The Truth About the Royal Family with Royal Reporter Robert Hardman

(upbeat music) - Structurally within Britain, the monarchy has no power. Is that really true? - Well, they might not have exactly the power. They unquestionably have influence. Do you think of anyone who's ever met 14 presidents? - There is what you might call a negative power because the armed forces owe their allegiance to the monarch. No politician can get their hands on it. Same with the judiciary, same with the civil service, same with the honest system. All these things that are in the hands of the wrong people can lead to tyranny. She had various grades of objection, which would start with one raised eyebrow. And then double raised eyebrow. And then the ultimate one was, are you sure? (laughing) Are you sure was I sort of code for, I think you've got to go away and think about this. So it's not rational. It's how we evolved, and it just, it works. - Robert Harman, welcome to Trigonometry. You are, of course, journalist, but also a chronic lover, number of royals. The latest book you have is about Elizabeth II. Delighted to have you on. The royal family is actually a subject that's probably been undercover on Trigonometry and fairness. And partly because Francis and I are both a little bit foreign and maybe can't quite understand why the royal family is such a big deal. Why is it such a big deal? - It's sort of an integral part of, I think, of what we are, who we are. People don't wake up every day and think, oh, you know, we live in a monarchy. But it does have an underlying force, stability, continuity. It's why, it allows Britain, it helps Britain sort of punch above its weight diplomatically. Every world survey, global survey, and when they analyze it, a country by country. What does the rest of the world think of first when they think of Britain? They think of the monarchy, they think of the royal family. When I've talked to umpteen diplomats, you know, as soon as they go abroad, the first thing anyone says to them and they're posting is, how is the king, you know, how is the princess? How are the royal family? And when you look, when you stand back and look at the post-war history, as I have done for this book of Britain, and you see the part that the Queen has played in that, in the dismantling of Empire and the transition from monocultural to multicultural society. At every level, the monarchy has sort of played this part and they are this thread that runs through it all. And I think it's best summed up, actually, in the day of the very sad day of her death in 2022. And it was an extraordinary week. We just changed our head of government three days earlier, two days earlier. Suddenly, we were changing our head of state. Now, in most countries, if you change your head of government, all your head of state, that can often lead to, you know, degree of protest, turmoil or whatever, whether it's Washington, January the 6th or other countries. We'd done both. We'd changed the whole lot in one week and not a shot was fired. There wasn't a protest, there wasn't an angry word. Things just carried on and there was a lovely letter in the Times newspaper that week saying, "Dear sir, there's a pint of milk in my fridge. "It's seen two prime ministers, two heads of state "and it's still getting stronger. "I wonder what the Marmalade's seen." That sort of summed off that level of just sort of heft stability. It's a sort of bedrock. And we don't think about it all the time, but it's there. And if it's ever challenged boy, the people suddenly go, "Oh, hang on, no, we've got to defend this." Yeah, and I've always felt a kind of natural understanding of the connection to history. I mean, it's a thousand year history of this country at the very least. Is that one of the reasons it has such a strong sentiment, it evokes such strong sentiment in this country? Because it's maybe one of the very few things left now that really connects the people of this country to it. Well, the history kind of feeds into all that. It's soft power. I interviewed the man who codified, if you like, invented software, Professor J. Nye of Harvard University, who defined this sort of concept of doing things through influence and charm and persuasion versus brute force and coercion. He said, "Well, Britain, you've got two "absolutely inalienable soft power assets. "One is being English language, "and all that goes with it, the literature, "the culture, the choice of Shakespeare, Dickens, et cetera." But he said, "The other is the monarchy, the royal family." That's something other people don't have. That gives you an enormous advantage. He says, "What's put to you at the top of the, "or near the top of the sort of soft power index?" So all these things feed in, yes, the history is part of it. It's also, most of the world speaks English. That's for a reason there's a sort of ongoing debate about the evils of the British Empire, the perceived evils. I mean, the fact is that at a time when lots of countries were spreading their wings around the world, Britain was doing it largely by dent of having a very successful navy. And the net result is large parts of the Earth speaking English and at the time that was done in the name of the crowd. And to this day, the head of state of this country is the head of state with the biggest footprint on Earth. I mean, the king is a head of state of more of the Earth's surface than, you know, President Xi or Vladimir Putin or anyone else by dent of being also king of Canada or Australia and New Zealand and Papua New Guinea and 15 countries in total. So the crown is a very, it's a sort of unique among the monarchies in the world. There are 27, I think it is monarchs in the world. But the one that, you know, the one that doesn't really need an introduction when you say the queen or the king. I think most people have seen you're talking about this one. That's really interesting. And you mentioned soft power a number of times. It's interesting because structurally, within Britain, the monarchy has no power. But in terms of its influence, I mean, you mentioned interviewing President Trump for the book. That's, I think, a very good example of where someone is a very prickly character to put a very mildly in Donald Trump, difficult for some British leaders to get on with. Actually, the monarchy was an instrumental part of maintaining that relationship, wasn't it? It absolutely was, I mean, the only reason I got through the door of Mar-a-Laga, was because I was there to talk to him about the queen. I mean, as a British journalist, I wouldn't have gotten near the place. But, you know, we had a slightly dicey start when he sort of, he asked me if I was going to play golf. I said, I don't play golf. You don't play golf and you're British, what? But we, I said, well, we're here to talk about the late queen because he was the last state visitor of our reign. I mean, she met pretty much everyone of any substance from the early part of the 20th century, right up to 2022. And he was her last state visitor. He came in 2019 and then COVID hit, and she was ill, so he was the last. And we had several chats, actually. It was purely because of his affection for her. And it was very interesting. He didn't want to talk about British politicians at all. We talked about all sorts of other things. I'm going to sit down with the president. I ended up home breakfast with him and dinner and a few other chats as well and other people are there. And the conversation is getting this way and that. But when it gets on to Britain, it's usually through the prism of the monarchy and President Trump. He's very proud of the fact that he's half British. His mother was in a cloud from the Isle of Lewis. He feels a sort of connection. And that doesn't manifest itself in the relationship. People talk about the special relationship. It's not particularly special between the White House and Downing Street. I would say it is special. And historically, it's special between the White House Buckingham Palace and the late Queen met 14 presidents. There's no one in history. No one ever has met and no 14 presidents. And I died for another book, I interviewed President George Bush, Jr. And I said, can you think of anyone who's ever met 14 presidents? Because you were one and so was your dad. I said, no, I said, my Henry Kissinger might have met a dozen of Max, maybe 10. But the Queen had that depth of familiarity. It's so does the King. I mean, the King, our President King, first went to the White House in 1917 as a student and had a 90-minute tutorial in the Oval Office with Richard Nixon, who was president of the time, and has met and known every president since. So you get that degree of connection with all these governments and countries and personalities around the world. And it's extraordinary. I mean, a visit, a meeting with Elizabeth II was a kind of bucket list, top 10 for every world leader really during their time in office. And that's why Donald Trump was very happy to sit down and talk about it. And I was going to ask you about the power. And I mentioned that structurally within the British political system, the monarch has no power. But is that really true in the sense that when the Prime Minister comes for a cup of tea, the monarch might be, I promise, have you considered this, does that happen? Yeah. It does. There's obviously this executive power. And no