Good morning. On Friday it was announced that King Charles will pray with the pope, marking the first time a British monarch has publicly done so since the Reformation 500 years ago. And yet, the spotlight remains firmly on the king’s younger brother, Prince Andrew.
The sordid details of Andrew’s ties to convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, and allegations of sexual assault – all of which he denies – have resurfaced with the Guardian’s serialisation of Virginia Giuffre’s posthumous memoir, detailing how Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell exploited her and alleging Andrew viewed sex with her as “his birthright”.
For the king, it seems enough was finally enough. A statement, released quietly at 7pm on Friday, announced Prince Andrew has relinquished his royal titles, including the Duke of York. But for some MPs and campaigners, this does not go far enough – and allegations on Sunday that he asked his close protection officer to dig up dirt on Giuffre have prompted a fresh police investigation (although there is no suggestion the officer involved complied); while allegations from Giuffre’s memoir that he tried to hire “internet trolls to hassle” her have further deepened the crisis.
To understand the manoeuvrings behind Prince Andrew finally stepping aside and the political ramifications for the British royal family going forward, I spoke to Stephen Bates, the Guardian’s former royal correspondent and author of Royalty Inc: Britain’s Best-Known Brand. That’s after the headlines.
Five big stories
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Technology | Major disruption has hit dozens of websites and apps around the world, with users reporting trouble getting online after problems at Amazon’s cloud computing service. The affected platforms include Snapchat, Roblox, Signal and Duolingo as well as Lloyds bank and its subsidiaries Halifax and Bank of Scotland in the UK.
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Israel-Gaza | At least 135 mutilated bodies of Palestinians returned by Israel to Gaza had been held in a notorious detention centre already facing allegations of torture and unlawful deaths in custody, officials from Gaza’s health ministry have told the Guardian.
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UK news | The Met police have said they will no longer investigate non-crime hate incidents as the Father Ted co-creator Graham Linehan was informed that no further action would be taken after his arrest over social media posts.
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UK politics | A Conservative MP tipped as a future party leader has been condemned for saying large numbers of legally settled families must be deported. Katie Lam said that the families should “go home” leaving a “culturally coherent group of people”.
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Science | An electronic eye implant half the thickness of a human hair has helped people with incurable sight loss to see again, opening up a potential “new era” in tackling blindness. Doctors who implanted the sim card-shaped prosthetic devices say they have helped many of the 38 elderly patients in the trial regain their ability to read.
In depth: ‘The more you pull, the more the whole thing unravels’
It may be hard to remember, but while Prince Andrew has long been associated with disgraced financiers and sex offenders, there was a time when he enjoyed genuine popularity in the UK.
Stephen Bates told me that more than 40 years ago, Andrew was seen as a national hero for his role as a Navy pilot during the 1982 Falklands war, flying on several missions. After leaving the Navy in 2001, he became the UK’s special trade envoy, traveling the world to promote British business and industry.
There was little evidence, however, that he actually secured trade deals. Instead, he was widely criticised for his use of private jets and helicopters. and for his close links with unsavoury foreign dictators and businessmen.
“He’s always had a reputation of being arrogant, self-entitled, and extremely pompous, which hasn’t made him particularly popular,” Bates said. “All this came to the fore when a photograph was published of him chatting in New York’s Central Park to Jeffrey Epstein, who’d just been released from a sentence for basically child abuse.
“Over the succeeding 15 years, more and more has come out and it’s been a bit like pulling the strand of wool on a jumper. The more you pull, the more the whole thing unravels.”
In her own words
It is worth pausing here to focus on Virginia Giuffre’s powerful memoir, which charts how the South Florida teenager was drawn into the Epstein–Maxwell sex-trafficking ring, and later became a leading campaigner against child sexual abuse.
Giuffre spent four years as Epstein’s “personal masseuse” – from the age of 16 – during which she says she was trafficked to his friends and associates, including Prince Andrew. The now-infamous photo of Andrew with his arm around a 17-year-old Giuffre, Ghislaine Maxwell smiling beside them, has become a defining image of her case.
Giuffre brought a civil case against Andrew in New York, alleging he sexually assaulted her on three occasions when she was 17. Andrew made no admission of liability and has always denied Giuffre’s claims, but agreed to settle the case out of court in 2022. The reported £12m settlement is rumoured to have been partly funded by the late queen. The deal was widely seen as sparing him from testifying and protecting the royal family from deeper scandal.
