The Yorks 2 !

[jeffgoldblum]

Sorry missed end of thread !
had a slight hiccup.
anyway thread 2 ready for tomorrows new article. 😁

I think I read yesterday that it was only a 3 part serialisation.

Oh, I thought the Sarah Ferguson excerpt from today (now yesterday) was the penultimate one? I could have that wrong though.

Shame! , still it’s still already up on the previous thread.

Oh, I thought the Sarah Ferguson excerpt from today (now yesterday) was the penultimate one? I could have that wrong though

The SF one was the third one.

I think me being in a different time zone to the UK when I posted is confusing the days so to speak.

I'm still amazed by this bit:

"A sacked staff member revealed the greed and wastefulness that contributed to the duchess's financial downfall: 'Every night she demands a whole side of beef, a leg of lamb and a chicken, which are laid out on the dining room table like a medieval banquet. It's a feast that would make Henry VIII proud.
'But often there is just her and her girls, Bea and Eugenie, and most of it is wasted. There is no attempt to keep it to have cold the next day. It just sits there all night, and the next day it's thrown away.' Sometimes the meals would go virtually untouched while the duchess and her daughters munched on Kettle crisps."

The Elizabethan era of quiet dedication to duty.?

She coughed up the money that kept Andrew out of court. Lots and lots of money allegedly.

Well put.

That was one part that didn’t ring true to me and the fact its a sacked employee saying it makes it all the more suspicious.

If you have staff to prepare your meals and run your home why would you be eating the same things every night - beef, lamb, chicken? There’s really not much you can do to ring the changes with it and it would be pretty boring - salad with it one night or vegetables the next. What happened if they fancied a curry? Was that made separately and still the meats were put out on the table? And just how big is a whole side of beef? A 100kgs?

And what kind of professional butler or housekeeper would go to bed leaving food out overnight, every night?. The employer could be a slob who doesn’t care if the house/dining room looks like a tip but I doubt the staff would be slobs and I think their professionalism wouldn’t allow themselves to do it.

I think that’s a mite dramatic, Vera!

@Weepixie

i too hope that bit isn’t true. I think wasting food is wicked and I hope that at least the staff took the joints home!

Nooooo!

I read the Andrew one and the SF one…is that it?

To quote Oliver Twist, “Please Sir, may I have some more?”

Self-disclosure: I used to work for UKTI and held various roles in overseas diplomatic missions during my career. I was there when Prince Andrew was serving as the UK’s Trade Envoy. In fact, I received a Board Award for Outstanding Performance from him at a ceremony in St James's Palace where he waltzed in, delivered a very brief speech (clearly prepared for him), and waltzed out again.

I was also briefly involved in trying to secure his attendance for a sectoral trade awards evening I was organising at the Locarno Rooms in the FCO, which ultimately came to nothing. His reputation within the organisation and among overseas missions could not have been worse.

Whenever he made visits in his role, he would routinely make a beeline for young, attractive female staff, making inappropriate remarks and engaging in irrelevant, often nonsensical conversation and spent as little time as possible and clearly often had never read or mastered his brief.

If he was on a so-called curated overseas visit, these were typically initiated by his office rather than being part of a structured trade mission aligned with ministers, trade fairs, or other strategically relevant events. If he wanted to visit a particular country Thailand, for instance justifications would have to be fabricated around it. These trips more than often lacked any meaningful strategic value and were essentially elaborate holidays dressed up as official business.

There was also a huge amount of public money spent choreographing and paying for these jollies flights, accommodation, receptions, logistics, staff time, and more. This really ought to be calculated and itemised as an epic waste of public funds: money spent entirely on propping up a Potemkin village of royal activity to justify the existence of one individual’s unearned privilege.

What has also since become apparent is the similarly venal character of his ex-wife, Sarah Ferguson, who has proven herself to be an equally odious figure trading on her royal connections and embroiling herself in one tawdry scandal after another, often seemingly with the same sense of entitlement and lack of accountability that characterised Andrew's conduct.

Make no mistake: this is a scandal that isn’t going away. It licks at the very legitimacy of the Royal Family, at the standing of his brother the King, and even at the legacy and reputation of his late mother. The damage is deep, long-lasting, and corrosive.

And finally, for anyone doubting just how far this behaviour was noticed abroad, there was the now-infamous Wikileaks cable from the British Ambassador to the Kyrgyz Republic released into the public domain which makes for very interesting reading indeed. To misqoute the late Queen we maybe be entering a
decas horribilis.

wikileaks.org/plusd/cables/08BISHKEK1095_a.html

That wikileaks cable is cringeworthy reading. What a fool Andrew is.