monarch's going to tread on that. I mean, it's often said that the monarch would have to sign his or her own death warrant if Parliament decided it. And they are obliged to follow formally the advice of the Prime Minister. The Prime Minister gives the monarch said something on advice. It's effectively an order. They are a public servant. But at the same time, well, they might not have executive power. And they can-- and sort of steer the direction of things. They can sort of set a tone. And it is a sort of formidable power with a small P. Just to be able to do things like, I mean, we just saw it with the King's state visit to the USA the other day. Or with the Lake Queen State visit to Ireland in 2011. These are moments where the monarch can do stuff that politicians just can't do. It's just a reset the dial. It's sort of set a set a direction. I mean, the Lake Queen was not a confrontational person, but she was one of the few people in public life who was very happy talking about her faith, for example. And I think she set a sort of a dialogue, a sort of a capacity for a sort of multi-denominational, multi-faith dialogue. But you know, we don't discuss very much, but I think, and I've spoken to various faith leaders and then of course, writing my books. And they will say that the way that she would, you know, she was often the only major public figure in British public life who would be seen very happily chatting to newly elected Black leaders or religious leaders or Muslim leaders or whatever. And that sent a sort of subliminal signal of sort of harmony, if you like. So they do have these powers. They can, you know, whether it's setting trends or I mean, you know, the King's lifelong devotion to the planet, for example. And it was deemed pretty eccentric when he first started talking about pollution and the threat to the climate back in the '70s. It's become an orthodoxy. And certainly I've seen him at things like the COP summit where people come up to him and say, we kind of got this whole thing going because he did, he sort of set up a sort of pre-Summit summit in 1990 in Brazil, which led on to what was called the Earth Summit, which led on to the first COP summit. Now we're on to COP, I don't know, what are we on now? 30 or something, you know, he's been there all along. So yeah, the power is there in terms of influence. And it's also because, and this is a very fascinating story that you talk about in the book is that she has influence, but she can also not engage with politicians. If she so chooses, the most, I would say notorious example of that is with Boris Johnson. So let's talk about that a little bit because I don't think people are aware of that story. Yeah, there is definitely a, there is what they, what you might call a negative power. I'm one of the great strengths of the monochies because the armed forces owe their allegiance to the monoch, no politician can get their hands on it, same with the judiciary, same with the civil service, same with the honest system, all these things that are in the hands of the wrong people can lead to tyranny and whatever. That doesn't happen in the UK, but as you say, that's sort of a non-engagement. I mean, when Boris was sort of being pushed to, he was about to resign, everyone was sort of terrified that he might actually just sort of go and call an election. He couldn't just do that. He would have to get the approval, or the formal approval from the sovereign. And so, I mean, obviously the monochies never going to stop the elected prime minister from doing what the elected prime minister wants to do on the basis that they're doing it for the right reasons and it's being done in the right way. And so, yeah, at that time, there was a worry that Boris might just pick up the phone and go, "I'm thinking of having an election." The Queen might say, "Oh, that's very nice." And again, right, I've got her approval. That's fine, phone down, let's have an election. It didn't happen. He resigned anyway. And as it happens, had huge respect for the Queen's side. I don't think that was ever likely that he was going to sort of bamboozle her. But yeah, you have just by dend of almost a raised eyebrow, and the Queen had sort of, as I said, she was a confrontational person. She didn't like having arguments. She wasn't like kind of Queen Victoria, who sort of, you know, get quiet, hang on, what do you do? Wasn't her start. But she had various grades of sort of objection, which would start with one raised eyebrow, and then a double raised eyebrow. And then the ultimate one was, "Are you sure?" And I'm sure. "Are you sure?" was sort of code for, I think you better go away and think about this. And there were moments like that. I mean, they might be little things. But in particular areas, like defense, for example, is quite a lot of all you sure about some of the defense reforms. I mean, sometimes you just come straight out with it. I remember interviewing George Osborne for a previous book in the Queen had come up to him in a state about equipment, and said something along the lines of, "What are you doing with my bagpipe in school?" It's not the smallest establishment of the British Army. It's a British Army school of bagpipe in Scotland. And George Osborne said, "I'm not sure my profile find out." He went into his office the next day, that, "Is there a school of bagpipe?" Are we closing it down? And if we are, we're not anymore. And the Army School of Bagpipe in Survive to pipe another day. And one of the things that really comes across in the book, Robert, is this is a person who played her position to perfection, right the way through from when she became monarch to when she passed away a number of years ago. And if you look at the world from when she, that when she was on the throne for the first time, Winston Churchill was prime minister, right the way through to Listeros, you can say diplomatically different types of prime ministers. But the way that the world has changed is remarkable, but she almost navigated it to perfection, didn't she? No, I mean, you're absolutely right for us. She was, it's why, in a way, talking about a second, that there's a beef in age, it doesn't really work because it was such a huge span of time. When she became queen, half the nations on earth that existed, they just didn't exist then. They've evolved since. New boundaries, titles, constitutions, flags, names. I mean, Yugoslavia was around then. It's not a thing anymore. There were two Germany's. And she reigned through all that. When she first came to the throne, the Korean War was still going on, which was essentially more or less in fighting terms, an extension of the second mobile. And that was happening. We were still on rations when she came. As he said, Churchill was in Downing Street. And so she's reigned through the jet age, was just starting. And she reigned through the space age, and then along came the digital age. She'd been through all that. And yet, at no point did she appear to be running out of steam. There was no crime. Her late years saying, oh, we better pension her off. It's time for her to step aside. The older she got, the more her authority kind of went up. She was sort of more and more revered. She was a timeless figurehead. And I think that does go with monarchy. We do have that sort of sense of, you know, the king is dead long with the king. You know, that just goes on. And you don't retire. I mean, towards the end of her life, there was a bit of a run on monarchies in the sort of 20 teams, if I can call it that. In 2013, 2014, you had the king of Spain. Suddenly, I said, I'm handing over to the next generation. The king of the Belgians said, I'm done. The Queen of Holland said, over and out. Who else? There was the Emmy of Gasar, did the same. All in the space of the year. And then finally, the Pope, the Pope, abdicated effectively, the Pope as a sort of sovereign figure. And all that in space of a year. And these are figures who were of a semi-rage to the Queen. And it just didn't occur to her. It didn't occur to us as a country. But she would stand aside because she took an oath. It's a job for life. And I think that goes with that is, is, you know, she was very good at adapting. She did adapt. She moved with the time. She was never ahead of the times. And the kings are saying, you know, he wants to say to someone, I don't want to be ahead of the curve, but I don't want to be behind the curve. You just got to move with it. And that's what she did. I mean, the monarchy, look at the monarchy she inherited from her father in 1952. It was a sort of almost an awarding, if not Victorian structure. I mean, lots of people did absolutely unnecessary jobs that weren't needed with sort of crazy titles. The thing was, essentially, at the top end, it was all done on kind of connections. I mean, the monarchy now is run. It's entirely the management of it is meritocratic. The jobs, the duties, the roles, the pay. It's all benchmarked against sort of other public sector. So she did take this, this institution, and move it into the modern era. But at the same time, keeping that element of mystique, which is part of what it's about. You know, you've got to have scarcity value. There's got to be a sort of thrill, a sense of excitement, when you walk through the door of, as I say, backing panace. Otherwise, it's not special. And people know that. There is