Prince Andrew’s Secrets Not To Be Released Until 2065

Britain's security state is covering up the facts about a powerful man accused of pedophilia. This isn't a conspiracy theory, I've not gone full Alex Jones, because such facts are being openly admitted by the government. The news has come from this man, Andrew Lowney. He's a biographer who writes about historical figures, and his previous work has focused on The Spy, Guy Burgess, The Mountbattens, and Edward VIII. His next book is about a living figure, however, namely Prince Andrew. Yet, when Mr Lowney tried to access documents relating to Andrew's business trips between 2001-2011, he was told they wouldn't be released by the Foreign Office until 2065. At that point, Andrew will be 105 years old, so it's unlikely he'll be around for their release. Now, these documents from 2001-2011 are particularly important, because that is when Andrew was the UK's Special Representative for Trade and Investment. That role spectacularly ended when he was forced to resign, after this photo emerged in 2011. It's a meeting between Andrew and Jeffrey Epstein in New York, shortly after the billionaire had been released from jail, for serving an 18-month prison sentence for sexual offences. At the time, Andrew was also being scrutinised for his friendship with Saif Gaddafi, son of former Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi and Tarek Khaitouni, a convicted Libyan arms dealer. Now, the reason for this information not being released, which is when Prince Andrew was allegedly filling a public role, is because Freedom of Information, FOI laws, don't wholly apply to the Royal Family. The Telegraph has published part of a letter where the government states its reasoning on this. Some information is being withheld under Section 37, Communication with Her Majesty and Honours, Section 40, Personal Information, and Section 41, Information Provided in Confidence Exemptions. We do not, therefore, have to apply the public interest test. If there's a public interest, you need to publish the information. So, despite Prince Andrew apparently fulfilling public duties, the public don't get to find out what he was actually doing. Okay. Here's what Mr Lowney told the Telegraph in response. We are in the absurd position that Prince Harry can reveal the most intimate details of royal life from months ago for personal commercial gain, and royal households currently brief against each other, yet historians cannot look at files. It is extraordinary that files relating to Prince Andrew, the subject of my next biography, will be closed until 2065. Many questions remain about his role as trade envoy, a public appointment paid for by the taxpayer, and his associations with figures such as Jeffrey Epstein. There is also a strong public interest in knowing, for example, who is paying for his security now that he is no longer a working royal. Elsewhere, Mr Lowney describes himself as a monarchist, but says, that does not mean I do not believe the royal family should not be subject to scrutiny. He goes on to say this. We need a much more grown-up approach to the release of royal records, with the onus on keeping closed only what has to be kept secret to protect national security or on data protection grounds. The delays in release create a vacuum for speculation and fantasists. Their release would go some way to restoring trust in institutions, not least the monarchy. Dan, I found the last part really interesting. The idea that these exemptions actually undermine trust in the royals, and particularly with a figure like Andrew, because they allow conspiracy theories to flourish. There's a lot of truth there, isn't there? Well, you can see why conspiracy theories do flourish. You know, as you said, you mentioned Alex Jones. I won't get into some of the more deranged conspiracy theories that Alex Jones pushes about the ruling class, but when the Epstein story broke, and when Prince Andrew's implication in it became clear, obviously, if you are conspiratorially minded, this stuff seems to just confirm all your suspicions about the, how to describe it, the nefarious activities of our ruling elites. It's incredibly dodgy. I mean, obviously, there's obvious reasons why they're not releasing it. But yeah, it's only going to fuel conspiracies. Now, Mr. Lowney claims to be a monarchist, though I think writing a book about Prince Andrew at this point probably counts as Republican activism. But that hasn't stopped him making some pretty bold assertions about the consequences of his truth-seeking regarding powerful members of the establishment. Here he is speaking to Talk TV last month, specifically about an FOI request he made for a previous book about the Mountbattens. I put in these subject access requests. Eventually, after some fight, they tried to avoid, when this is a statutory obligation, they tried to avoid giving me this information. But they've now provided several hundred pages, which shows that they were monitoring not just my professional career as a historian, but talks I gave, I mean, to obscure bookshops and literary festivals, but also monitoring, for example, a defamation case that was brought against me, which I successfully defended, an employment tribunal from a former employee. Why do they care? I mean, with the greatest of respect, Andrew, and you're a brilliant biographer, why do they care? I don't know. I mean, ask them. I'm only reporting what I've found. I mean, I think they don't like what I do, because clearly I write quite critically