The Royals with Roya and Kate - Epstein files: time for Andrew to testify?

Episode Date: February 4, 2026

After a major release of Epstein files by the US Department of Justice, pressure is mounting on Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor to give evidence to US lawmakers. Prime Minister Keir Starmer has urged him to cooperate in the interests of Epstein’s victims, a move that pushes the controversy far beyond the Palace and into the heart of Westminster. Andrew has now also moved out of Royal Lodge, the grace-and-favour home he occupied for more than two decades, underscoring the scale of the fallout. As Labour peer Peter Mandelson faces the prospect of a police investigation over his past links to Epstein, long-held political conventions are being tested and pressure is building at the very top of government. What do these latest files really reveal, and how damaging could this moment be for Britain’s institutions? Caroline Wheeler joins Roya and Kate to unpack the consequences and what could come next.Guest: Caroline Wheeler, Political Editor, The Sunday Times.Image: Getty Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hello and welcome to the Royals from The Times and the Sunday Times with me, Royne Ecar. And me, Kate Mansy. This week, the palace walls have been breached by a document dump of historic proportions. Over the weekend, the US Department of Justice released three million pages linked to the convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. The fallout has been immense. It triggered a significant intervention from the Prime Minister. It's showing a direct demand to Andrew Mountbatten, Windsor.

Testify to US Congress or your failing Epstein's victims. It's a crisis that refuses to go away. We now have files suggesting Andrew invited Epstein to Buckingham Palace after his release from house arrest. So what do these documents really show us and what do they reveal about Andrew's relationship with Epstein? And the shockways aren't limited to the royal family. With Peter Mandelson facing a possible police investigation over his relationship to Epstein. We have to ask, how deep. to these establishing links really good.

To answer some of those questions, we're pleased to be joined by political editor of the Sunday Times and co-host of the Times political podcast, The State of it, Caroline Wheeler. Caroline, welcome to the Royals. Thank you. Now, Caroline, before we get into this week's news,

which there is a lot of, it's worth noting just how unusual it is to hear the monarchy being discussed so frankly by politicians and in government briefings. So what has been the first of the first of? feeling around Westminster following this scandal and the latest tranche of documents that we saw released on Friday night? Well, I think it had been quite difficult period of government when they

didn't talk about the royal family, particularly in the wake of earlier revelations about Geoffrey Epstein and his relationship with Lord Mandelson and obviously the scandal engulfing, the royal family. But that is because by precedent politicians shouldn't talk about the royal family, particularly not on the floor of the house. And in fact, they were very arcane sort of rules and regulations known as Erskine May, which say that MPs can't criticise or can't even really mention the royal family at all. However, since Andrew was stripped of his titles, it's understood that those rules have now changed, that MPs are now free to criticise him in particular in the Chamber. But even more broadly than that, that Convention has been adopted by Ministers

and Prime Ministers, even outside the Chamber. So it's very rare for them to intervene at all in matters of the royal family. So I think that it's both been refreshing because I think MPs are quite pleased now that there has been this opportunity for parliamentarians to comment on this because I think there was a sense that it was letting victims down

that the royal family was not a subject and this particular scandal was not a subject that was being discussed in the kind of political circles. But of course, the ramifications for the government and the ministers because of the Mandelson connection are incredibly embarrassing and people are rightly furious about all of this because of the appointment in the first place. That's really interesting hearing you talk about. It's understood there's been a change in convention that it hasn't been sort of formalised.

Your feeling in Westminster, since all this started to break again towards the end of last year in the autumn, do you feel MPs and politicians and government and opposition have been emboldened by it, emboldened to criticise and question the role family? Yes, certainly with the Prime Minister, I don't think we'd have seen an answer. by the Prime Minister in the terms that we did on Saturday. I was with the Prime Minister. You were coming back from China, weren't you? And was that where that conversation took place?