this, what I call, the royal paradox, that we want the royals to be just like us. But we also want them to be completely different. We don't just want to see them wondering down the street with the saying, it's very shopping bag. People keep going, oh, you know, we're going to have a bicycling monarchy, like the Scandinavians. I wanted to interview the king in Norway and I said, "Do you ride a bicycle?" I said, "No, you're always going on a bike." bicycling molecules. I'm running a bicycle, so it was a teenager. But, you know, we had this idea that they should somehow be more democratic. Well, I mean, the whole idea of molecule is not fundamentally democratic. It's a point of it. But it's fundamentally a kind of exclusive, right? That's the point of it. It's superior in some way. Did the pomp and to one era where you kind of tolerate pomp in this country, if you said, you know, we're going to have a coronation in, you know, without crowds, or I tell you what, let's just flog the crown jewels, or, you know, we would wipe off a bit of the troop in the color. I mean, these are all things that people love. They understand that these aren't exercises and sort of military power or they're not demonstrating some sort of lauding everybody else. I think it was a rather powerful moment in the King's coronation. And you see him, you know, he sort of stripped down to his shirt, he's anointed, and then he's plumped in his throne. And then, gradually, he has all these sort of things heaped on him, you know, he's got sort of sectors and tunics and all mills and rings and the coronation glove. And then finally, you know, he's actually sitting, he can't move because he's got so much stuff. And then the crown goes on his head. And you get a sense of, yes, you're wearing the biggest diamond in the world. These are priceless treasures, but actually, you are a servant. You know, this is, you're putting all this on because it represents what you have to do. It's not, it's not like, yeah, I have the biggest jewelry set in the world. It's like, this is sort of symbolic. And I think sometimes people forget that, but they are ultimately, as I said earlier, they're public servants. I'm going to be honest with you. I used to think grilling was simple. Meat goes on, meat comes off. You look vaguely competent in front of your mates. Jobs are good and then I tried to grill anything that wasn't a burger or a steak. My frustration before Hexclad was that while the actual meat takes 20 minutes, scraping the grill afterwards takes 45. At some point, I stopped inviting people over for barbecues because I couldn't face the cleanup. Turns out the problem isn't you. It's the grill. 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So, yeah, once upon a time, obviously, monarchs were absolute and there's been a sort of gradual transfer of powers along the way to what we have now, which is a constitutional monarchy. So, you know, people understand that the monarch is not, as I said, it's not exactly the power, but it's a break on unreasonable authority. And it's a pressure valve. If we, if people in this country hate the government and they hit the streets and get very angry, that's fine because they can vent that at an election. They can chuckle that hatred at, you know, that has a parliament. But the head of states at the other end of the mouth, the head of state is different. You know, the message of unifying it's a sort of bonding force. And I think, you know, it's very healthy. People say politics is sort of confrontational. Everyone's shouting or whatever. I don't think that's particularly bad. I think you were a very active, sometimes fee braille, but very dynamic political arena, one end of SW1. And then you've got this very solid bit of the other that just sort of makes sure that everything kind of ticks along and leaves the politicians to get on with it. And I just think it works. It's not rational. I mean, if you were starting, if you were starting a new country tomorrow, you wouldn't think, "Oh, we've got to find one family and give them everything shiny and polished in perpetuity." I mean, you wouldn't. But it's how we've evolved. And it just, it works. I mean, there's a, there's a rather interesting survey that comes out every year, which I was like looking at, called the UN Development Index. And it's essentially the UN sort of index of what's the best country in the world. And it has various metrics such as life expectancy, education, income GDP, all this stuff. And they put it through the algorithm. And every single time, in the top 10, about half of Monarchies, at the top 20, I think it's 12 out of 20, are Monarchies. And when you consider it's 193 countries, but only 40 Monarchies, that's a disproportionate result. And these are constitutional Monarchies? Yes, are constitutional Monarchies. These are not the absolute ones like Saudi and whatever they come in a bit further down. But if you look in the top 10, Britain isn't in the top 10, actually, but you've got Norway, Sweden, Denmark, and Australia, Australia, which of course the King is King of Australia. And then you look at the top 20, Britain's in there, I mean, number 15, I think, New Zealand, Canada, come in there. So, yeah, of course, it's absurd to say that by having a regulatory state, you've got a longer life expectancy. I mean, that's, I wouldn't, I wouldn't posit that as a sort of logical argument. But you can look at the, at that sense of stability and, and continuity, what, what a modern constitutional monarchy has a sense of confidence, if you'd like, that it gives a country. By the way, the top, the top one is, is Switzerland, I think. And I mean, you've got others in the mix, including Ireland's right up there. It's very clearly not a monarchy. You can't stand a monarchy. But, but overall, it just, it shows that when people say, oh, it's, it's such to sort of say backward, why don't we grow up as a nation? We should be able to grow up as a nation, and modernize, and why we've got this sort of throwback system. To which I'd say, well, if you, you know, if you want to grow up as a nation, just look at the, the, the, always countries, you're saying Norway and Sweden and Denmark, Japan, Japan doesn't just have a monarchs, got an improv, I'd go and say, you know, they seem to deal well right with that. So it, it's just a system that, like I said, it's evolved. I think it would be incredibly unsettling, damaging and, frankly, constitutionally suicidal to try and dismantle it. It just works. Don't fix it. I love the fact that we're talking about dismantling, because what Queen Elizabeth saw over her reign was essentially dismantling the last vestiges of Empire. So why don't we talk about that, because that's very interesting. Yeah, I mean, that's a facet. I'm 90 raised that, because I mean, that was her, what set her apart from all the other monarchs when she came to the throne was all her predecessors had sort of what were expected to make Britain great, not again, because it already was great, you know, it's just that idea of, you know, you've got to consolidate power. We've got to make the empire strong and hold on to all these possessions. She comes in and the British Empire has effectively gone in 1947 with the partition of India and in just evolving as this new concept of the Commonwealth, the modern Commonwealth. And her job is not to consolidate an empire. She's, her father was was crowned emperor, so was his father and his father and his mother and everybody, you know, that, she was the empire gone. She was all about dismantling it, but doing it amicably. So basically, still I mean, there was still a lot of the world was was a British colony in 1952. And her, I think she would regard her greatest achievement as creating the Commonwealth as moving from an imperial structure to a post-imperial structure. I'm one that's that's that's that it's happened amicably and constructively. But what I think we are seeing now is is a change in tone. So it was a very forward looking thing. A lot of these young countries were becoming democracies. They wanted help. She loved sort of holding these Commonwealth summits, these leaders. I think felt because these these were young countries finding their feet and here was this big establishment figure, the queen, who would meet them and treat them as equals. And then, And there was a real sense of kind of harmony at these commonwealth events. It's one that Mrs. Thatcher fell out with the commonwealth famously in the 80s, but the rest of them, they felt a sort of kinship and it did all sorts of good things. So, commonwealth, I think it was one of the driving forces in dismantling apartheid, for example, in South Africa. And as we've gone on now, there's been a sort of change of attitude, instead of looking forward and thinking, you know, these countries are growing and becoming stronger and more independent. Now, there is a sort of a rearward glance and saying, well, hang on, the only reason you're in the commonwealth is that you were colonized and that this was a bad thing. And this must now be a tone for. And so you have this reparations debate starting to sort of build. And I think it's a very difficult one for both the government, the British government, but particularly for the monarchy to handle, because obviously Empire was conducted in the name of the crowd. The crown, there's a direct linear