"For example, one British businessman noted that despite the "overwhelming might of the American economy compared to ours" the amount of American and British investment in Kyrgyzstan was similar. Snapped the Duke: "No surprise there. The Americans don't understand geography. Never have. In the U.K., we have the best geography teachers in the world!""

What we have here, essentially, are two major questions that demand answers through an official, transparent process:

His alleged sexual crimes or at the very least, a full and honest account of what he knew, when he knew it - under caution, and the extent of his involvement in the activities of Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell, particularly in relation to the sexual trafficking and exploitation of young potentially underage women.

The source and use of his funds including whether public office was used to advance his private interests. This scrutiny must also extend to Sarah Ferguson, whose financial dealings and continued entanglement with Prince Andrew raise parallel concerns. Both have appeared to benefit from murky funding arrangements, opaque financial support, and a culture of entitlement shielded by royal status.

This investigation needs to be undertaken as a matter of urgency. These are public figures who appear to have used their positions in ways that may not only be unethical, but potentially criminal. The public has a right to know whether their status and access to public office were abused and whether the institutions that enabled this behaviour are fit for purpose in a modern democracy.

Of course, it won’t happen not voluntarily, at least. They will be hoping this will all just quietly fade away. But my bet is that this is simply too big, too deep, and too extensive to be swept under the carpet. The scale of impropriety and public interest is such that silence and inaction may no longer be sustainable no matter how determined the effort to protect the reputation of the monarchy.

Oh and finally I can't resist - whilst this epochal stink remains let's have no more but Meghan and Harry !

Wikileaks cable from the British Ambassador

It's even worse, Vera, it was the US Ambassador briefing the CIA in that email, it wasn't the British Ambassador.

What an interesting career you had !

I love the Ambassador's final comment with it's measured and considered language;

COMMENT
---

14. (C) COMMENT: Prince Andrew reached out to the Ambassador with cordiality and respect, evidently valuing her insights. However, he reacted with almost neuralgic patriotism whenever any comparison between the United States and United Kingdom came up. For example, one British businessman noted that despite the "overwhelming might of the American economy compared to ours" the amount of American and British investment in Kyrgyzstan was similar. Snapped the Duke: "No surprise there. The Americans don't understand geography. Never have. In the U.K., we have the best geography teachers in the world!" END COMMENT. GFOELLER

What he meant to say was ;

A clueless royal trying to mask his own irrelevance with petty jabs and delusional British superiority. He’s the diplomatic equivalent of a toddler throwing a tantrum when reality doesn’t stroke his inflated ego.

@vera99

I agree with your central 3 paras - there needs to be an enquiry into these things.

I can’t agree about H&M, though. They are the gift that keeps on giving and I reserve my right to criticise and laugh at them if the occasion arises!

You’re right, my coffee hasn’t quite kicked in yet. I have indeed done many different jobs in my career, and I certainly enjoyed most of my time. Senior Royal visits including those involving the Queen used to require a lead time of up to five years, reflecting how full her diary was. No doubt, when necessary, more urgent visits at the highest level could be accommodated.

Here are two massive, glaring scandals he appears to have made enormous sums from the initiatives he was involved with.

Prince Andrew's Pitch@Palace initiative, established in 2014, aimed to connect entrepreneurs with investors. While the program was publicly presented as a charitable endeavor, reports suggest that Andrew sought personal financial gain through his involvement. Specifically, he reportedly sought a 2% cut of investment deals secured by startups participating in Pitch@Palace China, a branch of the initiative. This arrangement has been criticized as a "crude attempt to enrich himself" at the expense of unsuspecting tech founders, according to some observers

Prince Andrew's former marital home, Sunninghill Park in Ascot, Berkshire, was sold in 2007 for £15 million—£3 million above the asking price—to a buyer from Kazakhstan. The official buyer was Kenes Rakishev, a Kazakh businessman who claimed to have negotiated the deal with the help of his father-in-law, Imangali Tasmagambetov, the mayor of Astana. However, it was later revealed that the actual owner was Timur Kulibayev, the billionaire son-in-law of Kazakhstan's then-president, Nursultan Nazarbayev. Kulibayev acknowledged ownership after investigations exposed the use of offshore companies and a trust to facilitate the purchase .

Prince Andrew's Involvement in the Region
----- -------

1. (C/NF) Prince Andrew's position as UK Special

Representative for International Trade and Investment often takes him to the region. He said the Turkmen want to expand exports in all directions: North to Russia, South to Iran, East to China and West to Europe, but they don't realize yet how much they need the West. As an example, he said the Malaysians desperately want to enter the Turkmen market, but Petronas doesn't have the technology Western companies have. Other concerns, Prince Andrew said, are that binding arbitration in the region is not at all binding. There is no pressure on local governments to abide by contracts so companies must rely on fickle good will. To make matters worse, he said, the Europeans are in disarray and can not come up with a united energy plan.

https://wikileaks.org/plusd/cables/09LONDON2230_a.html

Thank you to the posters who are archiving and posting links.

