It’s been a daily drizzle of doom for the Royal Family, as every new shocking revelation pours more salt on the open wound that is Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor. ‘Air Miles Andy’ is already no longer a prince, Duke of York, Earl of Inverness and Baron Killyleagh or Colonel of the Grenadier Guards and has been shorn of the Order of the Garter and the Knight Grand Cross of the Victorian Order.
He’s also lost several overseas honorary roles, including colonel-in-chief of The Royal Highland Fusiliers Of Canada, and colonel-in-chief of the Royal New Zealand Army Logistic Regiment. This week official Government documents on his trips around the world, while acting as a trade envoy, were stunningly censored – sparking accusations of a cover-up.
Minutes of a 2004 Royal Visits Committee meeting, discussing allocating an extra £90,000 for Andrew’s foreign jaunts were originally due to be among the annual release of historic public documents by the National Archive.
Yet, at the 11th hour and 59 seconds, it was marked as ‘closed’ by the Cabinet Office under a legal exemption for information about the Royal Family just as journalists started to peruse them.
The minutes were eventually heavily redacted before the file became available to the public, with 16 of 80 pages removed.
The Cabinet Office has blamed an “administrative error” and insisted the document was never intended for release.
The original unredacted files released to the National Archives included discussion between Foreign Office and palace officials about the costs of Andrew’s trips to China, Russia, Spain and South East Asia – gawd knows what shady characters he may have met on those trips!
It was noted in the documents that a change to royal travel rules meant these visits would now have to be funded by the Royal Travel Office, rather than UK Trade and Industry, which would have to find an extra £90,000.
The £90,000 was basically being moved from one Government pot to another – so why was a basic bit of accounting covered up? What’s so alarming about two decade-old travel details to these countries?
The one thing the Jeffrey Epstein case has taught is the ‘truth will out’. Nothing stays covered up for long so now the Royal Family face starting 2026 potentially perched over a £90k hushed-up ticking timebomb.
It also begs the more important question – what other financial secrets about Andrew’s profligate travel and meetings are lurking in other files, waiting to be enthusiastically redacted?
The former Duke of York held the position of the country’s special representative for trade between 2001 and 2011, ultimately resigning following scrutiny of his expenses and association with controversial figures.
He earned his ‘Air Miles Andy’ nickname through hard graft – jetting the world, playing golf and vigorously shaking the hand of some ‘interesting’ people.
In his trade guise he also opened up Buckingham Palace to some nefariously-linked wrong-uns like Saif al-Islam Gaddafi, the son of the then-Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi.
He also drew criticism for entertaining the son-in-law of Tunisia’s ousted president Zine El Abidine Ben Ali at Buckingham Palace – while his relations with Timor Kulibayev, the son-in-law of the President of Kazakhstan, were also queried.
Let’s not forget Mr Kulibayev purchased Andrew’s Sunninghill Park home for £3m more than its £12m asking price in 2007 despite there beiong NO other bidders. How terribly charitable of him!
And in November 2010 a secret cable on Wikileaks revealed a US ambassador wrote how Andrew spoke “cockily” during an official engagement, leading a discussion that “verged on the rude”.
Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor was cocky, pompous and rude? There’s no surprises there.
Let’s hope for the Royal Family’s sake there are no real surprises that call for the big redacting marker pen to be hauled out again anytime soon.