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I spy another disaster for Prince Andrew. Too bad the royals: how could they have seen this coming? | Marina Hyde


nNo matter how much you try to comprehend the consequences of the alleged Chinese spying scandal, some of the details are comically indigestible. Take, for example, the fact that Prince Andrew somehow managed to find employees dumber than himself. Here is a senior aide called Dominic Hampshire, writing in March 2020 to the Chinese businessman with whom the Duke of York unfortunately finds himself involved: “Out of scope [Andrew’s] Your closest confidant, you’re sitting in the highest tree that a lot of people would like to be.” Excuse me, is this March 2020? A full four months after the four-dimensional build-up that was Andrew’s Newsnight interview? Which was immediately followed by the Duke’s mother sacking him Dominic, there were ventilators that people would rather use than that tree.

Or take the fact that the country pub in Buckinghamshire where David Cameron took Chinese President Xi Jinping for a pint in 2015 has been bought by a Chinese company called SinoFortune, which appears to own It promised billions in British investment This was never achieved.

Anyway, if you’re joining us after the news flash, I’m afraid Prince Andrew might Let the wrong person in again. The Duke of York appears to have hired an alleged Chinese spy, Yang Tingbo, to be his chief representative in China, inviting him several times to Buckingham Palace, St James’s Palace and his home. Yang denies being a spy and insists he is merely a businessman, while Andrew has been described – apparently by the Chinese embassy – as someone who will “stick to anything”. Yes, I think I’ve seen the pictures.

However, if the Duke’s companion turns out to be a spy, it is all too easy – and all too convenient – to blame Andrew alone for this latest tragic episode. After all, the thing about spies is that they’re supposed to be very difficult to spot. If it can be a struggle for the security services to identify the spy, to an appropriate extent of proof, it is less likely to be an evasion for the most vulnerable member of an internationally recognized family due to its obscurity. Obviously it was supposed to be somewhat easier for Andrew to spot. I think the biggest piece of evidence for this – the man who went to his house in New York to stay in 2010 – is that Jeffrey Epstein had just finished serving an outrageous plea bargain prison sentence for soliciting girls as young as 14 for sex. Even if there were signs and so on.

But speaking of signs, if there had been some signs before this week, which could have indicated to the royal family that Andrew was permanently unsuitable for activities involving governance or money. He really should have been forcibly retired from these two arenas in the mid-90s. After all, strange things involving foreign money and influence have been happening to him for decades. His previous job as a trade envoy, though seemingly designed to get him around international golf courses without attracting too much criticism, actually ended up taking him willingly into the orbit of some of the world’s least attractive dictators and politicians. To take just a few examples from a series of them, he met with Azerbaijani despot Ilham Aliyev on at least a dozen occasions, and at least twice on visits described as “strictly private.” Middle Eastern embassy staff were reportedly asked to make time for his efforts to sell his Sunninghill Park home to Gulf dignitaries. In the end, it was mysteriously purchased for £3 million over the asking price by the son-in-law of the then President of Kazakhstan, and simply left in ruins.

All this and much more has long been known to the royal family, which bears more responsibility than anyone else for his status as permanent administrator – except Andrew himself. Once again, the King and what they call “the Company” find themselves at a crossroads. They either let Andrew continue trying to “seek his fortune” in the real world, or they pay him enough to shut him down. These are the only two options left. The family deliberately closed off the Third Way – allowing Virginia Giuffre’s claims against Andrew to be tried and tested in open court. Instead, they felt the wisest option was to part with their money and settle behind closed doors for millions of dollars.

Absent some form of justice at least allowing Andrew to be exonerated or not, the fork they have to take now is to use more of that money to pay for their black sheep in full. This crazy situation, where certain liability forever haunts dark regimes and their agents, is ultimately of their own making. Why should the people of this country be exposed to unknown security risks just because King Charles thinks it’s bad enough to keep Andrew in luxury and not allow his entourage to leak the “Andrew is set to be expelled from the Royal Lodge” story three times a year? It sounds bad – but it was the family’s choice. Let them own it. The cost to the state of investigating this latest blunder by Andrew may run into several millions – and the Crown may consider itself lucky, once again, not to be billed as well.

As for the wider implications of the issue, it dates back to 2011 when a Foreign Office adviser opined that Prince Andrew’s global maneuvers were making the UK “look stupid”. However, surely we can do it ourselves? Documents uncovered in this current investigation reveal that Chinese state agents warn that Prince Andrew was “desperate” – but I fear the UK is constantly acting desperate too.

Much of Britain’s post-imperial decline was due to its feverish surrender to foreign money – from Russia, China, the Middle East and elsewhere. London sold its landmarks to money, built luxury estates to sit empty while helping money abroad itself, and laundered money. There is a broad and well-paid service class to facilitate all of this, from lawyers to accountants to reputation managers to people who advise money on how to get its children into the right schools, with writer and corruption expert Oliver Bullough describing our new status as “servant of the world.” Just like that. Even the prince of the royal family was now a personal servant.

But he is certainly not the only one. Countless professional classes and elite institutions in Britain suffer from the same slavery and show no signs of abating. I’m not entirely clear on the exact distance between the SinoFortune Arms and the Last Chance Saloon – but it’s certainly starting to feel like they’re the same pub crawl.

  • Marina Hyde is a columnist for The Guardian

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