about the royal family. I've had a long five-year legal fight with the Cabinet Office to release diaries and letters of Lord Mountbatten, which were bought with over £5 million of public money to be open and were not opened. That was wholly bizarre. I remember this. I remember reading about this at the time, Andrew. You just wanted to write a very good biography of Lord Mountbatten. There were things that they still decided, despite the fact that this person was murdered by the IRA many years ago, despite the fact there'd been people convicted of that, they said the case was still open, didn't they? Well, I mean, there's several things here. I mean, the attempt to get the Mountbatten diaries and letters, which took five years, led to the largest release of FOI material ever, 33,000 pages. But they didn't like that. They tried to prevent that material being released. But you're right, I mean, in all my investigations into the death of Lord Mountbatten, into what happened with Edward VIII, documents have been destroyed, often destroyed after I asked for them. Material isn't being deposited in the National Archives as it should under statutory rules. Let's just, sorry to interrupt you, Andrew, but I just want to make this clear to our viewers and listeners. So there were historical documents that you asked for, and because you asked for them, they were destroyed. And they've admitted that, haven't they? Yes, I mean, one of the things I found in FBI files when I was researching the book was interviews that were done with people on Lord Mountbatten going back to 1943, saying that he not only was a bisexual, but he was a paedophile. And in fact, I supported this evidence with interviews I did in the book with two boys who were abused by him. But I then asked for other FBI files on Mountbatten, quoting the various numbers, and was told by the Americans that they had been destroyed. Now, when I asked when they'd been destroyed, they very honestly answered after you asked for them. And this has been my experience time and time again. The government is trying to shut the stable door after the horse has bolted. Just an extraordinary interview there. And I have to say, you know, people often criticise the newer media outlets and they say the BBC are high-quality journalism. The BBC would not publish that. When it comes to the Royal Family, merely seeking to access the facts and tell the truth is seen as an act of political radicalism, potentially even extremism. You cannot do it in the vast majority of legacy media. Dan, that clip, I mean, this whole story is crazy, but that clip was just something else, wasn't it? You know, the idea that this man, he went to Westminster School, right? One of the most expensive public schools in the country. He claims to be a monarchist. He's a literary agent. He's a biographer. He's just trying to do his job. He's just trying to recount the facts of what's happened. And when that's not particularly comfortable for the powerful, like with the case of the Mountbattens, potentially Lord Mountbatten being a paedophile, or potentially here with regards to Prince Andrew and what he was doing when he was gallivanting at public expense for 10 years between 2001 and 2011. When that's so uncomfortable, well, we just destroy the files when you ask for them. To what extent do you think the public knows about this stuff? Because I do feel like there's been a massive kickback, particularly by the BBC, just to basically present all of this kind of stuff as just conspiracy theories, you know? And if you call out there, you know, BBC Verify, and you say, well, it probably is linked to this, and this doesn't seem like you're in the pursuit of journalistic truth, you get called a conspiracy theorist, right? You're a conspiracy theorist for saying that the people opposing conspiracy theories are doing a bad job, so you really can't win. What's your read on all this? I'm a bit worried, actually, after watching that clip. But yeah, I have a lot of, very interested in conspiracy theories. I wouldn't say I actually have a lot of time for conspiracy theories, but as you say, in some ways, it's very naive to dismiss conspiracy theories, because when you Google or Wikipedia some of the things that people say, you think, oh, there's actually a lot of truth to this. You know, there's long been accusations that Lord Mountbatten was a paedophile, the link between the ruling class and paedophilia. Well, you know, people let people do their own research, but it makes for really uncomfortable reading. And in terms of how many people know this, I do think that, yeah, there is an assumption that the sort of ruling classes, that the royals, or certainly the minor royals, are sort of corrupt. The average person has this sort of resigned dislike of not just the royals, but all politicians. You know, you saw the lady in the caller about the education secretary earlier said they're all useless. That's generally what people think. But I think the danger with, when you get these exposes of Prince Andrew, if you've found his fight logs, or looked at his credit cards, or things like that, then you start to, you know, you're really risking mass public anger and disaffection and wrath then. And I think that's why it's obviously easier for them to just say, well, we'll just get rid of these folders and files, because it's better to be in a situation of sort of mass cynical disengagement and sort of outright hostility towards the monarchy, which would happen, you know, if these things were released.