[0:00]Well, it has been another extraordinary week of news. It seems to always be that way. The king of weekend newscast, do you see what I did there? It's not with me this afternoon, but I have a news princess alongside me in the chair in
[0:11]her very tidy home. Hello, Alex Forsythe. >> Laura, hello. Quite like that. Thank you. >> You're very, very welcome. Um, it's very nice. I don't think we've done this program together before as a duo. So,
[0:21]all conventions can be thrown out of the window. so we can have a lovely time and hopefully newscasters will enjoy listening to us. It's two days on though from this.
[0:33]>> I'm stopping the recording >> because we have a breaking story which we should respond to. That's why I stopped you. So forgive me. >> So Prince Andrew, [clears throat] the king has initiated a
[0:47]process. So we're going to discuss this. Prince Andrew will no longer be Prince Andrew. [applause] He [cheering] will be Andrew Mountbatton
[1:04]Windsor. He will surrender the lease to his home and he will find alternative private accommodation. Well, Alex, one of these moments where there's a massive
[1:15]mashup of we know to be public concern, politics, and in this case, the palace, but one of our newscasters got in touch with a memory of something that happened
[1:26]on your show. Yeah, it really it did trigger my memory as well because it was a couple of years ago now and it was that moment a similar moment when you're sat there doing the recording with a live audience in front of you and for me
[1:37]on my WhatsApp popped up this news that Boris Johnson was stepping down as an MP and because it was obviously a significant piece of news I did exactly what Fiona Bruce did on question time and went hang on to tell you about this
[1:48]bit of breaking news Boris Johnson's resigning as an MP and similarly the audience just erupted in a round of applause very similarly. I think we can
[1:58]have a listen and I'm I'm I'm just wanting to bring you We don't usually do this on any questions. Of course, we do record on a Friday evening. It goes out on a Saturday, but I do want to bring you some news that's just broken on
[2:09]Friday evening, which is that Boris Johnson has resigned as an MP with immediate effect. Um [cheering and applause] we [applause and cheering]
[2:22]only have Thank you. >> [applause] >> Sorry. Thank Thank you very much for your reaction, but we only have a moment or so. Can I just get your reaction as a minister in the government? >> Can I just thank the audience for
[2:33]showing the usual impartiality that we expect and say, uh, as far as I'm concerned, Boris got it right on Ukraine. Boris got it right on the vaccine program and
[2:44]Boris had it right. Boris had it right on Brexit. And I make no apologies for saying I really like the >> blimey. politics does sometimes feel like pantoime and in some senses
[2:56]although there are incredibly serious things at stake there has been an element of you couldn't make it up pantoime about what's happened in the last few days we should thank newscaster who remembered that moment Alex who
[3:07]prompted us to dig out the clip too but let's get on with this episode we'll be discussing the fallout for the former prince the palace but also our politicians so let's get on with this
[3:18]Saturday's newscast Hello, it's Laura in the studio. >> Hello, it's Alex in another sort of makeshift home studio. >> Well, it's very nice. I think you're sort of undoing I think you're you know
[3:29]doing yourself down there. It looks like a lovely backdrop. A lovely place to be spending your time. [laughter] >> Did you make did you tidy it up just for newscasters? >> Yeah, my partner did it for on my behalf. You know what I mean?
