Jeffrey, Andrew, Charles.
Well there goes another day. Strange one. The day the ex-duke was arrested on his birthday, a day after mine. He 66, me 77, both multiples of the notorious 11 so prominant in most of the terror events we have been subject to since '9/11'. It takes me back to 1960 and 1971, 1982 and 1993.
Besides Andrew now being questioned about passing sensitive state information to Jeffrey Epstein, a trafficker of girls, and no doubt boys if required, for the sexual pleasure of rich men, for the purpose of influence and control, it puts the Monarchy in the most precarious position it has been in since the death of Diana, and before that, Edward VIII's abdication.
Central to that has been the Palace's attempts under both Queen Elizabeth and King Charles, to cover up Andrew's behaviour over decades, culminating in paying to the late Virginia Guiffre, formerly Roberts, a female he claimed he had never met or known, twelve million pounds as a settlement for her civil case against him.
It is clear Andrew had a voracious sexual appetite. Not for nothing was he called 'Randy Andy' from the 1980's onwards. It was satisfied by women who provided such services professionally. This was obviously known to the Police and Palace Authorities but not shared to the public for obvious reputational reasons. One Palace Policeman, Paul Page, has given many interviews, claiming that young women visited Andrew on a regular basis late at night at Buckingham Palace itself.
Clearly this risky behaviour was not controlled but it must have been monitored, as, at great public expense he was provided with constant and close personal Police protection.
Inside Epstein's town house.
Thus the scandal is not just a personal one for Andrew, but reaches to his mother the Queen, his brother the King and the highest reaches of the Political Establishment.
Despite this well-known reputation, Tony Blair on the recommendation apparently of the then Buisness Secretary Peter Mandelson, he was appointed as the Department of Trade Trade Envoy in 2001 and served in that position, travelling the world, until 2011.
It is in connection with this role and how he handled trade sensitive and confidential information, that he is now being interviewed under caution by Thames Valley Police, not it should be noted in connection his sexual activities. But it is the shadow of the latter, particularly in the context of convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, that haunts the story.
Andrew's claim when interviewed by the BBC's Emily Maitlis seven years ago, that the photo of him with his arm around the then seventeen year old Virginia Roberts, taken by Jeffrey Epstein at Gislaine Maxwell's London House, was a fake and he had never been there or met her (the late Virginia claims in her book they had sex three times at different locations) has been proved by the Epstein Paper's and Gislaine Maxwell's testimony to be a lie.
Of course the Palace must have known this at the time via its Police and MI5 sources, but chose not to reveal the fact, effectively protecting the then Duke of York.
Inevitably therefore this unseely matter will not stop with the arrest of Andrew Mountbatten Windsor. The damage will creep out and up, probably making the King's position untenable.
Consenting sex with adults, either hetero- or homo-sexual is not a crime. Sex without consent and sex with under-age persons, is. However Epstein was well known to prefer under age females - he denied at his civil deposition that he was either homo- or bi-sexual - and was convicted of sex with a minor in 2008 in a so-called "sweet heart deal".
Given the very close - despite his denial of such - connection between the Duke and his ex-wife, Sarah Ferguson, with Epsein, both before and after the conviction, the question still remains whether Andrew Mountbatten Windsor engaged in illegal sexual relations with girls either in Britain or America? The following released photograph certainly raises questions.
Given the fact that in these matters he has been proved to lie, his long-held denials carry less weight.
The ramifications of his and others', in particular Peter Mandelson's, association with Jeffrey Epstein can only get wider, deeper and more profound for both Government and Monarchy. There is no doubting this has become a pivotal moment in British constitutional history, that impinges on the survival of the Monarchy itself. The nation and world awaits the outcome.
It's not so much about the breaches of protocol or the abuse of women, after all MI5 must always have been completely in the picture about his activities and communications, but the maintenance of power and the status quo. When damaging private information became public and the media clamour threatened the Monarchy itself, suddenly individuals and institution became concerned. This is nothing more than reactive PR damage control. Andrew has to be sacrificed to protect Charles, William and a thousand year old constitution.
Claimed to be a genuine image from the Epstein Files. It needs to be explained.
https://x.com/OunkaOnX/status/2024646863753023741/photo/1
The PM who turned PI: why is Gordon Brown delving so deep into the Epstein files?
The Guardian.
Wed, 25 February 2026 at 6:00 am GMT
Before Gordon Brown sent a draft of his 6 February comment piece on the Jeffrey Epstein scandal to the Guardian for publication, he asked friends whether he had gone too far.
The former prime minister had written that he found it “hard to find words to express my revulsion at what has been uncovered about Epstein and his impact on our politics” and the “time is overdue to let in the light”.
On Peter Mandelson’s alleged leaking of market-sensitive documents to the disgraced financier and sex offender during the financial crisis, Brown was particularly vexed.
If it had happened, he said it would be, in his view, “a betrayal of everything we stand for as a country”.
