The Royals with Roya and Kate - King Charles, Andy Burnham and the truth behind Britain's political power

Episode Date: July 23, 2026

As Andy Burnham becomes Britain’s new prime minister, King Charles invites his fourth leader in four years to form a government, raising fresh questions about the true extent of royal influence behind closed doors. Roya Nikkhah and Kate Mansey are joined by Valentine Low, former royal correspondent of The Times and author of Power and the Palace, to explore how the power of the Crown really works. What does King Charles and Andy Burnham's surprising history tell us about the future of their relationship? And what happens when royal interests collide with government priorities?Valentine book, Power and the Palace: How the Royals Exercise Political Influence is available now. You can buy a copy from The Times Bookshop, with a special discount for Times+ members.Get in touch: [e-mail]: GettyProducer: Robert WallaceVideo Producer: Eve ChadbournExecutive Producer: Priyanka DeladiaWatch on YouTube.Read more: Palace refused to have post-Brexit deal signed at Windsor Castle Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hello and welcome to the Royals, the podcast where we discussed what happens behind palace walls and why it matters. I'm Royneika. And I'm Kate Mansy. What happened this week when the king met the king of the north? Well, Britain's just got a new prime minister and King Charles has welcomed his fourth in less than four years. Andy Burnham went to Buckingham Palace, where the king formally invited him to form a government. It's a ritual watched in public, but that relationship. The relationship will now begin to unfold almost entirely behind the scenes.

By tradition, the King and his new Prime Minister will meet every week with no officials, no minutes taken and no public record. So how much power does the monarch really have in those conversations? And with Burnham already on record, criticising some elements of how the King's Duchy operates, could this become one of Charles' most interesting political relationships yet? Well, joining us to explore all of this, we're delighted to welcome back Valentine Lowe, former Royal correspondent for The Times, and the author of the brilliant book, Power and the Palace, How the Royals Exercise Political Influence. Welcome back, Valentine.

Thank you very much. Very kind of you to have me on the show. This is a great week for you actually to be back, because your book looks at the machinery between the monarchy and Westminster, and all those bits behind the scenes that we don't really, perhaps a lot of people don't understand, but also a lot of people certainly don't see play out. Lots of it takes place away from the cameras. Lots of it we're not told about.

So what was happening this week? Tell us about why Andy Burnham has to go to the palace and how that machinery works. Well, he has to go to the palace because the king, the monarchy, is the apex of everything in this country. The king appoints the prime minister. The king doesn't really have any choice. choice in the matter at all, which wasn't true, you know, in times gone by.

Victoria tried very hard to influence who the prime minister was going to be. But he doesn't have any choice, but he officially and formally appoints the Prime Minister. So the visit to Buckingham Palace represents the transfer of power. So one minute, Kirstarmer goes in with his wife and he was Prime Minister and he comes out and Andy Burnham goes in and then suddenly he's not Prime Minister anymore. You say one minute, it can be literally one minute. I think when David Cameron resigned his prime minister and Theresa May took over, there was 32 seconds, 32 seconds between his car leaving Buckingham Palace and her car arriving.

One in one out. This time, because they've got the resurfacing going on at Buckingham Palace, I quite like the fact that they were coming in and out, not through the grand entrance this time, but the luggage room entrance. So I don't know what that says. It's shuffting in and out quite quickly. I think these prime ministers in their place. is what it says.

Rather than the audience room, it was the Chinese dining room because the audience room is being done up. But essentially, the theatre of it was the same. You have the handshake. The kissing of hands, as it's called,

but that's not really quite how it unfolds, is it? Tell us about the kissing of hands. There's no kissing of hands. That's what it's called. That's the meeting. It hasn't been kissing of hands for ages. I mean, it had certainly disappeared

when Harold Wilson was Prime Minister first time in 1964. It had gone by then. Who knows how much earlier it went. I mean, kissing hands, it represents, of course, sort of fealty and loyalty to the monarch. But what there is, there's a handshake and a bow. Or if you're a woman, Prime Minister, I guess, a curtsy. You know, it's all quite modest.