It was. So we flew with the Prime Minister to Beijing last Tuesday and we stayed in Beijing for a few days and then went to Shanghai and then had a very brief stopover in Tokyo on the way home. So we had what's known as a huddle which happens during these trips where journalists get a kind of an opportunity

to question the Prime Minister. It's usually on the trips themselves, but you can talk about anything that you want to ask you about, and particularly because we were on our way home, we realised that the attention was going to be on domestic affairs, and obviously it had been hard to ignore the fact that the Geoffrey Epstein files had kind of broken, that they were all over the news.

It was obviously going to be a topic of great interest and discussion. So he hosted one of these huddles by the toilet in line. The glamour of a job. You can't believe it. You can't believe it. The glamour of a trip. But he was asked about a number of. of things and obviously Epstein came up and he said very, very forthright, in very forthright way that

he thought that Andrew Matt Batton-Winzer should testify and said that that was because Epstein's victim should be the number one priority. So effectively saying that if Andrew did not give evidence he was going to be letting down victims. Now, I've never heard a prime minister speak about the royal family in those terms before and I've been covering the political beat for the last 23 years. And so I do think that this particular change in the world. circumstances, particularly for Andrew, has meant that there is a bit more freedom for them to cover these particular subject areas. Well, his comments made me think because the Prime Minister had come out and said that to you

on the plane, there had been a shift within the palace as well. Because all of a sudden it became, you know, to me, I was speaking to Palace Insiders, that there was a shift that they were saying, well, the King can't compel Andrew to testify to US Congress. But it is very much a matter for his conscience. So the idea being the king wouldn't stand in his way and the lawyer who can't force him to, he seemed to be certainly through people and around the palace

backing up that ideas. The ball's now in Andrew's court to inspect his conscience. There's been a kind of a general shifting of position because obviously when there was the conversations that were going on about stripping. Titles. Andrew of the titles. It seemed to bounce back and forwards.

The palace kept saying, it's a matter for government. Government kept saying, we need to work in lots out with the palace and no one really wanted to grip it. And then they finally did. Yeah, and it was quite interesting because there was lots of chatter at that time about who was actually going to move. Because it had to be a substantive motion. And this is another massively arcane protocol in Westminster that in order to talk about the royal family in any terms whatsoever, it had to be done as a substantive motion.

So it was then a question of who was going to bring the substantive motion. At one point, it looked like the Liberal Democrats were going to bring a substantive motion. But they were just equally as nervous as the government of doing that because they wanted to make sure that they weren't acting against the wishes of the palace. And of course, as were, we've discussed many times. So many times. The way in which these discussions are had are in this incredible sort of system known as the Golden Triangle. Who are? The Cabinet Secretary. The Cabinet Secretary. The Principal Private Secretary is the Prime Minister. And the Principal Private Secretary of the King. Oh, see, I've remembered. Yes. Who are in almost daily contact at the best of times. And in the

worst of times, I would say probably in contact with each other several times an hour around what we was seeing before Christmas with the stripping of the titles. Let's just remind ourselves a little bit of why you had that huddle as well with Kirstime on the plane, because what we saw on Friday night as you were flying with him was this enormous dump from Congress. What they say is going to be the last release of files. I think that's debatable. We can come on to that. Of three million pages worth of documents, 180,000 images, 2,000 videos which were posted publicly, which journalists here and around the world are still pouring over. A huge amount of email correspondence, a lot from Jeffrey Epstein's estate, a lot more correspondence we believe between

Epstein, Gleine Maxwell, the former Prince Andrew, Sarah Ferguson will come on to that. But Kier-Star Marmer, who you were with, has a huge skin in the game here as well, not just making pronounceance about Andrew, of course, but because of Peter Mandelson. Tell us what is going on there, because of course, last year Peter Manderson lost his job as a US ambassador because of his links. It's gone much further. How dangerous is it for Mandelson and how dangerous is it for the government. Well, the really interesting thing about the conversation we had with the Prime Minister on the plane was we didn't just ask him about Andrew. We also asked him about Lord Mandelson because it was already coming to light, that money had been exchanged, that

there were bigger questions to be asked once again about Peter Mandelson and his relationship. These were the three payments which appear to show that Epstein paid $75,000 into accounts connected to Mandelson between 2003 and 2004. Correct. And that also So Mandelson's now husband had received money from Epstein as well. For his course, that's right. And so we asked about Peter Mandelson and what he thought about the latest revelations. He didn't want to go there at all. He said he'd said everything that he had to say about Peter Mandelson, which I think in hindsight now.