Giuffre died by suicide in April this year. Excerpts from her posthumously published memoir, Nobody’s Girl: A Memoir of Surviving Abuse and Fighting for Justice, detail how Epstein and Maxwell exploited their power to manipulate and groom her.
She wrote:
The way he viewed women and girls – as playthings to be used and discarded – is not uncommon among certain powerful men who believe they are above the law. And many of those men are still going about their daily lives, enjoying the benefits of their power.”
An anatomy of a downfall
In August 2019, Epstein was found dead in his prison cell after being re-arrested on sex-trafficking charges. Three months later, Andrew announced he would step back from public duties “for the foreseeable future” after a disastrous BBC interview. In it, he insisted he could not have had sex with Giuffre because he was at home after visiting Pizza Express in Woking, claimed her account of him sweating on the dancefloor was false because he was “unable to sweat,” and said he had “no recollection of ever meeting this lady”.
“He not only showed no concern or compassion for the young girls that Epstein had been abusing and trafficking, but seemed totally insouciant about his association with him,” said Bates. “He said that he’d cut off all relationships with a man who he more or less admitted had been a friend. But that has proved to be untrue.”
Recent disclosure of Epstein’s correspondence show that far from cutting off links with Epstein, he was actually continuing to speak with him or email him and correspond with him in friendly terms, as was Sarah Ferguson, his ex-wife. Emails published by the Mail on Sunday show Andrew writing to Epstein “We are in this together” in 2010.
“He started popping up at royal events, most recently a few weeks ago at the funeral of the Duchess of Kent at Westminster Cathedral, where it was absolutely clear that Prince William, who’s thought to be the chief attacker in the royal family, wanted absolutely nothing to do with him,” Bates said.
Following pressure to act, King Charles announced that his brother would be stepping down from his titles. “The timing of it was probably because Charles is undertaking this historic visit to pray with Pope Leo at the Vatican,” Bates explained.
“It is an immensely significant ecumenical moment for the king and indeed for the pope. And he didn’t want anything to interfere with that. But if revelations keep dripping out, as they have done over the weekend and this morning, he would be carrying that baggage with him into the Vatican.”
Reform or revolution
Pressure on the royal family is unlikely to ease. Rachael Maskell, MP for York Central, has called on the monarchy to explain how Prince Andrew funded the reported £12m settlement paid to Virginia Giuffre.
Although Andrew has agreed not to use his title, he still legally retains the dukedom, which can only be removed through an act of parliament – something that has not happened to a senior royal in more than a century. He will remain a prince because he was the late Queen’s son. Maskell said she wrote to ministers to support her bill granting the king, or a parliamentary committee, the power to formally strip Andrew of his titles.
“The royal family would be keen not to have that because it would open a can of worms about the whole institution because MPs will be bound to take advantage of the occasion to say ‘what about money? What about extravagances? Do we need the royals’,” Bates said. “It couldn’t be contained just to Prince Andrew, and the government also will find it a terrible distraction.”
Bates described the statement by Buckingham Palace on Prince Andrew stepping down from his role as disingenuous, stating its clear to many he was forced out. According to the Sun on Sunday, Prince Andrew and King Charles didn’t actually have a meeting last week to discuss the shedding of titles, doing it instead over the phone.
“I think Charles, who’s a very different personality to Andrew, has probably found his brother a bit of a millstone. But he is his little brother and Charles is rather squeamish about getting rid of people,” Bates said.
But that doesn’t seem to be the case for Prince William, who is preparing for his upcoming reign. “He repeatedly makes clear that he wants to reform the monarchy, make it more hands-on, more family friendly. You see that in the way that they issue lots of photographs of their children. They want it to be a slimmed-down, less extravagant monarchy and to be more in touch with ordinary people,” Bates told me.
He said he saw this first-hand while out reporting on Prince William’s first trips abroad as a working royal. “He had a noticeable empathy and approachability that even his father lacks when meeting people. I have no reason to doubt that he and his wife feel that the stuffiness and flummery of the monarchy has to be reformed.”