And it's not a big ceremony at all. I mean, you know, it's incredibly important symbolically about what is actually happening. But it's not a big ceremony. So the Prime Minister Debe goes into the audience room, usually, bows and shake sand with the monarch. the monarch asks them to form an administration. They say they can. Actually, they don't always say they can. Alec Douglas Hume, who in 1963, took over the leadership.

He's the Queen's fourth Prime Minister, but she'd been on the throwing 11 years by that stage. Exactly. He wasn't quite sure whether he had the backing of the Conservative Parliamentary Party. So he said, you'd go and see if he could try in form an administration and then had to come back 24 hours later in order to be appointed Prime Minister. Charles is now on to his fourth Prime Minister. He's seen Liz Truss.

He's seen Rishi Sinnak. He's seen Kirstama. And now he's got Andy Burnham. What do we know about potential areas of common interest that they share? Because Charles is someone who's well known for his longest job that he's had so far as Prince of Wales. He set up the Prince's Trust. Now the King's Trust big into supporting young people from disadvantaged backgrounds, regenerating industrial communities.

Andy Burnham has shown. similar sort of policy ideas and some of his work in urban communities. Where do we think they might have a sort of common interest? So as you say, I think those two are areas of young people and urban regeneration. I think also an interesting point is Burnham's faith. Obviously he's a Roman Catholic and Charles quite clearly is not.

But I think faith is very important to Burnham and he's very sincere about that. And I think that might be an interesting point to communicate. Also, I think another interesting area is eco stuff. Yeah, the climate change king. Climate change king.

And if you look at the new energy secretary, who's pretty green, all those sort of signs and signifiers I think will be important and will be a point of common interest for Charles. One absolute common interest between the new Prime Minister and the next king is homelessness.

And I thought the choreography of Andy Burnham's first day as Prime Minister, his very first engagement, fascinating, Is it the passage homelessness charity in London, of which William is patron? And of course, William there, didn't we, in December with Prince George? You're absolutely right. That was interesting.

It's an interesting point of common interest with the Prince of Wales. But you also have to remember that Andy Burnham did this when he became Mayor of Manchester, exactly the same thing. He also brought in William's Homewards charity, which is now when it's third year, when he was Mayor of Manchester, he bought in the Homewoods team to help advise him on that. So there's been this kind of long-running kind of link-up. between Burnham's office and Williams' office. So it's interesting to see how that will go at some stage.

Obviously, as he has air to the throne, he will have to meet the new Prime Minister, because that's typically what happens. And you may come on to this later, but communications when Andy Burnham was health secretary back in the early 2000s, showing that he had an interest in complementary medicine. That's another point of contact between the two of them.

Oh, well, this is interesting, because this came out in the spider. The black spider memo. So this kind of came out in 2015, but I think there was a letter dated in June 2009 from Andy Burnham, replying to the then-Prince Charles, because Charles at that time had been accused, hadn't he, of lobbying ministers? So journalists said, come on, let's see all the correspondence between government ministers and the Prince of Wales, as he was then, Prince Charles. And let's see what he's been asking these ministers about. And he'd been writing to them about, you know, so say, pet projects.

At the time people were saying he was such a grovelling sycophon because he's signed off your humble and obedient servant. I make completely, I draw completely the opposite inference from that. Do you think he's having a bit of a play with him? No, not having to play with him. He wants to get rid of him. He's saying to his civil servants, oh, quickly look up, what's the correct form for signing a letter?

Fine, that'll do. From what I understand, a lot of ministers, these letters were a mild annoyance. They weren't as a great infringement on their constitutional position, but they got another letter from Charles, I suppose we better respond to him, or I suppose I'd better go and see him. Burnham's reply to me smacks a little bit of a right.