Now times have changed. Exactly. Exactly. And also potentially, you know, quite a naive response on the basis that, you know, it was evident that there were millions of documents that people were going to take time going through, that it was inevitable. I think that there was going to be more revelations about Lord Mandelson, as indeed there have been. And the fact that he was going to get away with not saying anything further is sort of symptomatic of, I think one of the problems we've seen time and time again with this government is that they are very flat-footed when it comes to crises. They tend to kind of want some thinking time.

They don't act quickly. This is indeed what happened when the original emails started to break about Peter Mandelson before he was fired. It was just before the US state visit at Donald Trump. Can you tell us a little bit more about that? I mean, these are truly shocking emails. If you're in our world, it's very, very rare that people would get away with sending such sensitive and personal information, which we don't see very often in government. Well, it's extraordinary, isn't now?

I mean, we keep talking about these documents and saying appears to, seems to, because, you know, the US Congress have said they haven't verified whether these are legitimate documents. They're just part of the investigation into Jeffrey Epstein and his associates. And so Mandelson says he can't remember receiving any payment from Epstein, although it does seem clear that he's acknowledged that some money was given to his husband to further his education. But it's also embarrassing as well. You know, we see a picture of Peter Mandelson in his underwear. No, it's incredibly embarrassing.

And I think, you know, at the heart of the matter it comes down to why an earth was just the individual appointed in the first day. Andrew at Mountbatten Windsor is under huge pressure from the nation and from our Prime Minister. to testify. You're right that there's pressure mounting, isn't there? Like we've heard today as well from Prince Edward, who's now come out and been the first member of the Royal Family to speak about the Epstein file since they dropped, the latest tranche dropped on Friday.

And he urged that we should remember the victims in this. He said there are a lot of victims and that we should remember them. He was speaking during a visit to UAE in which he was asked, you know, as members of the Royal Family are going to be asked about these sorts of, you know, things around EPSA, Lord Mandelson is to step down from the House of Lords.

It's been announced by the Lord Speaker. Tell us what that means. What are the ramifications for that? Can he step? No, he can't, actually. Tell us what. So, I mean, I think that's what the government had been hoping he would do because it will take some of the pressure off in terms of them acting.

But does it technically remove his peerage? And just so you know what that means. For example, as journalists at the Times and the Sunday Times, we always refer to people by their full title. So he would be known as Lord Mandelson. until that title is removed, which has to be done by Act of Parliament. And as far as I'm aware, it's only ever happened once before, which is in 1990 when some minor members of the aristocracy

were basically stripped of their titles by an Act of Parliament because they were sympathisers, German sympathisers, during the war period. It's reminding us both of the fudge. Exactly. By Buckingham Palace, first time round. In October, a statement issued by Frind Andrew, as he was then, by the palace saying that the titles were no longer going to be used.

And the briefing from the palace at the time was they were going to go into abeyance, but he would still retain them. Because relinquishing a dukedom is so complicated that actually his family does still retain that kind of House of York title. So it means his daughters, princesses, Beatrice and Eugenie can still use that title. But it did not go down. A week later, we had a Buckingham Palace spokesman saying that the king has started a formal process to strip him of those titles.

So that meant that we can't refer to him of Duke of York. He can't just leave them in the back cupboard and bring them out at a future occasion. He would never be able to use them. This sounds very similar that the times and the world that we're living in now and the way that people are reacting to these big stories is actually kind of changing the way we deal with those past and those historic rules. I think that's right. But I also think that we're again in this situation where I don't think the government

quite knows what to do. and it's waiting for this kind of thinking time. It was said in cabinet this morning that they would draw up legislation to strip him of his titles. But there was a kind of slight caveat to that. They were looking into how they would potentially do it. And I think there has definitely been a sense from the people that I've been talking to that they are reticent to do certain things because they know that if you introduce legislation, it's always open to amendment.