link. Because I think it was the Prime Minister of Barbados who said that they no longer want the royal family being the official head of state. I don't think even 30 years ago that would have been that would have been entertained as an idea. But it became very mainstream very quickly that conversation. It did. I mean, it happened actually just before the Queen died. It happened at the end of 2021 when Barbados, as you say, had been a when when the all these former colonies went independent, they were all given the option. You know, what do you want to be? Do you want to be a presidency? Or do you want to carry on with the crowd? And a lot most actually said, "No, I want a president. We want to stand on our own TV." But a lot could see the advantages in having having the the crown as this sort of, you know, you're trying to build a new nation. It's actually quite useful. It's quite cheap as well. You're going to start worrying about having a separate residence and all the rest for a president, because your head of state pays our own bills. And there was a very interesting conversation in the 70s or 80s, in fact, when the then Prime Minister, I think it is Prime Minister of Antigua, Lester Bird, was talking to Fidel Castro and said to him, "I'm thinking of dumping the monarchy. We're going to have a we're going to become a republic." And Castro said, "Well, hang on a second. Why do you want to do that?" You know, "Well, we're going to stand on our own TV." And Castro said, "Well, does the Queen interfere in your politics?" And he said, "No. Is she good for business? Is she good for tourism?" Yes. Well, why do you want to do that? And I know this happened because Lester Bird regaled this conversation to Susanne Ramphard. It was one of the great secretary generals of the Commonwealth who told me for for for for my book. So, you know, it's it's it's it's gospel. Fidel Castro was a fan of the monarchy, you know, go figure. Hmm. There you go. That's the title of the episode. Some business advice from one of the most famous communists in the world. I would imagine a lot of the psychodrama that we now see with the royal family because there's the monarchy and then there's the royal family. Somewhat separate things actually in some ways is actually very much part of the course in terms of history. I mean, the royal families have always had the, you know, the the spares and the others and all of this scheming and plotting and whatever. But we live in a very different age now where the power of the media and social media and the ability for people to see into that world, to discuss that world, it must be so difficult for them to manage all of the different things that we've seen. I mean, I think the death of Princess Diana was the beginning of it, but now of course you have, you know, Harry and Megan, then you have Prince Andrew and all of this stuff. What impact will all of this have on on the royal family and on the monarchy? Well, you're absolutely right, but it's a completely different media landscape. I mean, that of all the changes, I think, that Elizabeth II reigned through was the media landscape. When she started, it was completely reverential and the monarchy called the shots. And then by the end, it's 24/7 news, rolling news, social media, everything else, and that does make it difficult. However, I think if as long as the public can understand that you know, they are a family, they're an institution and they're a family. And every family has its tricky members. And so, you know, the king, some more trickier than others, yeah. And when you think about it, I mean, the ride at the end of the Queen's reign, you know, you had the start of the kind of Andrew catastrophe unfolding with his news, not interview in 2019. And I think luckily she didn't have to see how that would unfold after her death. But ride it right away at the start of the King's reign. I mean, he took the throne in September 22 by a late October 22. You started, you had the first sort of trailers appearing on Netflix for Harry and Meghan's six-parter, basically complaining about the monarchy. You had the whole new series of the crown depicting Charles in a very unflattering light, someone who was sort of constantly at war with his wife and trying to unseat his mother from the throne. You had all these things bubbling under. And then that only got worse because as, you know, as the Harry and Meghan show kind of went out, there was lots of publicity with it, them saying how horrible life was in Britain, and the monarchy didn't treat them very well. And then soon as that was over, who was straight into the launch of Harry's books, Bear, which was full of unflattering remarks. And all that, of course, followed on from the Oprah Winfrey interview where the couple had accused the monarchy of all sorts of things, notably racism. And you'd think at the start of a reign, that's really not very helpful. You just come in, you're a new king. But when you look at the polling, this is what's interesting, the polling pretty much flatlines all the way through that. You've got about a three-month period of what someone at the palace described to me as headwinds from California. Sometimes those headwinds were quite strong. But it just didn't make any great difference. You know, the overall, most people could understand, yeah, the family's got problems. But as an institution, as a form of government, we're broadly, we're happy with it. And then you get things like the whole Andrew's saga. And the king, I think, I mean, he reacted, I was surprised at the severity of the punishment that was doled out to Andrew almost immediately. As soon as it turned out that in that newsnight interview that he'd lied about his severing his lengths with Epstein, he wasn't just, you know, told you're not H.R.H. or you're not Duke of York anymore. I mean, he was stripped of everything, a whole lot, all the honors, everything. He was taken by, he was born of prince, but even that was taken away from his birthright was stripped from him. Everything went. And that was, that was decisive. And barring, I mean, given that, you know, that he's been arrested. So who knows where things go from here? The king is ahead of the judiciary. So he has to tread carefully. But I mean, he could hardly have dispatched Andrew to a more, more of a sort of internal Siberia, if you like, than a sort of farmhouse at the end of a lane in the middle of nowhere in Norfolk. That's where he is. So yeah, he's, he's a blot on the, on the royal name, Andrew, but he, he's still, people can understand that the monarchy is, is different. I don't think it's done any great damage to, to, to the idea of constitutional monarchy. I mean, it's, it's, it's clearly embarrassing for the House of Windsor. But, you know, the monarchy moves on. Where it would have been, I think, very dangerous if he'd been in, in, in line to the throne. If there was actually any serious chance of him being ahead of state, at that point, I think, you know, the monarchy would have been in great trouble. But he's not, he's, he's disposable. And, and one day he will be gone. Do you think that part of the blot? And this is maybe the one blemish on the impeccable legacy of, of the late Queen, as you say, is that she was not the one that dealt with Prince Andrew, now Andrew, as harshly as, as the king has now done. And in fact, some say, was very protective of Andrew. Which, look, if, if you have kids, you've seen your wife, well, it's very difficult for a mother to, to, to discipline her children, particularly, even when they've done some terrible. But is that perhaps a fair critique? I think it is, it, it is, it's fair to apportion a degree of blame to the late Queen. I think the way that, uh, she's effectively now, um, because she's convening, you know, no longer around, we just pin everything on her as it's all her fault. Andrew is her fault. I totally disagree with that. Um, I mean, I went into some detail in this and in the book, I mean, there's no question Andrew was behaving monstrously, uh, long before the Epstein, uh, stuff came to light. Really? Yeah, yeah. What was he doing? He was, he was just throwing his weight around, you know, he, he, he was, as borish, he'd be rude to people. I mean, I interviewed David Cameron for the book who told me one of the hardest things he had to do. And it's quite early on in his, in his premiership was to go to the Queen and say, I'm afraid I'm sacking Prince Andrew as a trade-emboy. Um, when he left the Navy in '01, um, the Queen was desperate to keep Andrew in the Navy, because there wasn't really anything for him to do. And then the Navy said, We've grown at a bridge. He's, we can't give him an end to it, he's no longer ours, so he left the Navy. And it was the government prodded along by the timer, a very senior labor figure called Peter Mandelson, who came up with the idea of a trade-emboy. And so the Queen was obviously behind us, I mean, great, we've got him a job with something for him to do, but it was the government who came up with this idea of a trade-emboy. And all those years, he was being a trade-emboy, it wasn't the Queen, it was sort of saying to people, oh no, you've got to send Andrew here, it was, you know, the Department of Trade and Industry would send it to places, he'd go on these trips under the auspices of the foreign office, he would organize them everywhere he