The Secret the Queen Chose to Ignore

Andrew Lownie on Prince Andrew, royal secrets, and why the establishment is harder to crack than ever.

Andrew Lownie came back to StoryCo because listeners asked for him. Since the first episode, the story hasn't stopped moving. Andrew was seen bruised in the back of a car. Harry lost in court. The sovereign grant was tripled with no parliamentary debate. And Lownie is now writing about Prince Philip.

In this conversation he goes deeper. Not just the fall of one prince, but the machinery protecting the whole family: civil servants shuffling ministers sideways for asking the right questions, judges who know which way their bread is buttered, files reclassified after being open for 20 years, and a Freedom of Information success rate collapsed from 70% to 10%. He explains the Thursday Club, what the Profumo papers still won't say, and why he is more hopeful than he has any right to be.

The archive section is the most forensic this show has had. The civil servant who moved a minister sideways for asking about Andrew is the best account of how the system works. The detail about ministers deliberately misspelling subjects so FOI searches find nothing is the one that stays.