You could end up with kind of unintended consequences of introducing legislation, which then leads to the kind of delawting of other. people that potentially have done things that maybe they shouldn't have done. And I think that they're just really conscious that they don't want to open a kind of Pandora's box. But this again speaks to, I think, one of the problems this government has is it's not quick-footed at all. And it always wants to buy itself kind of a bit of breathing space.

And then what happens is the pressure builds up. The kind of damage of delay is then compounded by the fact that they always end up doing what the public want them to do or what they're being pushed to do. But just too late to make it too late. Exactly. But bringing us back to Epstein. I think it's something that it shows we're talking about the royal family, you're talking about, you know, a peer of the realm. And this is somebody, a convicted paedophile who's managed to infiltrate both of our worlds in a most extraordinary way.

Let's get back to some of the, why we're talking about Kirstama, Mandelson and Andrew again. Because what we learned from that dump of files on Friday night, and we are still learning almost on an hourly basis. some of the kind of key things that seem quite shocking at the time and they still do now. We should add, before we get into this, that Andrew has always denied any allegations of wrongdoing and just being named and seen in photos and documents and emails in the files doesn't suggest wrongdoing related to Geoffrey Epstein. But there were some quite stark images that came out and quite stark revelations. So we saw all these photos come out.

Of course, they're undated, they're uncaptioned, we have no context for them, They appear to show Andrew kneeling over a woman, looking at the camera, in a setting that appears to be Jeffrey Epstein's Manhattan Downhouse, crouched over a woman on the floor, bending over her. We don't know who she is. We don't know the scenario, barefooted Andrew. We saw correspondence between Andrew and Epstein with Andrew inviting him for dinner at Buckingham Palace, very soon after he had served a year of probation for child prostitution,

prostitution. There was a lot that came out in the files on Friday and Saturday that went completely against Andrew's version of events in that Newsnight interview. And it has just, it has just opened the floodgates, hasn't it? Yeah, it shows the kind of the element of the correspondence between Andrew and Epstein and Andrew and Andrew and Galane Maxwell, who is claimed never to be that close with. And she said that she was his best friend. She said that she couldn't wait to see him and be in his arms again literally. But also financial affairs as well, as we talked about with Mandelson. What was your reaction when you saw some of that stuff, Caroline?

I mean, I know you're operating in the political world. We're operating in the royal world. They're colliding at the moment. When you saw some of that detail. Well, just utterly unbelievable. I mean, I genuinely don't have the adjectives to describe it. I mean, to see, it's very similar in our world as well, just to say, because actually what's come out really contradicts all of the information

that Peter Mandelson has given us about his. relationship with Geoffrey Epstein very much, you know, talking about him as his best pal, you know, he's known as PT, the fact that messages get sent to him within sometimes minutes of him receiving a message from Downing Street, it's being pinged on to Geoffrey. The relationship is clearly much, much closer. Yeah. I think than any of us were led to believe. This is a problem for the institution, isn't it?

I think you've got, you know, the British institution being infiltrated, essentially, not by, you know, a Chinese spy or some sort of undercover state operator, but somebody operating in plain sight who had pleaded guilty to sex offences, who had served time for sex offences, and still was managing to spread tentacles within the elite here. And I don't know if it's the same in your world, but what we're kind of wondering is how it sort of snowballs now, because obviously Lord Madelson wasn't just an appointee of this particular government doing that job in Washington. Lord Madelson was absolutely intrinsic to the entire operation of the Labour Party. He spent four decades working at the heart of the Labour Party.

He has been at the heart of Sarkia Stama's Renaissance as Labour leader. You know, he's very friendly with most members of the Cabinet, including, of course, the Health Secretary West Streeting and the business secretary, Peter Kyle, who were very much involved in Labour Together, an organisation that he was very much part of in terms of creating the new sort of Stama administration. And it just feels like the tentacles of this are just going everywhere.