went, he was being accompanied by police officers from the Metropolitan Police, who are sort of the home office. So, you know, you've got different arms of the government are also involved, if you'd like, in this kind of Andrew, you know, on these tours, where gradually things sort of unfolded and, you know, he'd go off and he'd go on some of these trips and with that steam. And, you know, why won't other people get involved, and it's not the Queen to know exactly what's in his diary, but it is for some of these public servants and also people at the palace, they should have known what was going on. And finally, by the end, you know, obviously the things came to a head, he was seen with Epstein, after Epstein had been convicted, and at the same time, his camera and said, he was useless, he was useless, as an envoy, he'd just go into a trade fair and sort of say the wrong thing, I mean, was it one Tannikon's event, he went, what's orange and everyone sort of put their head in their hands. You know, he just wasn't delivering, if you like, for the country. So, you know, as I say, a lot of people, I think, let Andrew go on for too long. And the Queen, of course, she would accept that she had a part to play. And it's a very fair point, because, you know, that people were always worried about upsetting the Queen, and we better not, you know, be too mean to Andrew, because we might upset the Queen. That was definitely a thing. But, you know, even after all that, I mean, I've got the story in the book of how he, you know, he actually hit a very senior member of staff in a row about, he wanted to hold a conference of the palace, and he couldn't, and the master of the household who had explained him, sorry, you can't do that, you know, hitting him. And, and, you know, the Queen was, was, was appalled and Prince Philip ended up writing a letter of apology to this chap, the Andrew wrote sort of grudging. No, so everyone knew what he was like. And, and therefore it's fair to say, well, why didn't people act earlier? But I would say there were a lot of people who could have acted earlier. And what? So, I was just going to say, but there are people listening to this robot who was like, look, fair enough, he was an adult, he had a responsibility, there was, you know, responsibility was also spread amongst other people. But look, Virginia Gafrey, the accusations that came out, the Queen, Len Andrew, 12 million quid in order that these charges just go away. I mean, we're in Michael Jackson territory here, aren't we? Moving into this year, I told myself I was finally going to stop guessing about my health. Like most people, I want more energy, better focus, and to be still strong and sharp years from now. But every time I've gone to the doctor, I walk out with basically nothing. Everything's fine, drink more water, sleep a bit more, no real insight, no plan, just vibes. That's why superpowers stood out to me. Superpower makes it simple to actually understand what's going on inside your body. You do one blood draw either at home or in the nearby lab, and they analyze over a hundred biomarkers. That's heart health, hormones, metabolism, vitamins, minerals, and even environmental toxins. What I love is that you don't just get numbers. You get a personalized action plan, supplements, nutrition, guidance, lifestyle changes, and even your true biological age that you can track over time. Rice wise, this is a no brainer compared to the alternatives. Superpower used to cost $499. Right now it's $199, while other testing services charge $500,000 sometimes more for similar of an inferior information. Your blueprint activated with superpower. Superpower is just $199, and for a limited time you can get an additional $20 off with our code Trigger. Head to superpower.com and use code Trigger at checkout for $20 off your membership. After you sign up, they'll ask you how you heard about them, so make sure to mention Trigger and I'm a true to support the show. Once again, head to superpower.com and use our code Trigger at checkout. He was an adult. He had responsibility. There was, you know, responsibility was also spread amongst other people. But look, Virginia Gafrey, the accusations that came out, the queen Len Andrew, 12 million quid in order that these charges just go away. Well, we certainly don't know, we don't know exactly how much it was, we don't know exactly how, was it alone, was it a gift who paid what to who. I mean, there's, there's, there are a lot of questions. I don't, I don't pretend there aren't, but you know, at the time companies would, I mean, I'm not a lawyer, but I mean, you know, people pay off, people, it looked terrible. It still looks terrible and we still don't know the exact details of it. But yeah, I mean, you know, that's, that, that was, I think, a grave mistake. It was at the start of the diamond, no, no, no, not the diamond, the platinum, do you believe? And there was a sort of sense of, well, let's, let's just make this go away. But of course, it didn't. Well, like I say, it's very, very hard for a mother to dison her chart. It was, it was the hardest thing. I talked to people who worked with her. They said that, that, that memory she had to, after his news interview, where they had effectively, she had to kick him out of public life. That, that, I was told that, that was very, very painful for her. Because also she, she was a princess of York. I mean, you know, she, she, she, she, her dad was Duke of York. She was born the daughter of the Duke of York. That's why that title to her, you know, meant everything. That's why she was said, please, I'm proud to give it to Andrew. And it's wedding day. You will not be the Duke of York. You know, this is, this is an extra special thing. It's one of the reasons why everyone is very glad that she was not around to see him lose that title. And what do we know about Prince Andrew now in terms of what he was up to, how he was able to get away with there? And also why he was doing in the first place. What were you? I mean, the, the, the, the, it's, it's ongoing legal process. So, I mean, I suspect we were going to find out some more. You know, he, like I said, I mean, he, he was given a very long leash, long rain to, to, to, do, do what he was, you know, to hang out with that steam to go to all these places. And it, as things have unfolded, a lot of it's not just about, about the accusations to do with young girls, but it's to do with, you know, state records, state documents, you know, he was telling what to him. So, yeah, I mean, it's, it's, it's by no means over. It's, it's a, it's an ongoing scandal. It's definitely one of the, I would say one of the one of the one of the gravest sort of royal scandals of modern times. But like I said, it's, it doesn't involve the direct line to the throne. And there's going to be a lot of people listening to this who are going well. We've, we've spoken about the Queen. We've spoken about Empire. We've touched on, probably the one way of describing it, Prince Andrew. But, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's Prince Andrew. But what about Meghan and Harry? Yeah, Meghan and Harry. I mean, again, that, that, that is a, well, we have touched on the more receiver. But, you know, they, they've parted company with the monarchy. I think following Harry's, the events of, of recent days, he's multiple issues to do with, you know, how, I think he, essentially, he feels that he hasn't, hasn't been dealt fairly by, by Britain, by the media, by the government, and notably by the monarchy, by the institution, I think. Yeah. What does he wonder he didn't get? There's a treatment to, he feels that, I mean, you have to ask him. But I mean, if you read his book, you listen to his interviews. He feels that when, when, at times, when he felt he needed sort of help, support of the institution, for whatever reason, that, that, that it was, it was lacking. He felt that, you know, and it is a hierarchy. I mean, throughout, you read throughout the book, there are these little sort of, you know, slights, these sort of takes offense. William got the bigger room. William got the bigger bed. He got the this for that. I mean, you know, it is, it's in there. He read the book, but it's a hierarchy, you know. I mean, it's not, it's not a huge surprise. The one who's the air is going to get the big stuff. I mean, it, one of the reasons that the late Queen was very sympathetic to Harry. She really was. I mean, he, and he talks about having a special relationship with her. And I think that's true. Is she had a great affinity with spares. Her father was a spare. He wasn't born to be King. She always Throughout her life, she would be incredibly tolerant when Princess Margaret was behaving at the time. She could be very difficult, but the Queen had great sympathy with her. She was a spare, and Andrew was a spare, Harry's a spare. She could see that if you're the first born, it all sort of goes on straight, it goes down train tracks. It's all coming to you, everything. If you're not, yeah, it's a more sort of nebulous situation. You're in a vague, you're no one's quite sure what you can and you can't do it. As we saw with Harry, I mean, there was a time when Harry was absolutely the most popular member of the family by mile. I would say peak Harry, peak Prince Harry was late summer of 2012. We'd had that wonderful summer. We'd had the