I suppose we have to deal with this. Let's just sort of do some cap doffing, but we don't really mean it. So it's not to be read into. I don't think so. Right. But it does show a willing, he did say I'm happy to come and see you at Clarence House to discuss these things. I think he was delighted,

instead of delighted to comforting. Delighted then, which makes me think that he will do his best to try and get on with the king. I think he will try and forge a, you know, constructive and cordial relationship. Where Andy Benham has definitely been less sycophantic and less

of secre as if that's how his letters are to be read, although you do, I take your point, you don't read him like that, is much more recently early this year because Andy Benham had a few things to say about the way the Duchy of Lancaster operated, hasn't he? And they weren't very complimentary. Obviously, the Duchy of Lancaster is the vast property estate,

that money from it goes towards the King's private income into the preview purse. Tell us a bit more about that, Val. Yes, that was all about the dumping of waste in a dump near Wigan. And there's a big hoo-hahar about that locally. And the Duchy of Lancaster tried to brush it off. They suggested dealing with the issue by passing the land to the local council, which Andy Burnham as mayor of Greater Manchester didn't think really was... He said it was not acceptable.

He was not acceptable. And he wouldn't accept it as an answer. I mean, he was very forthright about it. He was very forthright about it. But he's also been forthright about the Duchy on an early occasion a few years ago when there's this strange old rule that people who die within the county platonet of Lancashire, whatever the county platonet of Lancashire is, if they die in test date without having made a will,

without having any identifiable next to kin. Their estate goes not to the state, what normally happens, it goes to the Duchy of Lancaster. It's a bizarre rule called Bonavacantia. And there was a lot of hoo-haar about that, particularly when it emerged after investigation by the Guardian. What did he have to say about that? Well, he called that something like a bizarre remnant of feudal system,

which is an interesting thing to say, because if we start attacking bizarre remnants of feudal system, where will it end? Well, yeah, isn't that what the monarchy is? I don't hear he'll be raising that in his first audience with the king. In a way, I'm kind of relaxed about all this because, yeah, Charles is very used to dealing with people who've said uncomplimentary things about various aspects of things he believes in, dealing with people he has differing views with. After all, he's had several successful meetings with Donald Trump, who has diametrically opposing views about the environment to the king. And so much was made about that before they met a few years ago.

When Donald Trump came for his first state visit, there was so much hoo-ha, wasn't there, about, you know, you've got the climate change, future king as he was then, and you've got the climate change denied Donald Trump. But actually, he's a diplomatic pro, isn't he, Chazin? We've just seen there on the state visit. Exactly. It wasn't an issue.

It wasn't a very interesting when they met for tea. And if you think about meetings between the King and Andy Burnham, Burnham's not going to bring up the past misbehave for the Dutch of Lancaster, and the King is going to be. Certainly isn't going to mention it. I think it'll be absolutely fine. Well, when you think about those meetings, They're now going to take place every week.

You know, the audience, as it's known, we don't know what goes on inside the meeting. We know that some previous prime ministers have given a bit away, haven't they, when they've written their memoirs, because they sometimes leak out little bits and pieces. Take us inside those meetings, how they work, what's the point of them? Well, okay, so the meetings every week, they last about an hour and a half. As you said, no one else's president. No tickers or anything like that. No AIDS. Maybe a corgi in the past.

I think there's a certain amount of focus on the forthcoming agenda, you know, what's coming up. And sometimes there are very obvious things. So if a state visitor is coming up, obviously they're going to talk about that. And then the prime minister will have sort of half a dozen things he might want to talk about from different areas. It could be sort of home policy, it could be foreign policy, could be defence. And some prime ministers go to these meetings with a little list of aid moments. were about four or five things to bring up. Some absolutely don't.

John Major didn't and Tony Blair didn't. And Tony Blair told his senior aides, don't worry about creating a list. We'll we find out what to talk about ourselves. It's absolutely fine. And it's a chance for the Prime Minister, John Byrd, themselves. Safe space. It was not going to be reported.

It was either Harold Wilson or Jim Callan. I forget which, who said it's the only time in the week talking to someone who doesn't on his job. Yeah. And David Cameron has spoken. I mean, never really given away too many private conversations other than the one terrible one he mentioned about the Queen perring down the phone when she heard the result of the Scottish referendum issue. But I do remember him saying that he felt it was almost like therapy for him. You could talk to the Queen about things. You could not talk to any other colleagues in Parliament about or in politics about for fear of things being leaked or them taking particular view. And you could, you know, as we say, unburden yourself.

to the Queen as he did. And the Queen once talked about it in a documentary. She said that one was like a sort of sponge. They could unburden themselves. But the therapy thing, the therapy thing often comes up, I think. Basically like therapy at Buckingham Palace every week. Boris Johnson called it therapy once. You can thrash out ideas in a way.