I mean, including the Prime Minister's Chief of Staff, who is also Morgan McSweeney is also known to be incredibly close to Peter Madison. So it just has the sense that this isn't going to stop here, that the revelations are going to keep coming, but also the relationships between so many members of the government, and I imagine the same with other members of the royal family, are going to come under scrutiny. It's not just Andrew.

Yeah. You know, very, very difficult headlines have come out of some of the lurid details. It's also Sarah Ferguson, his wife, his daughters as well, their daughters, Beatrice, and usually, because we saw emails in July 2009, which appeared to show Sarah Ferguson to have lunch in Palm Beach with Epstein and Bipus and New Guinea. And flight details as well.

So we see Sarah appearing to email Jeffrey Epstein to talk to him about getting flights sent over. And Epstein's assistant sort of says, will Sarah be flying business class or first class? And Epstein just replies biz. But that lunch if it happened, which we just mentioned there, would have been five days after his release from a Florida jail. Five days. You have to think, why would Sarah Ferguson take her two young daughters

to go and stay with a convicted sex offender who has been convicted of sex offences with young women? Why would you take those two young princesses over there? And why would they go? No, only that. Old enough you would think to be able to make a decision. Also, the palace, I think, has questions to answer. We see in the documents what appears to be Amanda 3rd,

then Prince Andrew's private secretary emailing to say can a couple of Andrew's bodyguards come to stay? Now they were paid up members of the Metropolitan Police Force who were paid to protect Andrew from taxpayers' money, who were then going over, it seems, to stay at Epstein's largesse. Now it's unclear whether the offer of accommodation was accepted. Do you think now the government will be compelled to release more information, be more transparent like our friends across the Atlantic in America?

I think they will have to be because I think that their hand is almost being forced because they now don't know what is out there. There are, as you rightly said, there are millions of documents. It could take weeks for everybody to get through and understand because they are highly redacted. It sometimes takes quite a lot to kind of look at and understand what this information means. And I think that, you know, they are not going to be, want to be caught out on it. So I think they are going to have to divulge that information.

But there are then going to be questions about why this information has not been brought to light before. Beyond the documents, and we've talked a lot about the Epstein files and we'll come out to them separately, we've also seen a new significant allegation emerge against Andrew, and it prompts the question whether or not it has come to light working in conjunction with the Epstein files and whether or not the victim has come forward because she feels more emboldened. But we saw on Saturday night a second woman alleged that Jeffrey Epstein sent her to the UK to have a sexual encounter with Andrew Mountbatten, Windsor. She claims it was at Royal Lodge in 2010 when she was in her 20s, and this is according to Brad Edwards, Edwards, Henderson, same

attorney who represented Virginia Dufre. Now, the BBC has said of this report, which is the first time an Epstein survivor has alleged a sexual encounter at a royal residence, the BBC has said it can't corroborate that against Palace Records without identifying her. Andrew and Brad Edwards were both asked for comment from the Sunday Times and haven't responded. We have still not heard any response to the BBC's report from Andrew on that. Was there any discussion or comment when you were travelling with the Prime Minister or with your colleagues about that report?

No, I mean, you have to understand when we're travelling with them. We're in very different time zones from everybody else. So, I mean, effectively, although we did have access to Wi-Fi, we were speaking to the Prime Minister very, very early in the morning, on Saturday morning, UK time anyway.

So a lot of this had yet to emerge. I think as we were talking to him, all that had emerged at that point, was some of the description of some of the files. I think some of the stories about the procuring of Russian women and the fact that these files had been released. In fact, the more sort of lurid details or the beginnings of those lurid details

didn't emerge until well after we had landed back in Heathrow. Is there a feeling that there's also national security risk here? Because do you remember about, you know, a year and a half, Christmas before last, we had all the stories around Andrew's links to Yang Tembo, the alleged Chinese spy, who the government are absolutely adamant as a spy, and he says he isn't. Formed a very close professional relationship and business relationship with Andrew.