Diamond Jubilee. We'd had the Olympics. It'd been a huge success. Queen opened the Olympics with James Bond famously. It was one. I was in the stadium that night. It was great, and then we came to ending the Olympics. The Olympic rules say the games were closed by the head of state. Well, the Queen said, no, actually, I'm going to Balmoral. I've opened the Olympics before. It opened the 1976 Olympics. I mean, the House of Windsor was more Olympics than any other family in the world. They'd done the 1908, the '48, the 2012 Olympics. So the Queen said, no, I'm going on holiday. One of the family is going to close the Olympics. It's a big deal. Billions of people are watching. You kind of hand over to the next Olympic city, and everyone assumed it. Well, it's a job for Prince Charles, or possibly Prince William. With very short notice, it was quite an answer. Prince Harry will close the games. Everyone thought, it was interesting. I mean, why Harry? What we didn't know at the time, but what he knew and what the Queen knew was he was about to go off on active service to Afghanistan for the second time, and it was dangerous. There was no one talked about it, but he might not come back. You know, if you wanted him to have his moment, and that was a very, it was a very pride moment for Harry. It didn't involve very much. You turn up at the Olympics, but you are effectively. You are sitting there in the place of the sovereign acting as head of state. That was a big moment for him. He was very chuffed about that. Yet, just a few weeks later, he's about to go off to Afghanistan, and he goes on this boy's trip to Las Vegas, where they fall in with some party girls. One of the party girls takes a picture on a phone of them or playing them strip billiards, and the picture gets out into the internet, and suddenly it goes viral. And, no one cared. No one thought he was a single guy. He's about to go off and fight in the war. He's in Vegas. He's having a good time. Great. Good luck to you. But he took it very badly. He felt really let down. He felt that the press had this, you know, this shouldn't have happened. He felt that he just felt that he'd let the whole lot down, the army, the family, the monarchy, the country. And I think that was the moment where he started. I just detected a sort of a more sour demeanor. You know, he went from happy Harry to sulky Harry at that point. It's a very interesting response, because you think he'd take some responsibility for your role in all of this, wouldn't you? Well, I think he did. I mean, he was, he was, he gave an interview a few months later where he decided, you know, I was, it was my fault. He wasn't, he wasn't, he wasn't blaming anyone for what had happened. He was very unhappy. He felt that the press had, you know, shouldn't have published these pictures. I mean, the response from the public, as I said, was, well, we don't care, but there was a website went up on the, on the Facebook page, called, "Give a naked salute to Prince Harry." And it was full of members of the armed forces, holding, holding naked, sort of, with their backs to the camera, you know, you'd have all around the armed forces. I mean, everyone thought, you know, he's a playboy, Prince. So what? But, you know, I think from that point on, he, I think at Mark, his, his growing distrust of the media, and then, and then he felt that that, you know, obviously impacted on Meghan. I think they felt that after the marriage that they weren't getting the same support levels from the institution, the William and Catherine were getting. And I think it was very badly handled. When they came a point where they were going to split the offices, they shared an office until just after Harry and Meghan got married in 2018. And fairly soon after that, the palace was being refurbished. And there was a bit of forward planning. And that forward planning was, look, at some point, you know, the Prince of Wales Charles is going to become king. And at that point, William becomes the new Prince of Wales. Harry, you come under the cost centre of the monarch, not the Prince of Wales. So you need to have your own office. And it was just done very badly. It was sort of treated like in a sort of managerial way, which was the right going, find yourself some new office space. You know, it was, it was, it was handled. Yeah, it was, it was a bit corporate. And I think when you're dealing with a, yeah, it's an institution. People sometimes call it the firm, people call it the monarchy PLC or whatever. But fundamentally, it's a family unit. And I think that the officialdom didn't do that very well. And Harry and Meghan, I think, took that very personally. And then gradually, they felt that they weren't getting the support that William and Catherine were getting. And actually, why are we doing this? Let's get out of here. Do you, how much of this comes down to the horrific events of 1997 and the way that his mother died? And his anger and resentment to the press, maybe to his father as well, with the way he perceived the way that his father treated his mother? Well, actually, if you, if you read his book, Spare, it's, he's actually very fond when he's writing about his father. I mean, very affectionate power, you know, he loves his father. I mean, I think, yeah, the death of his mother, unquestionably, is still to this day, I think, really informs his attitude towards the press, media generally, but the press in particular. I mean, the fact is that the Fleet Street, we're not involved. Fleet Street weren't in the Alma Tunnel in August the 31st, 1997. I mean, it just, you know, but, but he sees it as a sort of part of a, wait, was that cannot be searched in trouble? Was that cannot be chased by paparazzi? Yeah. Yeah. It was the French paparazzi. We're pursuing a car being driven by a drunk driver. I mean, I think we want to kind of, well, we can't unpack that. I mean, there'd been multiple investigations and inquiries and all the rest, but yeah, there was a car chase. You can, but what I'm saying is you can see why he would think the yeah, he would see, but he would see up if you, if you, if you, if you, if you assume that there's sort of paparazzi right up to the, you know, Fleet Street or one and the same thing, then, yeah, you can, you can draw that inference. And I don't blame him. And I don't think most people would, I mean, you know, young boy, and in you, you want, you want somebody to blame him. I mean, I think there are multiple people to blame in that. Unquestionably, the paparazzi were integral factor. But whereas Prince William has, has, has moved on, he has, is he understands that, you know, the press, a free press are the role to play in a, in a constitutional democracy. And you just, you know, you deal with that. I mean, it's, it's a fact of life. I think Harry finds it much harder. And, you know, on, on the one trip that he did do with, with Meghan, the ones with a big tour they did soon after they got married. They did this big kind of Pacific tour and the press all came along. And, you know, the press called that press call. I mean, none of them would have been around at the time of, of Diana's death. I mean, this is years later. And on these trips, these are hard work for the press. They're not jolly by any means. And there's a sort of, there's always an understanding, you know, the press, they their job, the roles, they their job. But you, you know, there's a, if, if, if Charles and Commander on a trip, William and Catherine on a trip, there'd be a bit of sort of hello, how are you? At no point, there's no engagement at all with the media. And on the final leg, the Prince's private secretary said that you really do need to discuss, say, at least to say hello to the press. I mean, you know, they've been following, they've been working, you know, around the clock for two weeks. And, and it would just be a courtesy. So he sort of grudgingly went to the back of the plane and sort of hacked, sort of sitting in in sort of the cheap seats at the back. As sort of a picture said through the curtain and said, thanks for coming, not that you were invited, shut the curtain. So the press thought, okay, well, you know, how do you respond as a professional, you know, when you're in that sort of situation? It doesn't, doesn't mean you instinctively warm. And then, and then, you know, at the time of, of Archie's birth, that panace, or the, put out statement saying that the doctors has gone into hospital. And in fact, she'd already had the baby and come home. I mean, that was just, it was just, I mean, it was raw, it wasn't just raw, I mean, it was a lie. And people don't like being liked it. And so there was, there was just a sort of level of distrust, mistrust, and it just, you know, it got worse and eventually they thought, we're out. You actually seem fairly sympathetic to Harry, I think, or on balance. What about Meghan? Has she played the constructive role in the raw family? Well, I, I mean, I, people talk about Meghan's it, which I think is unfair, because it implies it's all down to her. I mean, I, I would say it's 50/50, I mean, it's as much him. And I, I'm one here, so I know from talking to people. I mean, there'd be moments where actually Meghan would be sort of advocating a more kind of constructive role. And often, I mean, Harry's response to, to, to, And these two people, I know, when they said that you do