RF covering for Andrew?

[flippantlydone]

www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2024/dec/28/dubious-use-of-the-freedom-of-information-act-stopping-access-to-files-on-prince-andrew-researchers-say

Maybe they believe he is innocent of the accusations? I would stand by a relative in that case!

And for the umpteenth time, even if the allegations against are true, it doesn't make him a paedophile!!!

How is the British public "paying for him" btw?

I think Andrew and his grifting wife sum up everything I don't like about the royal family. The entitlement, the we're better than you mentality. They are all, for all intents and purposes, just rich aristocrats who happen to be top of the tree.

Andrew could've gone off and led a quiet life somewhere. With his ex wife. But did he? No. He's addicted to the dressing up box and the salutes and toadying and smarming up by the public. Ditto Sarah. Why isn't she living quietly somewhere, enjoying her grandchildren...no, she wants to live on a Royal estate and hang on the coat tails of royalty.

Sarah is a cautionary tale of the dangers of someone royal adjacent and cash-strapped.

“Mr Lownie said Ferguson’s Achilles heel remains her lavish lifestyle and claimed the ex-working royal continues to live far more grandly than the likes of Princess Anne and Prince Edward.
^^
Fergie allegedly had more staff and spent more money than Princess Diana. ”Even Edward and Anne don’t live at the rate (Fergie) did, she had five times as many staff as Diana,” he said.
^^
He traced Ferguson’s penchant for largesse to her first serious relationship with Formula 1 entrepreneur Paddy McNally, who introduced the future Duchess to a life of ski chalets, yachts and jet-setting.”

Then the author is quoted as saying Sarah is “greedy”

I get that the author is trying to raise maximum amount of interest by emphasising Sarah in the interviews. As I posted earlier, the papers and journalists do want to paint the women who marry in as bad, first. Because that’s what the public - in this case mostly female consumers - want to read. Sarah’s no exception in this despite her fairly recent partial rehabilitation.

I think she probably is used to an extraordinarily lavish lifestyle. It explains her need to hustle for money. Her latest post on Instagram shilling something called zuom.

Still, nothing she’s accused of is as bad as the accusations made in regards to Andrew and the enormous amount of money he (or the late Queen) paid out to keep a woman quiet, a woman who’d been sex trafficked when an underaged teenager. Sarah and Andrew

Then Lownie falls back on what he calls a trope - the royal men picking these strong (wilfull? lol) women because they weren’t mothered. (Because men are really children I guess that if it’s a real poke at the late Queen. Charles would approve imo. Or he would have when he was younger when he complained about how he was parented - or not.

I don't think Andrew and Sarah are particularly representative of the royal family as a whole.

They live with so much money and opulence, it wouldn't be surprising if they were 'entitled' but I don't detect that with many members of the RF. But then I don't know them. Andrew and Sarah are definitely 'entitled', as are Harry and Meghan. The rest of them, not so much?

They are all entitled AFAIC. How can they not be? They live a life that is totally different to anyone, and everyone that they are in daily contact with will be bowing and deferring to them all day every day.
Of course some will be worse than others and Andrew is probably the extreme...like the tales of him summoning a member of staff to move a curtain two inches rather than get out of his chair and do it himself, and shouting at staff when his teddy bears aren't in the right order 🤣

@Jacquette

That is a very interesting post and I think people are quite sympathetic towards Sarah but to be frank I don't know why. She has used and abused her position for decades

Yes. I think this year is going to be very interesting re what we learn about Sarah and Andrew. I just wonder though if we will be seeing the usual response from the palace and media - the married in woman being the fall guy.

@Extiainoiapeial yez they are probably all entitled. I should imagine hard not to be in that environment. I don’t get that impression from the Edinburghs or Anne though. Nor actually from Kate. Or maybe they are just better at hiding it!

I’ve always thought the Yorks relationship is an odd one. They are divorced but still live together. I thought they may remarry after Philip or the Queen died but no.