And although the scandal is limited to Prince Andrew, it undermines the credibility and the affection in which the institution is held, Bates added. “The most important thing as far as the royals are concerned, particularly Charles and William, is to maintain the succession, to maintain the status quo of one to succeed the next, as the royals have been doing for generations. And all this adds uncertainty.”
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They are particularly worried if Prince Andrew’s unpopularity spreads to the rest of the family. Opinion polls show that while the monarchy is popular, with about two-thirds approval ratings in all the polls, younger people are much less enthused by the institution than their parents and grandparents.
“So it’s something that requires constant work and constant updating, and that’s something the institution isn’t very good at doing.”
What else we’ve been reading
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Tom Jenkins’ picture essay on the day sumo wrestling came to the Royal Albert Hall is a delight – like the action shot, above, of Onosato Daiki throwing Ura Kazuki out of the ring. Archie
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The Artist Membership Project, only three months old, already has over 600 members enjoying free exhibition access. Fair or not, by the end of this piece, you will be demanding museums throw open their gates to their temporary exhibitions. Aamna
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After West Midlands police’s decision to ban Maccabi Tel Aviv fans from Aston Villa, Jonathan Liew’s column provides some essential context. Yes, there is a broader debate to be had about “the increasingly sinister securitisation of football fans”; no, the case is not a unique outlier in European football. Archie
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I think the “I Say a Little Prayer” scene in My Best Friend’s Wedding is one of the most perfect moments in cinema. Unsurprisingly, I loved this write-up of the film for our feelgood films series. Aamna
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Commercial fishing is one of the most dangerous jobs in the world. Rose George’s masterful long read zooms in on one disaster in Alaska to explain how myths of toughness and freedom, and a lack of regulation, can drown you just as surely as the storm. Archie
Sport
Football | Goals from Brentford’s Igor Thiago and Mathias Jensen condemned West Ham to defeat in Nuno Espirito Santo’s first home game in charge. The result means that West Ham have lost five successive home game in the top division for the second time in their history.
Cricket | A 129-run partnership between Phil Salt and Harry Brook powered England to a 65-run victory over New Zealand in the second T20 international at Hagley Oval. Adil Rashid took four wickets as New Zealand were bowled out for 171.
Football | Mjällby scored twice in the first half to secure a 2-0 victory at IFK Gothenburg and claim a sensational first Swedish league title for the unfancied club from a tiny fishing village. Hailing from the Listerlandet peninsula, the town of Mjällby boasts a population of just under 1,400 people.
The front pages
“Prince tried to hire ‘trolls’ to target Giuffre, book claims,” is the lead story on the Guardian on Tuesday. “What did the Palace know?” asks the Mirror, while the Times has “Andrew has not paid rent since 2003,” and the Mail: “Just how can Andrew afford Royal Lodge?”
“‘For the safety and dignity of every woman and girl’” has the Express, as the Sun runs with: “Katie ex charged with raping girl, 13.” “Grooming inquiry ‘sabotaged by Labour,’” is the splash on the Telegraph.
“Revolutionary bionic chip helps blind patients to regain sight,” says the i paper, and the Metro: “Something went wrong.” Finally the Record with: “Con mum.”
Today in Focus
Prince Andrew, Jeffrey Epstein and the scandal that won’t go away
On Friday evening, Buckingham Palace released a statement from Prince Andrew. ‘I have decided, as I always have, to put my duty to my family and country first,’ it read. ‘I will therefore no longer use my title or the honours which have been conferred upon me.’ Zoe Williams describes the scandals that have engulfed Andrew, leading to him giving up his titles.
Cartoon of the day | Ben Jennings
The Upside
A bit of good news to remind you that the world’s not all bad
In the same year Manuel Álvarez Escudero started playing chess, Pablo Picasso painted Guernica. Nine decades later, the 104-year-old is still at it – and he is believed to be the oldest registered active chess player in the world.
At his chess club in Madrid, Don Manuel – as he is known – is cherished by 130 members. And a rapid chess tournament was held in a local sports centre to celebrate his birthday last month. Taught by his big brother aged 16 and developing his game a few years later when a colleague taught him the mystery of the Muzio variation of the King’s Gambit, he still plays every week. One recent match was against a stripling 97-year-old.
His love of chess has taught him how to lose with grace. But the influence of the game on his life has been much broader. Without it, he says, things would have been “Really boring. It’s brought me so many friends and so much fun. My life would have been completely different without chess.”
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