There's all the advice as well, though, isn't it? That they've been around the block. They've seen Prime Ministers come and go. Yeah, particularly the late Queen. I mean, she could dredge up stuff from decades ago that might be relevant. For prime ministers, the chance to unbur themselves to sort of sound the king out on things. And the monarch is a chance for them to advise and warn their prime minister sometimes, isn't it? Well, if you go back to the original formation of form of words by Walter Badgett, the great Victorian constitutional writer,

he said the role of the monarch was to be consulted to encourage and to warn, to actually mention advising. But Walter Badger, of course, just made that up. Probably was then followed by the monarch. Badger was essentially a journalist, a Victorian journalist. So he wrote this stuff. And in a way, he wasn't really describing what went on. He was describing what he thought should go on.

Because, of course, Victoria was not sticking to the Badgett rules at all. She was going far beyond anything that he described. But today, that still remains the kind of a bit of a kind of blueprint, doesn't it? It certainly does remain the blueprint. Coming up. There was demands. for Andrew to be removed from the line of succession.

Kier-Starmer said, you know, they were looking at the possibility of legislation. I would put a tenor down today that nothing's going to happen there. It's not just the Prime Minister and the monarch that have that, you know, very unique comms every week. There is something called the Golden Triangle,

isn't there? That is almost as important, if not more important in that relationship, but in the running of, not just the running of the country, but sort of the running of the smooth operation behind the scenes. Explain what the Golden Triangle and who they are. So the Golden Triangle is three people. It's the Cabinet Secretary, the most senior civil servant of the land.

It's the Prime Minister's Principal Private Secretary, so the most senior official, I guess, in Ten Downing Street. And it's the Sovereign's Private Secretary. And I once asked the great sort of government, a constitutional writer Vernon Boggs-Den-Oll about who he thought the most important member of the Triangle was, and he thought it was the cabinet secretary because they were the most senior.

And in a funny way, I think, having this study this area, I think I would disagree with Burnham. It's outrageous to me to disagree with Great Vernon. Who do you think is top dog in that triangle? Well, not the top, not top, but really important versus the Prime Minister's Private Secretary because they can talk to the sovereign's private secretary on a daily basis.

I mean, literally they can be on the phone every day to them, keeping them informed about what's going on. So that's the incredibly important relationship. And a lot of that was about making sure that neither side gets surprised by anything. I mean, the example that was given to me that the late Queen didn't want to turn on the 6 o'clock news and find out about reshuffle that she didn't know what was going on. So, you know, very important that monarch should be across everything. And of course, the Queen famously was absolutely across everything.

She gets the government papers. She used to get the government papers every day in the famous red boxes. And she would read it all. And it was a lot of work, wasn't it? And Harold Wilson, the Labour Prime Minister, 1960s, and his first audience with the Queen, hadn't briefed himself properly. And she asked him a question about something

that was in the Cabinet Minutes because she should get the Cabinet Minutes. And she asked him about, and he didn't have a proper answer. He was absolutely mortified and embarrassed and furious about being caught out, and he made sure he never made that mistake again. Do you think Charles is across as monarch,

Do you think he pays his close attention to detail as his mother did? I remember after his first year as King, speaking to someone who knows him extremely well. And of course, Charles was getting the red boxes as the Prince of Wales, some red boxes, as the current Prince of Wales gets some red boxes in official papers now before they get the top job. Someone who knows him very, very well, said that he had been quite surprised by the workload in the first year in terms of the business of state.

Well, I've heard that Charles's red boxes are in fact bigger than the late queens. And that's at his request? Yes, that's his desire. And he does work, you know, he's quite a work demon, isn't he? Into the night. He's famous for working late into the night. So is he asking to see more government papers? Is that how that's happened?

