Nobody Cares about Britain

[Innula Zenovka]

I can't answer for why he continues to remain free for raping children. But the grounds for his current arrest are also not the reason he's now former Prince Andrew.

Giving up his titles was due to the many, many stories about what he was doing with his once close cohort, the child rapist Jeffrey Epstein, as well as the civil sexual assault lawsuit that was brought against him covering same.

If you're referring to the settlement with the late Virginia Giuffre, I'm not sure I would describe someone aged seventeen and some months as a child, and the age of consent in the UK is 16, not 18. Nor, as far as I know, has it been credibly alleged that he raped or sexually assaulted her in the sense that he did not reasonably believe that she consented to whatever it was (he denies any sort of impropriety, of course).

Is there anything to suggest, as opposed to "many, many stories," that Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor has raped either children or adults?

The Thames Valley Police will have found plenty in the recently released Epstein files suggesting he's guilty of misconduct in public office (abusing his position as special trade envoy for his or Epstein's financial gain), but I'm not so sure they'll have found much to suggest he's guilty of rape.

 

[Free]

If you're referring to the settlement with the late Virginia Giuffre, I'm not sure I would describe someone aged seventeen and some months as a child, and the age of consent in the UK is 16, not 18.

Your use of "and some months" is interesting.

What are the accusations against Prince Andrew?

Here's what you need to know about the sex abuse claims being pursued by Virginia Giuffre in the US.

www.bbc.com

On the second occasion, it is alleged that Prince Andrew abused Ms Giuffre in Epstein's mansion in New York.

And she says the duke abused her a third time on Epstein's private island, Little St James, in the US Virgin Islands.

A 17 year old in both New York state (April 2001, when she was 17) and the US Virgin Islands (likely in July of 2001, again when she was still 17) is legally considered a child.

So, legally, Virginia Giuffre was a child at the time.

Ms Giuffre says in the court documents that she was forced into sex by explicit or implicit threats and because she feared the powerful connections, wealth and authority of Epstein, Ms Maxwell and Prince Andrew.

Rapist.

Is there anything to suggest, as opposed to "many, many stories," that Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor has raped either children or adults?

I referred to the "many, many stories" as a reason for a him giving up his titles. No doubt he would disagree. Do you?

 

[Innula Zenovka]

Your use of "and some months" is interesting.

What are the accusations against Prince Andrew?

Here's what you need to know about the sex abuse claims being pursued by Virginia Giuffre in the US.

www.bbc.com

A 17 year old in both New York state (April 2001, when she was 17) and the US Virgin Islands (likely in July of 2001, again when she was still 17) is legally considered a child.

So, legally, Virginia Giuffre was a child at the time.


Rapist.


I referred to the "many, many stories" as a reason for a him giving up his titles. No doubt he would disagree. Do you?

I was thinking about the picture of them in London, with his arm round her waist, which is what gained all the publicity here. It's also the only matter about which the British police might interview him, since both New York and the US Virgin Islands are, of course, outside British jurisdiction. As far as I know, US law enforcement have never sought to interview him about the alleged incidents in their jurisdiction, for which the only evidence, I think, is what's alleged in her posthumous memoir.

You said "I can't answer for why he continues to remain free for raping children." I think that's because there's simply not enough evidence, or at least not any of which we're currently aware, to justify charging him with raping children in either the UK or the US, let alone to convict him.

We don't know what finally decided Charles to strip his brother of all his titles, but all the comment here at the time was that it was a combination of the concerns raised by Andrew Lownie's book and the revelation when the first tranche of files was released that he'd been shamelessly lying in his catastrophic TV interview about having ceased all contact with Epstein.

I'm unwilling to push the evidence further than it actually goes.

 

[Innula Zenovka]

David Allen Green, a distinguished British legal commentator, explains the common law offence of Misconduct in Public Office

Misconducting in public office

20th February 2026 An ancient offence is in the news – and how it usually is used only for junior officials * If conduct is a verb, then misconducting must be a verb too. And when a someone i…

davidallengreen.com

and here

What is misconduct in public office?

An ancient offence under English common law, its modern incarnation dates back to a 2004 case

www.newstatesman.com

Evernote Link

 

[Bartholomew Gallacher]

How the HMS Victory worked.

 

[Innula Zenovka]

Why fake AI videos of UK urban decline are taking over social media

Deepfakes showing grim taxpayer-funded waterparks have gone viral and drawn some racist responses.

www.bbc.co.uk

 

[Innula Zenovka]

Ros Atkins on...unanswered Andrew questions

The BBC's Analysis Editor Ros Atkins looks at the questions around the way Buckingham Palace has responded to the various accusations against the King's brother.

www.bbc.com

 

[Beebo Brink]

Ros Atkins on...unanswered Andrew questions

The BBC's Analysis Editor Ros Atkins looks at the questions around the way Buckingham Palace has responded to the various accusations against the King's brother.

www.bbc.com

The overwhelming response from the Palace -- at least to this news segment -- was "no comment". lol

 

[Isabeau]

Ros Atkins on...unanswered Andrew questions

The BBC's Analysis Editor Ros Atkins looks at the questions around the way Buckingham Palace has responded to the various accusations against the King's brother.

www.bbc.com

“Profound concern” indeed.


