This prince was ‘a coroneted sleaze machine’ according to one top royal writer. Foreign Office mandarins called him His Buffoon Highness…
Pity the second son in a royal family.
As writer Tina Brown puts it, “the only certainty is that his importance will diminish over the years as he slides inexorably down the line of succession.”
The ‘spare’ she had in mind was Prince Andrew, whose career appeared to be in decline since he left the Royal Navy in 2001.
A stint as the United Kingdom’s Special Representative for International Trade and Investment did not diminish his reputation.
The Duke of York stands on the balcony of Buckingham Palace during Trooping the Colour, 2016, the year the Queen celebrates her 90th birthday
Emir of the State of Qatar, Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa Al-Thani, and his wife, Sheikha Mozah, sit with Prince Andrew, Duke of York, during a meeting of industry leaders at Buckingham Palace in 2010
Prince Andrew uses a private jet as he departs from Sardinia in 2010
President Bill Clinton gestures to his golf partner Prince Andrew after teeing off
It was a role “that allowed him to travel the world playing golf at government expense,” Brown writes in her best-selling book, The Palace Papers.
‘Andrew was the desperation of the Foreign Office.
“He insisted on flying private and traveled with an entourage of servants, including one attendant who dragged a ridiculous six-foot-long ironing board through the lobbies of five-star hotels.”
According to Brown, ‘Prince Andrew’s contacts with reprehensible foreign scum went far beyond what was explainable or acceptable.
‘A series of international thugs who had nothing to do with British diplomacy and were all about making unsavory personal deals filled the Duke’s otherwise sparse diary.’
Among them was Mohamed Sakhr El Materi, son-in-law of Tunisia’s strongman president, who was later sentenced to 16 years in prison for corruption and fraud.
Saif Gaddafi, son of dictator Muammar, was one of Andrew’s lunch partners, according to Brown. He was soon wanted by the International Criminal Court for war crimes.
Tarek Kaituni, a convicted Libyan arms smuggler, was one of Andrew’s guests at his daughter Beatrice’s 21st birthday party in Marbella. And was invited to an 18th birthday reception for Sister Princess Eugenie at Windsor Castle.
There was also no shortage of questions when it came to Ascot’s remarkable sale of York’s Sunninghill Park home.
In 2007, this was sold to the son-in-law of Kazakh president Nursultan Nazarbayev for £15 million – £3 million more than the asking price, even though there were no other offers for the property, writes Brown.
Prince Harry listens to wise words from his uncle Prince Andrew on the 60th anniversary of the end of World War II
The Duke of York takes part in a Prince’s Trust Charity Golf Tournament in 1998
Sunninghill Park, the home that belonged to the Duke and Duchess of York, sold for £3 million above asking price
Libya’s Tarek Kaituni arrives at Princess Eugenie’s royal wedding at Windsor Castle with Jack Brooksbank
Prince Andrew and Kazakhstani President Nursultan Nazarbayev
‘Simon Wilson, who regularly hosted him as deputy head of the British mission in Bahrain, recalled that much of what the prince said was “absolute nonsense” and that he was derided by the British diplomatic community in the Gulf as HBH – His Honor Highness.
‘A senior Tory told The Guardian in 2011: ‘There appears to be no discernible mental activity upstairs as far as the Duke is concerned. I feel sorry for him. He has no friends and is therefore surrounded by these mean people.”
In short, Brown concludes, our trade ambassador was “a crowned sleaze machine.”