I was going to say, you've got to understand about how the red box system works. It's not that the government sends the sovereign a certain number of papers each day. It's lots of papers come from lots of different sources into Buckingham Palace every day and the private secretary sorts them out and decides what goes into the red box for the sovereign. So Sir Clive Alderton, the King's Private Secretary will be the editor, if you like, in chief of those government papers that come in and he decides what to put in front of the monarch. There was an interesting thing about the... So obviously the late Queen was regarded as someone who was very assiduous in her work.

always read those papers. And there was a time when there was a strike at GCHQ, the government listening centre in Cheltenham, and it meant that what was called the telegrams for ambassadors abroad weren't coming through. And the Queen told someone that she was quite relieved that she wasn't having to read the ball, which is totally goes against the grain

of what one's led to believe about her fastly for work and a desire to read it all. It's interesting because there's a kind of passive element of their fulfilling that constitutional role, but your book is fascinating for those moments of friction where it seems like the palace is pushing back or the palace is trying to maneuver in a particular direction or putting their foot down sometimes.

So there was a comment from the late queen during the run-up to the referendum as to whether Scotland should break away from the rest of the UK. Yes. Now, that was a huge thing at the time. That was massive. It's kind of fascinating that. because so Scottish referendum is coming up whether they should leave the United Kingdom.

And David Cameron, he's the prime minister and he's campaigning for Scotland to stay in the United Kingdom. He is quite confident about it all until the weekend before when there's a poll in the Sunday times, which suggests the campaign is neck and neck. And he's worried about this. In fact, he panics. And basically number 10 rings the palace. This is all absolutely copper-bottom troop. Not that Henry's Sparison and say,

is there anything you can do? In Cameron's phrase, you know, raising of the eyebrows a quarter of an inch. And even doing that, gives such strong insight into the understanding by the government of the day, knowing that the monarch of the day is always their biggest trump card.

And isn't that interesting? Because we also saw it during COVID when the Queen gave that very famous follow the rules and we will meet again speech. And we saw with the Trump state visits. And it's literally a trump card that they deploy very rarely, but they know it's incredibly powerful. So what happened then when David Cameron asked her to raise an eyebrow? So what happens on the Sunday before the referendum, the Queen is in Belmoral and she goes to church, the local church, Kratinkirk.

And after which she comes out and she goes to say hello to the small crowd gathered outside the church. And someone asks her a question about the referendum. and she says that she hopes the people of Scotland will think very carefully about voting. Which in and of itself, it isn't contentious, but... This was a absolutely well-scripted response that had been carefully worked out. Do you think that person who asked the question was a plant? Well, the interesting thing about that person is they've never been found. A lot of...

We never... A lot of speculation about that, isn't it. Nope. The reporter who reported it has died since. I've spoken to the one... outside witness, the photographer who was there, and they tried to find the person, and the person just couldn't be found. And it was a brilliant form of words because...

It's not saying to do one thing or another. It doesn't say one thing or another, but everyone knows what she meant. And I once discussed this with the former Cabinet Secretary, Robin Butler, Lord Butler. You know, I said, is it right that, you know, they got the Queen to do that? And he was completely relaxed about it and thought it was the most brilliant device. ever. And the thing that always amazes me that, you know, I mean, basically the palace lied through their teeth at the time denying that there was anything in it. Absolute porkies. Imagine that, pal.

And since then, we've discovered from a variety of sources that it was absolutely true. It was a plan cooked up. And it worked. And the amazing thing was they got away with it. There has been a, we've talked about this on the podcast a lot in the last few weeks. and months. There has been, it's certainly the last year, a shift from within Parliament towards the monarchy, specifically in terms of we've had in the last year, we've had members of the House of Parliament in the House, debating a member of the royal family, debating the former Duke of York, the formal Prince Andrew, Andrew McRat and Windsor. We'd really never seen that very often, if ever. There is a feeling that the notion of total deferential sort of treatment towards