I hope the exposè doesn’t lay all the wrongdoings at Sarah’s feet.

I’ve often wondered if Prince Andrew is gay.
It would explain his relationship with Sarah Ferguson.
I always remember when they split up snd she was asked what her advice would be to people getting married
Her reply was
’know your man.’

I hope the exposè doesn’t lay all the wrongdoings at Sarah’s feet

I hope not too. But the Royal family do have form for this sort of thing

There were rumours he was gay @Doloresparton when I was younger - I’d forgotten about that. I’m a similar age to him and he was seen as the handsome playboy prince. Charles as the more serious, studious one.

Could it be because she's had cancer twice in the last two years?

Here’s the BBC from last night. Some fascinating detail about Andrew, his advisor, and the Chinese ‘spy’. The letter featured is just so … weird.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cz7engdnevlo

When they divorced this was the rumour, that she found him in bed with a man. Don't know if it's true, don't really care either.

I have never understood why Sarah is seen as a paragon when she has supported Andrew's behaviour for years.

As to Royal Lodge, I'm sure the King would love to be able to get Andrew out but he has a legal contract with the Crown Estate. I don't want to live in a world where the King can evict anyone just because he wants to.

William btw last drove Andrew to church in Balmoral. I'm fully supportive of that, maybe Andrew will actually listen to the service and learn something.

Very weird! And smuggling dodgy people in and out of the house in Windsor...😮🙄

Thanks for that link Extiainiaopeial!
Wow. It makes very interesting reading doesn’t it?

So is that proof that Andrew, when he stated to Emily Maitlis that he went to visit Epstein in NY simply out of “loyalty” to tell him that the friendship was over, rather than cut him off by letter or e-mail, that the pair were in fact very much in touch after that, exchanging messages such as “keep in touch and we will play later”? 😳

If so, it’s further proof that Prince Andrew’s involvement with Epstein was greater than he tried to make out, and further confirmation that he was lying through his teeth in the interview.

As for Andrew’s aide writing quite recently to an alleged Chinese spy that they managed to sneak the relevant people in and out of Windsor, the mind boggles!

Why on earth is someone not going through Andrew and Fergie’s finances with a fine tooth comb, investigating, for example, where Fergie got her 5 million from to buy her London mews house?

Presumably any ordinary citizen who had been caught fraternising with an alleged Chinese spy, would be subject to thorough financial investigation to determine whether they had been duped or they were a willing participant?

I wonder if Fergie evades scrutiny because she and Andrew are divorced?

Did Fergie buy that house after the queen died? Maybe inheritance? But god yes someone needs to look carefully.

Correction: apologies I should be thanking TheCrowPeople for the link.

No, the stories first appeared in the papers about Sarah buying the mews house in August 2022. And the late Queen died in the September.

But he is beholden to his family for money so they can exercise some control I guess.

Yet they don't when it comes to being seen in public with him, allowing him to play dress up and ham it up for the cameras. Tells us all we need to know really.

TBF after the spy debacle they finally seem to be cracking down some with the non-appearance at Christmas but on past evidence it's surely only a matter of time before he's wheeled on again under the pretext of something being a private family event.

So if Andrew has no income other than a navy pension, how is he affording to live in Royal Lodge?

It’s likely the Queen made provision for him in her will?

Prince Philip used to argue about the benefits of having a RF over one single monarch, but with regard to Andrew, it’s a bit of a liability isn’t it, and something we wouldn’t have to contend with if we had an elected head of state.

Also, because of the protection and privacy afforded to the RF, we have no oversight over Prince Andrew’s contract with the Crown Estate, mentioned by a pp.

And we have no oversight over the Queen’s will, when every ordinary citizen in the land has theirs published publically.

Do we know, incidentally, how much of the Sovereign Grant is used to maintain buildings on the royal estates btw?

Again, this information would be transparent and clear if we had an elected head of state and available for public scrutiny.