Watching someone say out loud what all we think.
Satisfying.

(Jonathan Pie)

 

[Innula Zenovka]

The extraordinary life story of British Labour MP Naz Shah

‘She did kill. There’s no grey area there’: Labour MP Naz Shah on the day she and her mother were arrested for murder

 

[Innula Zenovka]

If anyone's interested, I've just discovered that the British journalist Andrew Lownie, author of the devastating study of the Duke of York, as he then was, and Sarah Ferguson, has a blog at

The Lownie Report | Substack

Subscribe to The Lownie Report for exclusive illustrated extracts from my books, my podcast, and for articles about the worlds of intelligence, royalty and the establishment. Click to read The Lownie Report, by Andrew Lownie, a Substack publication with tens of thousands of subscribers.

andrewlownie.substack.com

Includes lots of extracts from his book, and the latest news and rumours about the fall-out from Andrew's arrest.

 

[Beebo Brink]

Includes lots of extracts from his book, and the latest news and rumours about the fall-out from Andrew's arrest.

You've often mentioned many of the advantages to maintaining a royal house for Great Britain -- both socially/politically and even financially (tourists) -- so do you have any sense whether this growing scandal will seriously threaten the concept of monarchy?

I could easily see a sexual scandal and bad behavior rocking the boat, but not capsizing it. However the latest revelations of Andrew's behavior rises significantly higher up the scale to crimes against the country, not just crimes against an individual or two. As does the possibility that these traitorous transgressions were known and allowed to continue. There seems to be, at least to me, a significant degree of difference between shielding Prince Andrew (as he was then) from the former versus the latter. If the monarchy hides/enables corruption against the interests of the country itself, that rather calls into question what purpose they serve. If "in service to the country" just doesn't matter to them, what brake is there for self-serving behavior?

 

[Innula Zenovka]

You've often mentioned many of the advantages to maintaining a royal house for Great Britain -- both socially/politically and even financially (tourists) -- so do you have any sense whether this growing scandal will seriously threaten the concept of monarchy?

I could easily see a sexual scandal and bad behavior rocking the boat, but not capsizing it. However the latest revelations of Andrew's behavior rises significantly higher up the scale to crimes against the country, not just crimes against an individual or two. As does the possibility that these traitorous transgressions were known and allowed to continue. There seems to be, at least to me, a significant degree of difference between shielding Prince Andrew (as he was then) from the former versus the latter. If the monarchy hides/enables corruption against the interests of the country itself, that rather calls into question what purpose they serve. If "in service to the country" just doesn't matter to them, what brake is there for self-serving behavior?

I don't think I've ever used tourism as an argument for the monarchy (people are interested in the palaces, I think, rather than the people who use them). But I am very much in favour of keeping a parliamentary democracy with a ceremonial head of state, and while in an ideal world I'd rather we had an elected ceremonial head of of state, as they do in Germany or the Republic of Ireland, it's always seemed to simply too complicated an exercise to remove the monarchy and replace it with pretty much the same thing, only elected.

In principle it might be an attractive idea, but in practice it seems like a massive amount of work and disruption to do something that won't -- or at least shouldn't -- make much practical difference to most people.

So whatever skeletons are waiting to come tumbling out of various cupboards on Buckingham Palace, the Royal Lodge at Windsor, and heaven knows where else, and while the monarchy and its opaque finances may very well come under proper public scrutiny at last, I don't see this as threatening the actual institution of monarchy very much.

Certainly uncomfortable questions are being asked about what the Palace knew about Andrew's activities, and why nothing was done to stop them earlier, the narrative seems to be established, probably quite accurately, is that nothing was possible while he enjoyed his late mother's protection. Charles is reasonably well liked, and because of his age and health problems, no one expects his reign to be a long one, so I think people will expect William to effect some much needed reforms, which he's given every indication he wants to make, for his family's sake as much as for that of the institution.

 

[Beebo Brink]

I think people will expect William to effect some much needed reforms, which he's given every indication he wants to make, for his family's sake as much as for that of the institution.

I must confess that I've been pretty impressed with William. He has a quiet gravitas and yet seems congenial. Most recently, I caught his appearance on a travel show called The Reluctant Traveler with Eugene Levy. It was obviously a carefully managed encounter and if not outright scripted, at least made with some very clear objectives of what William wished to communicate with the audience. Nonetheless, William came off quite well from it.

 

[Free]

Protesters hang photo of Andrew leaving police station in the Louvre

Campaign group Everyone Hates Elon say they hung a photograph of Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor taken after his arrest in the Louvre.

An individual was filmed hanging a picture of the former prince, taken by Reuters photographer Phil Noble after Mountbatten-Windsor was released under investigation, in the Paris museum.

Looks like they're spreading out on their hate.