need to sort of forge a better relationship with the media, he just said, well, they killed my mother and that's the end of the conversation. So Megan, she could be practical. She could see the need to find some sort of common ground. No, I think, you know, when they decided it was time to go, I think she was very much, you just look at the Oprah Winfrey interview, which was so damaging, I think, to relations that was essentially her interview. He comes in at the end, he comes bounding in after about 40 minutes, and then slightly messes up all her narrative anyway, because he sort of talked about how, you know, while she was pregnant, a member of the family had started asking about the baby, then Harry kind of comes under the safe and goes, yeah, that was right at the start of our relationship. You think, no, no, that's not going to stand up in a court at law, because she just said it happened, you know, in 2019, and you said it happened in 2016, yeah. So yeah, I mean, of course she has a part to play in it. It's just really sad. I think, oh, they could have been such an asset to the monarchy, particularly to the Commonwealth, I mean, that's what the queen thought, when they were getting married, I mean, she made both of them. She gave them these very sort of senior positions, sort of, as Commonwealth youth ambassadors, she had all sorts of high hopes, she gave, she's set aside one of the oldest and most important of her patronages, which is the Association of Commonwealth Universities, which is one of the oldest, I think it's the oldest university, sort of a pan-global international university association. And the queen had been a patron of that for her whole reign, and she said, no, let's give that to Megan. This would be very useful. I give her a platform. She can go and talk about important issues in an apolitical space. So the queen really had high hopes and was very touched on Megan's wedding day and Megan's veil. Her wedding, she'd had all the flowers of every single nation of the Commonwealth, embroidered into her veil. And it was a charming touch. And the queen thought, this is great, we're going to have a slim damn on a key, we're going to William's go, obviously, going to have a lot of stuff to do here, and Harry and Megan can go and travel the Commonwealth and sort of keep the Commonwealth, because don't forget the Commonwealth, when she started, it had eight members, when she died, it had 56, I mean, it was an extraordinary institution, and she could see that they'd be great for that. And then of course, that didn't happen, and then they kind of started turning on the Commonwealth in some other interviews, one interview I think, Harry said, yes, he's got a lot to answer for one, he thought, that's not going to cry, so slightly off message. And actually, on that point, I know we talked about the Commonwealth early, but another important point is that people still want to join it, and all the new countries joining it were never part of the British Empire anyway, so well, people might want to kind of have the revisionist argument about the evils of the British Empire, which I'm questionably had things to answer for, no, I'm not saying he didn't, but when, you know, you've got countries like Gaborne and Togo, Mozambique and Cameroon and Rwanda, which are the recent Commonwealth Summit, none of them had anything to do with the British Empire at all, but they want to join it, because it's a great network. None of us plan our summers around insurance. We plan them around whatever life actually throws at us. We had our second child this summer, which rewaters your priorities fast. Nobody sent a warning, at this point, who knows where we'll be next summer. 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How much of this is, he's been, now he's away from the royal family, he's had cameras put in his face, he's giving interviews, and he's just exposing himself time after time after time. Well, it's a fact, I mean, he's not academically top of the tree, I mean, but people sort of say, "Oh, yeah, Harry's thick." I disagree with that. I watched him at close quarters, and he's got great emotional intelligence, and he's very good at working a room, both he and William are actually, but he can go into a space full of very old, very young people, he's never met before, who are all tongue tied, who've got nothing to say, and some royals find that and have found that very difficult, and it's a bit sort of, "Well, have you come far?" And it's all a bit stiff, and Harry is really good at going in and chatting, and so I think he may not, I mean, his A-levels were not great, I think he got two of them, but it was enough to get into the army. But at a personal level, he's good, and I think he's got good instincts, I mean, in terms of, he does have a sort of sense of, you know, if he's in an event, "Okay, what's the point of those?" And who the key people here and that person, over there, is looking a bit lost, so he's good at that. So, I think he has strengths, but I think you're right. And left the confines, as he would put it, of the monarchy, all the structures, and all that goes with it. There is a sense of a lost soul who's sitting out there in California and just listening to whichever, you know, PR person, they happen to have hired that week, and they seem to get through, spokespeople with a rate of knots, you're always reading about yet another new appointment to their empire, and then that person sort of moves on within a matter of months, so you've only got to look at this gawk case, he's just lost, an absolutely catastrophic blunder. Well, tell people about our business. This is his case, along with others, against the Daily Mail, in the paper which I write, so I declare an interest, but I wasn't involved in the actions, but you know, it was a very big deal, you know, it was almost sort of felt at times like, you know, he's had his court cases against the media before, I mean, he's fought multiple cases. But this one, it's really very flimsy from the start, he pressed ahead, and it went on, it was in court, it was quite clear that the proof that he was lying on just wasn't there, and then he plowed on, and now, even after it's over, he's issued a statement saying, you know, attacking the judge and saying, you know, there's a white wash, and that makes life very difficult for repairing fences with his father, because the king is the head of the judiciary, and this is one of the reasons why the king was said to be quite careful talking to Harry when he's involved in various legal actions. I mean, Harry, at one moment, has been spewing the British government. That puts the king in an impossible position, because he's the head of the judiciary, so you know, and if Harry's sort of going to sort of start putting out statements, accusing judges and ministers and whatever of whatever, that's just not what royals do. So, say no, Harry, I think he has been badly advised, and I don't really see any end of that. I think he'll go back to California, and let's, I think, will happen next. Well, it sounds to me. I hadn't paid that much close attention. I sort of start to feel sorry from really. It just sounds like, obviously, the death of his mother, it would be a traumatic event for anyone, but it's unresolved, and it's unprocessed trauma, which I imagine is driving much of this. It's sad, really. I mean, you know, read his book. I mean, it's an extraordinary book. There's a lot in it that doesn't quite stack up. I mean, there are assertions he makes, which are just factually wrong, that, you know, one could say, well, they're just untrue. But, you know, he is. I just go back to that. I remember sitting on his wedding day, in May 2018, it was such a happy day. This country had had a miserable couple of years after the whole Brexit saga, and politically everyone was sort of at each other's throats, and everything just felt a bit rubbish. And suddenly, we had the sunny day, and this great event, and it was fabulous. And you had the first biracial member of the royal family, and it was great, and everybody loved it. And I think everyone felt, okay, this is, this is a sort of reboot name for the monarchy. Actually, not, I mean, the monarchy had been, have been on a high, really, ever since, since I think, you know, I would argue since 2011, which was the Williams wedding, the state visit to Ireland, the abomas coming to Britain, followed by the Olympics, and Jubilee and everything, and all the way through, they've been this sort of great. run of great things. And this moment was felt like a happy day for the country. And it just didn't last. I just think it's sad and I think there's not much we can do about it now. We've got to move on. Well, that was the thing that I found really surprising because, as I say, someone who's not a close observer of these things like you, I remember them having this wedding, which was universally adored by everyone clearly. And then fast forward, not a very long time at all, suddenly they're complaining about how they've been treated, everyone's races, all this stuff. And I just didn't match my visual experience of what I saw, obviously, like not being on the inside, you know? Yeah. Well, that was that was their perception. I think you talked to people who worked around them at the time. And I think there was a kind of a cultural clash. I mean, you know, they