Why on earth is someone not going through Andrew and Fergie’s finances with a fine tooth comb, investigating, for example, where Fergie got her 5 million from to buy her London mews house?

Exactly right.

Also many unanswered questions over the purchase and sale of the multi million pound ski chalet which became the subject of another threatened court case at one point.

And on the subject of Fergie it's always worth noting that while Andrew is the one in the frame for negotiating with Epstein on the repayment of her debts, Epstein held more private numbers for her than he did for Andrew.

Story there for sure.

The whole Epstein saga is a lesson is how easily powerful people evade justice. The focus is on Andrew, and in no way do I think he is innocent, but he is also serving as a useful idiot to take the focus off the many, many others who spent time with Epstein and have escaped censure or scrutiny.

It is totally disgusting that the only person behind bars is Maxwell.

I totally agree with this^^

Sarah has always benefited financially from her royal status. Would her children’s books have been accepted for publication had she not been royal, for example, and had been subject to the same scrutiny as the books of other children’s authors?

And to this day she is posting on Instagram promoting Zoul, a mh and wellness app.

And since you mentioned it Extiainoiapeial,
it is a bit dodgy the way “sources” are reporting every so often that Charles “wants” to evict Andrew like he has no real influence over him at all. It doesn’t quite add up imho?

Either Charles is not bothered that Andrew is still staying at Royal Lodge but is trying to make out like he is by “leaking”
the eviction story every so often?

To be fair to Charles, he probably wants Andrew to stay at Windsor because security costs would be higher elsewhere, albeit in a smaller residence? But wasn’t it reported that Charles had withdrawn Andrew’s security detail?

Or KC is favouring a head-in-sand approach like his late mother hoping the issue will go away on its own, which it isn’t doing?

Or Andrew is holding something over C & C as leverage? His autobiography perhaps 😂?

Or it’s quite useful that Andrew pays for the upkeep of the Royal Lodge out of his personal inheritance from the Queen, if indeed that is the case, as it leaves more in the Sovereign Grant to spend elsewhere?

Or it could quite suit KC to have the press focused on Andrew’s extravagance and intransigence in not “slimming down” his property portfolio, rather than his own?

I think one of those theories are far more likely than “Charles told Andrew to move out and Andrew wouldn’t budge”. Especially when KC has so much influence over Andrew and Fergie’s future financial security? Andrew and Fergie are only in their mid-sixties so they could both live another twenty-five to thirty years.

I’ve seen it reported that Andrew wants to hold on to Royal Lodge for Beatrice and Eugenie. The house is already divided in to two wings; Andrew and Fergie live there separately apparently.

A pp is saying that King Charles can’t just evict Andrew with a snap of his fingers because he has a contract with the Crown Estate, but surely the King can argue legally that if it’s resident has been caught hob -knobbing with a Chinese spy, against the interests of the UK, plus the Epstein scandal, then any lease signed in 2003 is null and void as so much has happened since then? I wonder if the lease includes a clause about not bringing the owner in to disrepute?

Also it was reported in the press that Andrew was having problems finding the £400,000 annual upkeep of the 30-bedroomed mansion until he found a “legitimate” source of funding? Surely that should be investigated for a start?

And the same reports suggest that Andrew can’t afford the upkeep of the twenty-one acre garden or park, which is now “in a right state”? Can’t you get evicted for that sort of thing if your lease is dependent on paying for upkeep?

I have never quite understood who makes the decisions governing how the finances are managed between the Crown Estate and the Sovereign Grant?

I think the profits from the former go to the Treasury and determine the size of the latter? Is that correct? But who governs this? And does the King sit on the committee which makes these decisions? To what extent are these decisions and transactions scrutinised? Independently?

Does KC have no say at all in how his own estates are managed financially? And which area gets such and such an allocation? I find that hard to believe?

Tbh I think the above very complicated arrangement allows far too many grey areas to exist in which wealth can be hidden from the public. The old smoke and mirrors again!

I’m happy to stand corrected on this though if anyone has any further information?