There were stories and reports around suggestions the government and the security services became increasingly concerned about that. We now have, there's a suggestion of, you know, more Russian links with Epstein. Is there a sort of concern from the government and parliament about an ongoing national security risk that Andrew may have sort of caused? I wouldn't be at all surprised if there was. I think at the moment they're dealing with the crisis. hand, which is the information which is coming out. But obviously, I think things will turn in that

direction ultimately because, you know, if this information is out there, there's a lot of compromise, obviously, that's been available to the highest bidder for a long period of time. This is how hostile states behave when they have this kind of compromise. There's obviously a lot of compromise out there. So I think it is going to be of concern. But also, if this individual has infiltrated, as we were saying, not only the royal family, but also senior members, members of the government, you know, this individual was implicated in all sorts of things that we don't yet fully understand. And so I'm sure there will be questions that are asked about security. But at the moment, I mean, the government, a bit like the royal family, is just

engulfed in the crisis that it has at hand at the moment. And I think for it, what it needs to focus on at the moment is answering those questions about judgment of the prime minister, because once again, there are fears that this could start rocking the boat quite significantly. And if not, for the prime minister himself, there are certainly a lot of the law. of questions being asked about his chief of staff once again. So Epstein has managed to lose a prince's title because he was associated with Epstein. We've lost a peer.

We could lose a Prime Minister from what you're saying. Well, there are certainly people that are pointing in that direction just because there is such anger. This isn't an isolated incident. The question of judgment of the Prime Minister has come up repeatedly time and time again, that he's often acted too slowly, that he's been too trusting,

he's been too economical with the truth either because he didn't know enough about it and didn't ask the right questions or because he's actually obfuscating and I think that that is a problem for him. The thing is a ripple effect, isn't it, of these files? We've got a political pressure building that you're talking about. Huge political pressure building on Sekeir Stama

I think and that appointment around Manelson and I'm sure more will come out about that. We've got the walls literally and physically closing in on Andrew. And a potential police investigation if Metropolitan Police want to open any investigation. I imagine there will be huge pressure on the police to do so, whether or not it goes anywhere. I think that because the public are looking at this,

because of the nature of those emails, which clearly include what we would call market-moving or market-sensitive information, you know, there is going to be pressure on them. I have to say what I have been astonished by in the last few days, and perhaps I shouldn't be, but I have been, because each time something else comes out about, Andrew, you think maybe just this time he'll show a little bit of common sense,

I have been astonished to see him daily outriding in Windsor Great Park waving from the car yesterday to people at Windsor. Specifically riding past where the photographers are, where he knows the photographers and the camera crews are as if he hasn't got a care in the world. You would think he would just keep his head down, but no, no, on he plows if he hasn't got care in the world. Well, he's not one for a low profile, is he?

Although he had, you know, whether he'll say something, I don't know. You see it even with Lord Madison. I mean, the interview that he gave to Katie Balls, which appeared in the Times, which basically suggests that he thinks there's going to be another reset, that there's another opportunity that he's going to now become from the insider to the outsider effectively. Mr. Peflon, isn't he? Mr. Teflon, and that he's going to have some future role advising the Labour government, but not inside it, but outside it. I mean, it's absolutely the birds.

We're like he's recently won too many times. Yeah, and he has, but I think just the psychology is fascinating of both of them. You know, and I think also just this notion, certainly that we're hearing from Peter Mandel, is that he feels that he's as much a victim as anybody else. That's implicit from everything that he said, that he feels that he was manipulated and used by Jeffrey Epstein and that he's one of the victims. And, you know, if that's the mentality,

I think it's really difficult for him to sort of move on and appreciate perhaps the difficulty that he now finds himself in. You do wonder what the kind of other victims, I suppose, obviously our thoughts remain with the women who were trafficked by Epstein. But of course, there are other people who've been embroiled in this, innocently we talked about Princess Beatrice and Eugenie. We do wonder what role they'll be for them going forward.

