

They are, if not, sort of the great future hope of the royal family. Certainly, the moon music around them is more positive, I think, than some other elements that we've been talking about. Kate, you recently did a long read for The Times Magazine about Kate, the other Kate. Catherine, looking ahead, looking about sort of her key areas of focus with people around her, people that she's worked, we're talking about what kind of woman she is now, what kind of queen she might be. Tell us a little bit more about what you found out. Well, it's interesting because I think now's the time to start asking questions about what kind of queen she will be. And that's no disrespect to the current queen. And it's no indication

or reading the runes on, you know, Charles's condition. But I think, you know, looking ahead and Palace always plan, I think it's important to ask those questions. She's now the most popular member of the Royal Family, according to the latest UGov poll. I mean, her and William are right at the top. Do look at those polls. They do, you know, like politicians they do, they have to have the public support, even though they don't need the votes. They need the public support, ultimately behind them.

It's really interesting, actually, because a lot of people were quite open and able to tell me what happened. And the main takeaway I thought was that after her cancer treatment and everything she's been through, it's been a chance for her to kind of reassess, take a breath. and look at what she wants to do. And actually, she is really ambitious for the future. She is really ambitious for her early years project, which a lot of people said it's not just about helping little kids.

It's about, you know, helping adults and those big societal changes. But the cancer treatment, you know, as anybody who's been through it, will probably say, you know, has had a massive impact on her outlook and what she wants to achieve and what she does. But actually, she's quite an enigma, really. There's not really much we know about her in the public.

She's followed the late Queen in that respect in that she has maintained a lot of privacy. She's done it quite well. And it's interesting, apparently she loses her phone around the house quite a lot. And there are elements of humanity that you can, you know, she wants to see her kids do well. She's worried about, you know, Prince George going up to secondary school and she does not want him to be a lonely boy in the way that, you know, then Prince Charles now, the king was a lonely child. and he said himself in an interview in 1969 and he was interviewed when he turned 21. You know, he did not, he spoke about his child

of being lonely because he was put on a pedestal by his peers, even by his teachers and that isn't the model that came when he wanted. Well, thankfully, they've given them a very different upbringing to that. Yeah, completely different area. I think she's getting involved in lots of the right areas, clear. They're very close to her heart and obviously some of them, all of them, I think,

are informed by her experiences. either through her illness or through being a parent of young children. But I think that's really important because what she can do, she's very accessible. Even though I agree with you, she is enigmatic. And I sometimes sit there and I can't remember what Catherine's voice sounds like because she doesn't speak publicly very often. Not very often, no. She did her first public speech in two years the other day.

Yeah, exactly. But you feel that she's accessible. And she can take matters of either public policy or perhaps things that policy, can't quite reach. And she can bring them into people's homes and into their lives in a way that politicians can't. So there's a lot to look forward to in 26. And we'll be keeping a keen eye on it.

We'll know. Our thanks to Jeremy Griffin for joining us this week. And if 2025 was monumental for the royal family, it looks like 2026 is shaping up to be just as significant. There's plenty coming up. And as always, we'll be keeping a close eye on how the Royal's story develops in the months ahead. So don't forget to follow us, leave us a rating or review or join the conversation whether you're watching or listening. And as always, thanks for joining us on the Royals.

See you next week.