the royal family has gone with all the scandal that has surrounded Andrew Mountbatten, Windsor. How significant to change do you think that is? Yeah, I mean, my view is up to a point, Lord Copper. I mean, I think, so around the time of the Andrew's scandal... This is all over the issue with Geoffrey Epstein and... Andrew's arrest. And Andrew has denied all wrongdoing. When they had that debate in the House of Commons, I think it was a Lib Dem debate,

normally there are rules in the House of Commons. It's the Erskine May rules, isn't it? That you can't criticise the Royal Family. Well, you can't criticize the royal family unless there is what's called a substantive motion. So in other words, you can't bring in irrelevant criticism of the royal family. But the point is, the Speaker of the Commons, Salenzie Hoyle, he explicitly said he was going to relax the rules so you can say it would like. And everyone absolutely piled in on Andrew in that debate. They really gave him a jolly good kicking.

And around that time, there was also a lot of questions being asked by MPs. and even ministers actually about royal finances because Andrew's deal about his rental non-rent for Royal Lodge the House where he lived near Windsor before being booted out that came under scrutiny other Royal's rental arrangements came under scrutiny and we now have a public inquiry into it and we're going to see a report produced at some point

we will see a report produced there was also demands for Andrew to be removed from the line of succession and Kier Stama said, you know, they were looking at the possibility of legislation. I would put a tenor down today that nothing's going to happen there. Well, we did it. I did a piece on this with Gabriel Pogrand recently and basically spoke to top government sources who said we've looked at it. We'll still look at it.

We'll keep looking at it. But it's not going to happen for a very, very, very, very, very long time. Well, they have to conclude any police investigation first. Very long time being the 12th of never. And then they have to move it along. I think eventually there will be, it will have to return to go. government, but there'd need to be an act. But I think this reached a peak with the peak of the scandal around Andrew, and I think it's

going to settle down. It's a sense of it being kicked into the long graph. I'm not just talking about the Andrews succession thing. I think all the demands, you know, oh, this is the end of deference to the royal family. I think they're going to slip back into their old ways. As a final thought, Val, do you think the fact that we are now seeing Andy Burnham as the king's fourth prime minister in less than four years, which is quite a stat in itself? Do you think there is something about the constant revolving doors of prime ministers that we have had in this country over the last decade and the relative stability of the monarchy that plays into the idea and to the advantage of the royal family continuing, unless continue to have a constitutional monarchy?

Does it emphasise the monarchy stability versus the instability of Downing Street? I think absolutely. That's a very good point. And also, Charles used to get, was very politically interventionist, used to write these letters to ministers. I think in a way, more controversially, used to sort of cross swords with government departments. He'd make speeches which annoy...

He used to lobby, but also his speeches were meant to be checked by the relevant department. And he once really annoyed Ken Clark when he was Education Secretary by doing a speech. And he dropped on Ken Clark's desk that morning, far too late for him to express any people. about whether the speech should be okay. And the speech was essentially critical in government policy.

It was about education. It was about teaching Shakespeare schools. And Clark was absolutely furious about it. And let Clarence House, Charles's headquarters, let them know that he was very cross about that. So Charles used to be very interventionist, used to bend the political rules. He's better behave now.

He's much better behave now. And what's very interesting is in the first four days of his reign, he made three speeches. and in every single one of them he mentioned the Constitution. And that was him saying, I'm going to be a good constitutional king. He's a changed man and he wants to be on the rights. And it's playing well for him. No one these days criticizes him on political ground.

Well, we will see how much he takes lying down from his new Prime Minister. We'll see how that relationship plays out. Valentine Lowe, thank you so much for joining us for a fascinating discussion. And if you enjoy this discussion and want to learn more, the updated version of Valentine Lowe's book Power and the Palace is out now in paperback. And have to say, it's a fantastic read. And not just because you're in the room. We don't have to say that. And next week, as the court considers the costs of Prince Harry's privacy case against associated newspapers, will bring you the inside story of this hacking trial and what comes next in his

battle against the press. It's an unbelievable story. You won't want to miss it. So please subscribe wherever you get your podcasts or on YouTube at the Times Royals channel. Until then, thanks for joining us on the Royals and we'll see next week.