 

[Innula Zenovka]

Reuters UK protection officers instructed to guard 2010 Epstein dinner party, reports say

 

[Bartholomew Gallacher]

Australia told Keir Starmer it will support the removal of Andrew from the royal succession line.

Australia backs removing Andrew from royal line of succession

Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor remains eighth in line to the throne despite being stripped of his titles.

www.bbc.com

 

[Innula Zenovka]

Land and Expand - how Palantir captured the Ministry of Defence

What a close reading of public domain documents tells us about two concerning contract awards

emptycity.substack.com

Evernote link to original FT article (summarises points made in more detail by the close reading in the blog post).

In November 2022 Palantir was awarded a three-year contract by the Ministry of Defence worth £75.2mn. The tender was not advertised and there was no competition.

At the end of that initial contract, in December 2025, the US data intelligence company was awarded a follow-on three-year contract by the MoD worth £240.6mn — more than three times the value of the initial contract. This was a direct award, again without competition.

How can a supplier obtain a valuable initial contract and then, once in place, manage to multiply the size of a second, unadvertised contract? On the face of it, such awards are against the transparency principles of public procurement.

 

[Beebo Brink]

Copilot and I have been chatting at length about the Royal family and the contrast between the rift with Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor versus the rift with Prince Harry. I hadn't paid much attention to the latter, but idly wondered if the truly awful scandal with Andrew would perhaps put the schism with Harry into a different perspective. After all, even if he's a bit rough around the edges, Harry hasn't come anywhere near the disgraceful criminal behavior of his uncle.

Copilot opines that no, the two breaks are of a very different character, and Andrew's disgrace will not recast Harry in a better light as far as William is concerned. I have no clue whether Copilot's observations have any merit, but I put them here as an exercise in AI analysis. Brits, does Copilot have it right?

Why William still won’t budge

This is the part that feels counterintuitive from the outside. Inside the monarchy:

• Andrew’s alleged crimes are a personal disgrace
• Harry’s public disclosures are an institutional threat

William is future head of that institution. His priority is preserving the system, even if the system is what enabled Andrew.

So while you’re right that secrecy contributed to Andrew’s situation, William sees secrecy as the glue holding the monarchy together. Harry sees it as the rot.
Those positions are fundamentally incompatible.

 

[Innula Zenovka]

Copilot and I have been chatting at length about the Royal family and the contrast between the rift with Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor versus the rift with Prince Harry. I hadn't paid much attention to the latter, but idly wondered if the truly awful scandal with Andrew would perhaps put the schism with Harry into a different perspective. After all, even if he's a bit rough around the edges, Harry hasn't come anywhere near the disgraceful criminal behavior of his uncle.

Copilot opines that no, the two breaks are of a very different character, and Andrew's disgrace will not recast Harry in a better light as far as William is concerned. I have no clue whether Copilot's observations have any merit, but I put them here as an exercise in AI analysis. Brits, does Copilot have it right?

I've taken very little interest in the William vs Harry psychodrama, since it seems to me more of a monumental family row rather than anything more significant. Andrew's activities are significant because he allegedly abused his official position for years for his personal benefit or that of his former wife, and this was all covered up and facilitated by the authorities because of who he was and because of his late mother's active support for, and protection of, her favourite son.

My take on it, for what it's worth, is that people might cheer and boo for Team Wales vs Team Sussex as they might characters in a reality TV show, pro-wrestling match or long-running TV drama but don't generally regard their feuds as anything of public significance.

Additionally, I've always suspected that William vs Harry (and/or Kate vs Meghan) partisanship has a great deal to do with tabloid newspapers needing villains as well as heros in their continuing fairy tale coverage of the monarchy and even more to do with Harry's continuing participation in legal actions brought by groups of public figures against various tabloids for breach of privacy, particularly the publishers of the Daily Mail (he won a similar action against the Mirror group in 2023, and the publishers of the Sun settled out of court and agreed to pay "substantial damages" in January 2025).

Harry made 'paranoid' by Daily Mail publisher's unlawful actions, court hears

The prince is one of seven high-profile claimants that allege the publisher of the Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday committed "grave breaches of privacy".

www.bbc.co.uk

Andrew's activities, though, have attracted a great deal of public anger because he's allegedly abused his official position for private gain, and the palace has apparently covered up for his deplorable personal behaviour and his relationships with a whole army of disreputable figures quite apart from Epstein. This has resulted in massive (and successful) pressure to reveal details of what successive governments and the palace knew, and when, and I think the outcome is going to force Charles and William to agree to increased scrutiny of their extremely opaque financial affairs via the duchies of Lancaster and Cornwall.

For example

Royal estates 'receive millions from public bodies and charities'

The private estates of King Charles and Prince William have received millions of pounds from contracts with taxpayer-funded bodies, according to a new documentary.

www.bbc.co.uk

How Prince William may have avoided up to £3m in property taxes

The Duchy of Cornwall’s financial affairs have come under increasing scrutiny amid growing calls for more transparency

inews.co.uk