‘Desperate’: Embattled Prince Andrew engulfed in new Chinese spy scandal
A friend of the Duke of York has been outed as an alleged spy – and the blowback from the crisis could have brutal consequences.
Royals
Don't miss out on the headlines from Royals. Followed categories will be added to My News.
COMMENT
Well, it’s been a right while, hasn’t it? Since we were last here, getting ready to dig into the latest flagrant bit of foolish derring-do from Prince Andrew, the Duke of York?
Really, we all knew we’d be back.
On Friday, news broke that one of the duke’s chummy chums has been unmasked as an alleged Chinese spy who managed to penetrate the royal circle and who was able to get “unnoticed in and out of the house in Windsor”.
MORE: $57m Queen lodge now a dump under Prince Andrew
This latest PR crisis is not only deeply, deeply embarrassing (and highly “I’ll-need-another-double-Giles” concerning for Buckingham Palace), but it also threatens to ensnare Prince William and Kate, the Prince and Princess of Wales and Prince Harry and Meghan, the Duke and Duchess of Sussex.
Here’s what’s just come out.
In 2021, the alleged spy was stopped while trying to enter Britain under counter terrorism laws and the contents of their phone downloaded by officials, which contained documents revealing the full extent of their ties to King Charles’ brother.
The alleged spy was not only close enough to the duke to attend his birthday party that year but had been tasked with helping the “desperate” royal to find financial backers in China for some investment fund Andrew wanted to set up.
One document found on the phone includes “questions asked by the Chinese embassy”, the Times reports, and references Andrew as being in a “desperate situation and will grab onto anything”.
Another document is a letter from an adviser to Andrew, to the alleged spy which spells out how close they managed to get to the royal inner sanctum, reading, “it is clear to you where you sit with my principal and indeed his family”.
That letter then goes on to seemingly imply that Team York had managed to craftily circumvent Buckingham Palace’s courtiers and the King’s aides, saying that “under your guidance, we found a way to get the relevant people unnoticed in and out of the house in Windsor”.
It is not clear from the available reporting whether this means that the alleged spy was physically manoeuvred in and out of any royal residences, but let the record show that Andrew does live down the road from Windsor Castle.
(It’s also worth remembering here that the Duke of York reportedly gave now convicted child sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell “unrestricted access” to Buckingham Palace and that Palace guards were told not to officially record her comings and goings in their visitors log).
The alleged spy has now been blocked from entering the UK on national security grounds, so here’s hoping Andrew wasn’t waiting on them to return that copy of Clive Cussler’s latest they had borrowed for the flight back to Beijing.
This spy scandal will surely make for some cheery reading for Charles as he dispiritedly sips his morning cocoa – to learn that a “desperate” Andrew had been palling around with some sort of svengali tasked with ferreting out information for the ruling Chinese Communist Party in an attempt to earn a motza in China and to whom one of his advisers boasted about being able to sneak people “unnoticed in and out of the house in Windsor”.
Sounds fine. Just fine.
I’d love to now spend the rest of this story reminding you about Andrew’s previous indiscretions and the multitude of unanswered questions about his murky money situation, but sigh, there are much broader implications of this spy story, for both William and Kate and Harry and Meghan.
What’s the opposite of a Christmas miracle? A Saint Nick-ish nightmare?
We know beyond a shadow of a doubt that Andrew is not so much an ongoing headache for the royal family but a grade five recurring drug resistant migraine – and one that William and Kate could end up inheriting when they become King and Queen.
The Duke of York is comparatively young at 63, giving him, should he enjoy a typical Windsor lifespan, another two if not three decades of trying to find a way to fill the hours before Bargain Hunt begins and ways to fill his coffers, therefore meaning he could very well one day be William and Kate’s problem.
What the hell are they going to do with him?
If there is one thing that the disgraced, defrocked former working royal has proven is that he has a certain zombie-like quality – every time you think he’s down, he just pops back up to keep getting himself mixed up in some fresh dodgy dealings or new allegations that involve him and a teenage girl or him holidaying with a child sex offender or him being sued over a Swiss real estate deal or the world finding out he was being allegedly given millions by a Turkish businessman once accused of embezzlement.
The very notion that the duke might ever go quietly into the long night of his exile and just mournfully clippity clop around on horses, as he is regularly photographed doing, pulling his head in is just ridiculous.
His own brother the King seems to have no idea what to do with him or how to handle him, having abjectly and embarrassingly failed to eject him from his grand home Royal Lodge after a two year public battle.
Andrew is a problem that could very well one day be William and Kate’s and he’s an unsolvable, unsavoury one at that.
And then we get to Harry and Meghan. I really hope they have been carefully reading the reporting out of London and duly taking notes in their his’n’hers vegan leather notebooks, because unless they are incredibly careful, this way danger lies.
Like the Yorks (both Andrew and his ex-wife and permanent housemate Sarah Ferguson, Duchess of York) the Sussexes now exist out in the wide blue yonder of the real world without Palace advisers dedicated to assiduously protecting their reputations. They could also make easy prey for state actors who could inveigle themselves into their inner circle or even unsavoury, self-interested sorts who could so easily glom onto them with promises of fresh riches.
No matter how careful and dedicated the Duke and Duchess of Sussex might be, they now have to fend for themselves in a world without Palace guardrails and gatekeepers. Should they get it wrong, the consequences could be dire and the blowback on the royal family a whole other quagmire for William and Kate to possibly have to wrench Crown Inc out of.
You also have to wonder how the Sussexes must feel, having been given a very short shrift by the late Queen, who was hell bent on ensuring they did not profit off their royal status, to now find out that Uncle Andrew has been doing exactly that and relatively recently.
I don’t think it’s going very far out on a limb here to suggest that no one associated with Crown Inc would be very happy today and there could be some uncomfortable conversations being had around the roaring fires of Sandringham when they all gather for Christmas next week.
Andrew might be the second pudding that is going to be flambéed soon.
Daniela Elser is a writer, editor and a royal commentator with more than 15 years’ experience working with a number of Australia’s leading media titles
Originally published as ‘Desperate’: Embattled Prince Andrew engulfed in new Chinese spy scandal
Pics reveal ‘fascinating’ Kate change
The Princess of Wales has been quietly showing off a major new look recently – and it reveals a massive change for the royal.
‘Elitist’: New blow for Harry amid ‘toxic’ claims
BetterUp, the life-coaching company Prince Harry is paid millions each year to represent, has been slammed as a “boys club” as the Sussexes brace for a “pivotal decision” from Netflix.