Those whose counsel Brown had sought over the piece reassured him he was right to use the strongest terms.
Mandelson, the de facto deputy prime minister in Brown’s government, was arrested on Monday on suspicion of misconduct in public office. He denies any wrongdoing.
Brown’s dogged pursuit of the documents relating to the Epstein scandal, before and after the Guardian article, has drawn comparisons with that of the hangdog Scottish detective Jim Taggart of the eponymous crime series.
When the first Epstein emails emerged last September, suggesting an unknown level of closeness between Mandelson and Epstein, Brown wrote to the then cabinet secretary, Chris Wormald.
He sought correspondence relating to the former cabinet minister’s communications with Epstein. Brown was informed that no such papers had been found.
In a piece published by the New Statesman six days after his Guardian article, Brown turned his clunking fist, as Tony Blair once described it, on the alleged predators and enablers.
“In the past week, I have delved deep into the Epstein files,” he wrote. “What I discovered about the abuse of women by male predators and their enablers – and Britain’s as yet unacknowledged role – has shocked me to the core.”
Brown reported that “a number of British girls were on 90 Epstein flights organised from UK airports on what was called his ‘Lolita Express’” and alleged that “Epstein was able to use Stansted airport – he boasted how cheap the airport charges were compared with Paris – to fly in girls from Latvia, Lithuania and Russia..”
Brown said that, in his view, police should speak to Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor about what he might know, if anything.
Brown sent a five-page memorandum of evidence to six police forces that cover airports used by Epstein. On 19 February – Mountbatten-Windsor 66th birthday – the former prince was arrested on suspicion of misconduct in public office. He also denies any wrongdoing.
Brown is said to have been searching through the Epstein documents himself, but he has also been assisted by Clare Rewcastle Brown, a journalist whose past investigations have included exposing corruption at the Malaysian sovereign wealth fund.
Rewcastle Brown is married to Brown’s brother Andrew. “Quite a lot of people have been turning to him with information,” she said. “I have been dragged into doing some of the background work.”
Asked about Brown’s motivation, Rewcastle Brown said it should be taken at face value: he had been utterly appalled by Britain’s apparent role in enabling a web of exploitation.
Speaking anonymously, those who have known Brown for a long time do not doubt that this is true but suggest that it is not quite the full picture. It is complicated, they say; Brown is complicated.
“He might not even be conscious of it or acknowledge it but he will feel guilty,” said a Labour insider. “He was the person who brought Mandelson back in the house.”
According to one source, when Brown decided to invite Mandelson into his government from Brussels, where he had been European commissioner for trade, the plan had been for him to be made deputy prime minister.
This fell foul of senior figures – “mainly those who also wanted to be deputy prime minister”, a source said – and so the title given to Mandelson in 2009 was first secretary of state.
Brown is said to have been advised by a close ally that it was a “very significant risk and not worth taking” but the decision to bring him back, kept to a tight circle, had already been taken.
A source close to Brown countered that it was part of a wider move to bring in economic expertise, including the city grandee Paul Myners, at a time of financial crisis. Brown had even called the then European Commission president, José Manuel Barroso, to find out if there was any reason not to execute the move, the source added.
Mandelson joined the education secretary and former Treasury adviser Ed Balls in an inner circle that would meet on a Sunday night in Downing Street for “fireside chats”.
The response to the Epstein revelations among Labour MPs is said to have been one of anger while that of the parliamentary party in the Lords is of grief, given the sense of betrayal by one of their own, said a party insider.
“But for all the personal betrayal, Gordon is firmly in the anger camp,” said the source. “He is profoundly, almost to the point of annoyingly, moral. During the expenses scandal, one of the chief whips said of Gordon that he had never met anyone less interested in money.”
Brown’s stubborn, activist-like use of this anger over the Epstein scandal was said by insiders to be simply part and parcel of who he is.
Brown’s aversion to going on holiday when he was chancellor and then prime minister was depicted while in government as a consequence of his devotion to public service but “he also just doesn’t like going on holiday because he would rather sit in his house probably still wearing a suit writing press releases that would never be sent”, said a source. “Raith Rovers will only take up so much of the day,” the source added of the football team Brown supports.
While Brown would erupt with fury at critical articles offering well-intentioned advice when he was in No 10, now he is a constant source of advice, to the mild irritation of some within government.
The causes taken up by Brown in his post-prime ministerial career have ranged from seeking a fresh police investigation into Rupert Murdoch’s company’s alleged cover-up of phone hacking – it denied wrongdoing – to the reversal of the two-child benefits cap and the need for improved palliative care before legislation is passed on assisted dying.
“It is like Ted Heath on steroids,” said one Labour source. “But on the Epstein stuff he is right – he is driving this and clearly making the weather.”
For now, Brown is understood to be happy to let the police investigations take their course. He has a new book out in September on global politics. Next week he will seek to publicise a new VAT relief that effectively scraps the requirement for businesses to pay VAT when donating goods to charity.