Just read the one about SF. Oh my goodness. My gob is truly smacked!

I was aware of her reputation as a big spender but the scale of it, if true, is mind-blowing. We were sold the narrative that she had debts but had worked hard to repay them. But the cynical use of charities to go on jollies and the non-payment of promised funds to charities is truly despicable. As is the non-payment of debts to over 400 creditors at one point involving a local butcher and many small businesses. That is really is shocking.

And her poor long suffering staff not being paid after years of service, being laid off, and being asked to work out their remaining employment for free! Just horrible.

What I don’t understand from that extract, is why would she have staff who stayed with her for that long if she was so profligate and unremittingly awful? The food waste thing and the butler getting up at 4.30 am to put watercress on ice is just so lazy and bizarre though.

The endless parties and holidays, the transportation of multiple suitcases full of clothes and hangers, the expensive skin care and treatments, the addictive over-spending and present-giving when you can’t afford it, smacks of someone deeply insecure trying to to maintain a very fragile facade in a bid for acceptance and to buy people’s love and approval. If she hadn’t left small businesses in the lurch then I would feel almost sorry for her. But the waste, selfishness and hedonism is too much.

Why throw a champagne breakfast for builders who have helped you moved house? If you genuinely wanted to show gratitude then they probably would have preferred a good cash tip. But a champagne breakfast smacks of “look at me and how generous I am”.

And the TLQ baled her out several times until she didn’t. Again, she knew what was going on. Why did she fail to act sooner? I’m
beginning to think that there was and is a general acceptance of over-spending and indulgence within the RF.

After all the Queen Mother and Margaret were renowned big spenders and party-givers too. And the idea of Princess Margaret telling Fergie off and telling her that she had brought shame to the family is laughable really after she was photographed cavorting with Roddy Llewelyn on the beaches of Mustique.

SF had police bodyguards accompanying her on so many holidays protecting the children. That was tax-payers money down the drain.

Talk about different worlds. The RF must think we are stupid and easily taken in by some seemingly “leaked” photos of plastic boxes of breakfast Tupperware!

I’m not fooled. I just don’t buy the fact that TLQ and KC, W and C, and Edward and Sophie are all abstemious paragons of virtue and that Andrew and Fergie are the only big spenders. Andrew and SF may be at the extreme end of an avaricious spectrum but there is a level of spending and privilege that they all enjoy and take for granted that many of us would be shocked by I think.

Time for change.

Prince no more? How William could strip Andrew of his title
A new book, full of excruciating stories about the Duke of York’s sex life and financial dealings, places pressure on the future king to act

https://archive.ph/Vzx6x#selection-2067.4-2071.147

I think you’re right this really does feel like a fin de siècle moment for the monarchy. Perhaps it’s what happens when a human being is treated like royalty from birth, waited on hand and foot, and never has to earn a living beyond performative pageantry. In today’s age of transparency and intense scrutiny, the monarchy’s true beating heart can no longer be concealed.

This only reinforces my earlier point: the monarchy is now facing an existential crisis.

One way for this to come to a head now, suggests Wilson, would be if MPs raise questions about Prince Andrew’s time as a trade ambassador, in the context of examining potential misuse of public funds. Any serious findings would mean “Charles could act in the best interests of preserving the monarchy”.

“The Royal family is in a fragile state,” he adds. “Arguably in worse shape than during the Abdication when at least the problem got solved fast.

“Here we have seen a terrible shredding process going on, which downgrades our principal institution and sooner or later will render it an international laughing-stock unless something is done, quickly.”

For a Royal family on their summer holidays, renewed headlines about the Duke of York could not be less welcome.

The conversations over the Balmoral breakfast table could get interesting.

I don’t understand why the Queen didn’t just give Anne, Andrew and Edward say £1 million pa, saying you’ve been given a house and this is enough for a housekeeper, a few cleaners, a few gardeners, a secretary and a comfortable living - I don’t want any more scandals!

Anne seems to make Gatcombe Park pay, Edward keeps his head down. Why is Andrew so entitled? It’s beyond me, how he couldn’t see this behaviour would impact on the RF?

Fergie was not the responsibility of the RF after the divorce, so I don’t blame them for her behaviour!

I haven’t had a chance to read it yet but here is the final excerpt (apologies if it’s already been posted upthread and I’ve missed it)

https://archive.ph/43hQ2