particularly, you know, Megan and Comfort, kind of can do Californian right. Let's get on and do this situation. I mean, and that's going to be difficult when you suddenly come up against, you know, the Royal household, which is it does things at its own pace. And it's, you know, it might be in your, compared to what she's used to a bit, sort of daisy, bit indolent. I mean, I know that the sort of tiny little things would be irritating. There was some, there was some problem with a lock on a door in there, in their cottage. And it just took weeks to sort it out because it had to be done by this official and that official because it's an old and listed building. You can, yeah, and you could see why it's like, that's meant the lock, you know, you could see why it would drive them and drive Megan in particular, we would sort of infuriate them. But, you know, the Queen went out of a way to make it work for them, as I say. And I think she just felt that they hadn't given it enough time, you know, these things aren't. It's normal, sort of, happiness and sweetness and light, you know, there's this hard graft involved. And there is, it is a hierarchy. And that's the way it is. And I think the media sort of stoked up this idea of the fab four, people talked about the fab four, which was just wrong. I mean, it was never going to work because inevitably, you know, you're going to have the fab two. And then the next two, and they're going to move at different levels because it's a monarchy. It's a hierarchy. It's how it goes. And I think one of the great sadness is particularly for the Queen towards the end of her reign was the knowledge that this book was coming out, megs it. That must have been incredibly painful for her. I think it was painful, but we need to put it in perspective. I mean, she'd been through everything. I mean, when you've, as a 14-year-old, watched your father who wasn't meant to be king, trying to kind of hold a country together, when at any minute you're likely to be invaded. And if you're more invaded, and don't forget, I mean, the Romanoffs are still fresh in the family mind. I mean, it's not long since they were put up against the wall and shot. You know, your father and mother nearly get killed twice in a week. You've been through all that. You've seen the sort of stresses. You've suddenly taken over this job at a very early age. It's a 25-year-old mother of two within years. I think we have a sort of rosy picture of the early part of her reign. It's all just lovely and wonderful and everyone's nice and it's super. It's not, I mean, the Suez crisis really rattled her. That was only three years into her reign. You know, there'd been along the way a lot of serious, difficult moments. I mean, as I say in the book, she had something akin to a, not quite a nervous breakdown, but certainly nervous exhaustion in 1969. I'd see, I mean, some utterly appalling moments in the '80s, which a lot of people I think would have might have just chucked in the job. I mean, I still look back. I think the most extraordinary moment of her entire reign, if not her entire life, was that morning in 1981 where 1982, sorry, where she woke up to find a strange man barefoot at the end of a bed, dripping blood and holding a broken astray. And she's wringing the alarm bell and nothing happens. Nobody comes. I mean, how terrifying is that? But she manages to keep him talking and keep him calm. It's Michael Fagan, who's a drug addict, mentally ill man who's broken into the panace. She doesn't know who he is. This is at a time when the IRA are trying to blow up the royal family. They killed little man back in the three years earlier. There were bombs going off. Anything could be behind this. And she's got to sit there. And here is this madman at the end of her bed. And she, finally, someone comes in, the maid comes in, goes, "Flip an egg, man, what's he doing?" Yeah. And they get taken away. What does she do? She's got an investiture at 11 o'clock that morning. She knows that several hundred people are on their way there. They bought new hats and shoes. And it's going to be the biggest day of their life. So she just gets on with it. And no one had the faintest idea. 11 a.m., there she is, bang on time of the investiture. And it was only when it came out in the papers the next day. People thought, "Oh my God, what's she just been through?" And she was brave. You have to be brave, I think, to do this job. She was very brave. She only had one Fabia, which was helicopter's, but she got over that. And remarkable. So, going back to your point about how much of the Harry business must have been a shock? Well, yeah, the '90s. That was a bigger deal. Because her aniseribalist, that did involve the direct line of succession. I mean, the air to the Throne's marriage was falling apart, as were the marriages of her other children. There were huge rides about tax, about money. The raw family was not in a good place. And then in 1997, as we've discussed, the death of Diana. I mean, these were not existential threats to the molecule. I don't think it was ever as bad as that, but they were very, very grave challenges. Much, I think, far greater than either Andrew or Harry, who, let's face it, are secondary to the direct line. So, yeah, she was upset at the end, but she'd seen it all. She had the most extraordinary life. And she always abided by her father's dictum to her as a former naval officer, which this storm too shall pass. That was always, the sun will come out. We just got to get through this. She was incredibly cervical. And that being the case, what is now the future of the raw family? Have relatively new king and place. Of age, you might say. And then you've got the potential, eventual succession of Prince William. What do you make of how this is going to pan out from here? What do you think? I think it, as ever, we'll have to adapt. It will have to move with the times. There will be challenges. But overall, it's a 1,000 year old institution that has, you know, endeared with one brief interlude when Charles I parted company with his head. But Britain fairly soon afterwards resumed its love for having a constitutional monarchy. All that actually wasn't particularly constitutional, which I was a second, but it will carry on. It will have to adapt. I mean, it is shrinking. The next generation, it's going to be the current Prince and Princess of Wales. And, you know, helped by some of their older cousins. But I mean, if you look at the sort of the working unit, William and Catherine, by some margin, the two youngest, their children should their children want to do it, by the way. I mean, there's no guarantee that George and Charlotte and Louis will necessarily want a life of royalty, but we hope they do. It's going to be a challenging time. And I think we as the public, we have to manage our expectations. We have to realize that we've got a smaller royal unit, so they can't do necessarily all the things that we're used to the royals doing. We can't just expect them to keep turning up to open hospitals and cut ribbons and do all that stuff, because there aren't enough of them to get around. So we have to deal with that. But I mean, overall, the fundamental role of having this figure to whom the armed forces and the judiciary and the civil services in charge of the honour system, all that stuff, and it's separate from government and has this soft power role, which just, it just works. You've just got to see, I mean, I was in Washington with the King the other day, and you just see how, watch the monarch addressing Congress. And it just shows how it works. And it's not, as I said earlier, it's not rational. We wouldn't create it tomorrow, but it's there. And yeah, there's a perfectly respectable argument towards having an elected head of state and saying, you know, it's run its course. And there's a perfectly straightforward democratic solution to it, which is any political party could put in their manifesto at the next election. We will have a referendum on the monarchy. See where that gets you. None of them do that, because they know that the public fundamentally are very happy with this system. And they know it's got its faults, and they know nothing's perfect. But, you know, boy, be careful what you wish for. Robert, what a perfect place to end the interview. Final question is always the same. What's the one thing we're not talking about that we really should be? I talked to, I was talking about this before I came here with my wife, Diana, because I think there are lots of things, but we, she put this, and I totally agree, is loneliness actually, is loneliness, is particularly as people get older, I think there is less human connection there. And we see it at every level, we see, you know, where people working from home, social media, the way that people know, they had sort of friendships on through web platforms instead of in face to face. I think that's something we've got. We just need to, like this, we need to sit down with other people and look at the movement and face to face and we need friends. That we do. Robert, thank you so much. Head on over to TriggerPods.co.uk where Robert's going to answer your questions. His king Charles has failed to be defender of the faith, i.e. the Church of England, as per his coronation oath, and his insistence of being a defender of all faith, and betrayal of his mother's legacy.