It is a policy that Brown hopes will assist, among others, Multibank, a charity he started in Kirkcaldy that distributes products donated by businesses to disadvantaged families. “Gordon sees everything as a moral crusade,” a source said, “and when it’s good that fire is amazing.”
• This article was amended on 25 February 2026. In an earlier version, Clare Rewcastle Brown was misnamed after first mention as “Renwick”.
Charles III, Part I (after Shakespeare)
(With a lot of help from Perplexity.ai)
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THE SCENE
CLARENCE HOUSE, LONDON. MORNING. King Charles and Queen Camilla are at breakfast. A loud knocking is heard at the door.
CHARLES:
What noise is this that batters on our gate,
And breaks the gentle fast of early morn?
What saucy hand so beats upon our peace,
To shake the porridge from our very spoons?
A COURTIER:
Doth my liege will that I command him in,
Who thus profanes the silence of your board?
CHARLES:
Ay, let him in, so he but still his fists;
For if he knock once more, by God, he dies.
The courtier opens the door and a messenger enters, breathless. He bows low.
CHARLES:
What wind blows thee so rudely to our hall?
Speak, knave: hath Windsor fallen to the Hun,
And do rough barb’rous hands seize on our crown?
MESSENGER:
If ’t please your Majesty, from Suffolk come I,
Heavy with tidings for your royal ear.
Your brother, sire—who once did bear the style
And ancient honour, Duke of York by name—
Is haled from off his bed at dead of night
By armed retainers of that noble knight,
The valiant Sir Keir Starmer, sworn to law.
CAMILLA:
A noble knight, in faith, and trusty too.
Would God that he might cleanse our house of shame,
And scour from out your blood that spotted branch,
That we ne’er hear his graceless name again.
CHARLES:
What say these men that have laid hands on him?
What foul imputed trespass stains his soul?
MESSENGER:
My liege, they bruit abroad in every street
That he hath crack’d the casket of your trust,
And pour’d your privy counsels in the ears
Of such as should be strangers to your thought.
So stand they sworn he hath betray’d your grace,
Your Realm, and all the people of this land.
CHARLES (shouting):
No more! I’ll hear no more of brother’s name.
The man I call’d mine own is dead to me;
The womb that bore us both bears him no more.
’Tis well our royal mother sleeps in earth,
And from her quiet grave doth not behold
What monstrous fruit her house hath lately borne.
CAMILLA:
Sweet husband, rouse the kingdom with your voice.
You must proclaim unto your faithful folk
That no allegiance binds you to this man,
Who is unworthy of your noble blood,
And may not style himself of royal stem.
CHARLES:
It shall be done.
(Aside to the messenger)
Thou, hence to Suffolk, speed thee like the wind,
And bear these words, seal’d with our kingly breath:
That Charles, anointed sovereign of this isle,
Doth charge that every tittle of the law
Be closely kept in all particulars,
And that no grace, nor favour, nor soft hand
Be shown unto the once Duke, now undone.
For he hath stain’d his house and soil’d his name;
And we, to cleanse the honour of our line,
Do cast him forth, an outcast from our heart,
And pluck his wither’d leaf from off our tree.
I came across Prince Andrew twice as a journalist and both times he was surrounded by protection officers. The first time was in Pretoria at an event with the UK High Commissioner; Andrew cruised the room followed by his protection, blatantly checking out all the women. The second time was on a plane to Chicago, which when he decided no longer suited his timetable he disembarked from with his protection officers who whisked him back to Windsor whilst the rest of us sat on the tarmac as they searched for airmiles Andy’s luggage.
At channel 4 news we tried repeatedly to investigate Andrew and particularly that photograph. Even after Epstein’s conviction and emergence of “that photo”, they rounded the wagons, having refused to receive US legal papers from his alleged victims. After repeated attempts the police admitted they had looked into the circumstances of the photo before dropping the investigation. It felt like a coup at the time, but the police and palace seemed to go to extraordinary lengths to obfuscate and stonewall all media enquiries, before the royals ultimately paid millions to a woman whom he denied ever meeting.
As editor I found the monarchy and conventions of Royal coverage the hardest to comprehend. When, in 2015 we were offered an interview with Charles I was keen to do it to ask about his brother, but we were told we had to sign a draconian 15 page contract that essentially ceded all editorial control to the palace. Indeed, the signatures of previous tv execs littered the pro forma contract which gave Prince Charles the right to final cut, before broadcast and release. After refusing to sign (I took legal advice as I thought it broke OFCOM rules by giving final editorial control to the interviewee) they refused the interview; the contract appeared here https://lnkd.in/ebPzNn4W
When Charles was seen to have re-entered public life with a series of spider-letters, I got Michael Crick to doorstep him https://lnkd.in/eNMkX7Xp
That was the end of our relationship with the Royals; Nnewsnight & Emily Maitlis then got their extraordinary Andrew interview and the rest should have been history; but all this has still taken nearly a decade to happen.