It opens up the whole question of how the family will continue to respond to this because Beatrice and Eugeney there have been reports, unconfirmed reports, that Eugène has not really spoken to her father very much in the last few weeks. We saw Beatrice though out riding in Windsor Great Park with one of her children out riding with Andrew, so they're still in touch. This sort of idea that I think the royal family continue to be braced for more and more coming out on a daily basis. The suggestion from Congress is that was the final release of files.

But we wonder whether perhaps there might be more. There are other means and ways of getting hold of those files, aren't there? Because we saw so many of them come out and reported release before Congress actually released them. So I think it would be naive for anyone to think that that would be the last document dump. But the implications for the royal family are just ongoing because the palace doesn't know what's coming from one day to the next. You know, members of the royal family we saw just on an engagement account. a couple of weeks ago where Kate was, William and Catherine being heckled on an engagement about Andrew. How, you know, Hecker said, how long have you known about all of this?

Have you been covering up for Andrew? The next time a member of the family is out on Menebys, which is soon we're about to go to Saudi Arabia with William, it's very evocative of a few months ago. We went to Brazil and Andrew, his uncle, had just been, you know, deprinsed. And the scandal was sort of all over the beginning of that trip. You know, William managed to sort navigate it. We're about to go to Saudi Arabia on a really important, you know, trade mission effectively. William's going to be out in Saudi Arabia holding trade talks

with the crown prince Mohammed bin Salman. We expect to see him there and all sorts of things. And a lot of us are going to be talking about and the wider world is the ongoing fallout

for the royal family of the Epstein files. I was going to ask you what, I mean, you wrote at the weekend about it being kind of an indelible stain on the monarchy.

Do you think they'll ever get over this? Do you think that it's so now ingrained through them that it's sort of rotten to the core? I don't think the monarchy is rotten to the call. I do think...

People will think that, does that what you mean? I do think when I wrote about sort of that the king can remove all the titles, remove the dukedom, remove the prince title, but he can't scrub out the stain left by Andrew. And a lot of people will say, well, it's not the king, you know, the king's own all he can, it harks back to what Queen Elizabeth perhaps didn't do. But I just feel maybe not through any fault of their own, possibly through just acting a little bit too slow, that this has reached such epic proportions that no one will be able to look and, you know, consider King Charles's reign, or indeed even Queen Elizabeth's reign, without factoring in what was going on behind the scenes

with Andrew on official maneuvers and now even outside of the family, but still the reputational damage to the institution this is causing will be permanent. Well, I think the problem is it could also do the same for the government. And I think one of the interesting thing is now we're seeing them try to move quickly to do all sorts of things, but the story is going to keep moving. And my fear, it's moving quickly. It's moving really quickly. And my fear is for Sakir Starma, that they're going to do all the things that they can do, pull the levers now. Like the king did. Like the king did. But actually, the story is just going to keep moving. And then they're going to have nowhere to go. So there's, there's no other sort of formal

way that they can courtarise. As it has done for the king. Exactly. He's pulled all the levers, palisadesaise. Do everything he can? Yeah. The story is still getting worse. Unlike the government, though, Andrew's going to remain the king's brother, whether he's, He likes it or not. You know, as I said before, he can't be voted out of family. He can't be sacked from the family. And he can't have the winds of DNA extracted from him in a way that perhaps government can. Well, will you come back and talk to us as things develop?

It feels like there's, you know, dot, dot, dot, watch this space. I don't think we'll be writing about much else for this weekend. No. Thank you very much, Caroline, for joining us this week. And for more analysis from Caroline, check out her podcast, The State of It. And it's a very good listen. And as we said, we're going to be watching as the forelight of the Epstein files rolls on. So make sure you follow us wherever you are, and please don't miss any of the news.

And a reminder, you can watch as well as listen to the podcast on our new YouTube channel. You can just search Times Royals on YouTube for full episodes of the podcast, plus any breaking royal news and analysis from across the Times. That's it from us this week. week. Thanks for joining us on The Royals, and we'll see you next time where we'll be reporting, like we said, from Prince William's trip to Saudi Arabia.