[3:40]>> Well, that's a very nice compliment to pay to those people who are listening and watching. Um, so there's a lot going on. And my goodness, there's been a lot going on since the news broke on Thursday night that the king had made
[3:50]this momentous decision. But that did come after weeks of pressure. And in the UK, I'm just wondering if there is a bit of a reassessment of politicians attitudes to the royal family. American
[4:02]politicians are still dangling the possibility of calling Andrew Mountbatten Windsor to give evidence on Capitol Hill. And there is still an ongoing police investigation in this
[4:13]country looking into whether Andrew tried to get personal information about Virginia Grey through his police protection. So there's a lot still going on. But Alice, I just wonder, do you
[4:24]think the big picture has been shifting in front of our eyes as we've, you know, alongside the minute-by-minute news story, there's something bigger going on? >> Yeah, I do. I think that's completely right to be honest Laura because
[4:36]obviously with that really decisive action as many people see it from the palace the hope would have been that there was a line drawn under this it clearly hasn't been drawn under this for all the reasons you say and all the questions that are still hanging on
[4:47]about what now for formerly known as Prince Andrew you know and and all the other questions but the bigger picture for me is that in the run-up to this point if you just hang around Parliament and spoke to MPs there was a really
[4:58]noticeable shift in their attitude towards the royal family where suddenly it seemed because of what was happening with Andrew, they were more willing to question in a way perhaps they haven't done before because of long-standing
[5:09]conventions and because of all of the stuff that shrouds the royal family and their place in our constitution and our country. It seemed that more and more MPs were saying, "Look, I just don't think this status quo is okay. what can
[5:20]we do here to like add to the pressure or reflect what many of them thought was public opinion about the fact that in the first instance Andrew sitting in
[5:30]Royal Lodge you know in that kind of that [snorts] the lease arrangement we know where he just paid a peppercorn rent and yes having had his titles removed but nothing really more formal than that it just didn't seem kind of
[5:41]compatible with where public opinion was at and I think MP seemed increasingly like willing to weigh in in a way we haven't seen for a while right >> I think that's right and just you know you and I both know but I think it's worth sharing with newscasters. Normally
[5:52]when you mention the royals in almost in parliament, certainly anywhere near a camera or a microphone, but also in those private conversations that you and I have with politicians, in the vast
[6:03]majority of occasions, it's almost like you trigger an allergic reaction amongst an MP or like you amongst MPs or like you've sort of tasered them into a situation of not feeling that they can say anything at all because that
[6:14]convention that they don't comment on the royals and the royals don't comment on politics, that mirror is so so strong. Of course, as always, there are exceptions that prove the rule. You
[6:25]know, Jeremy Corbin was very famously a Republican. There are other people on the Lib Dem benches or the SNP benches, for example, or the Green Party now who are skeptical about the royal family and
[6:36]and have been out and proud about that. But the overarching very strong convention for anybody who wants to get close to power is that you say nothing
[6:46]beyond sort of bland praise or concern. And it's made me think a bit about actually how intertwined government and the monarchy is without us really thinking it. You know, people often say,
[6:57]"Oh, well, it's just kind of symbolic. His majesty's government or her majesty's government." Actually, it's a lot more than that. It's not just symbolic. It's not just the headed letters, the you know, it's not just the
[7:09]royal stamp on government documents or on ministers red boxes. It is actually a profound connection. you know, privy counselors would trot up white hall to go and, you know, see the monarch every now and again. Prime Ministers, of
[7:20]course, see the monarch every single week. And that connection is both, you know, abstract and abstract and historic, but it's also real. Yeah. And when you have had, for example, prime
[7:30]ministers even kind of veer away from the convention and give even the tiniest bit of indication about maybe a conversation with the monarch or whatever, you know, everybody kind of jumps on that as in the past has been
[7:41]like, whoa, whoa, hang on. Kind of don't go there. don't break this convention because of that relationship and the way that it's always worked. But I think, you know, a couple of things. So, because of what's happened with Andrew,
[7:52]we've seen, yes, an increased willingness to be a bit more vocal and ask questions about things like the royal finances and transparency. You know, Ed Davyy, the leader of the Liberal Democrats, raised a point in
[8:02]prime minister's questions. You had a select committee writing for more information about that royal lodge and the lease and all the rest of it. But you've still seen, I think, a real reluctance from ministers. You know,
[8:13]even now, like with this announcement from the palace and this clear attempt to draw a really significant distance between the family and Andrew minister's reaction is like, well, we'll still be
[8:24]led by the family, you know, kind of they've gone as far as in for the for the main, you know, they've gone as far as to say they welcome the decision decision by the palace. They think that the king did the right thing, you know,
[8:34]even to sort of praise that. But when it comes to the questions like well should he still retain his right to succession to the throne you know they won't go there they'll still kind of defer to the family around it and you just wonder I
[8:46]mean is that going to remain the case or is this going to make mark a bit of a kind of turning point in that relationship where there's more of a willingness to question probe challenge publicly
[8:56]>> I think it's definitely possible this is the beginning of a new era so as senior white haller said to me yesterday look you might think this is about Andrew But actually put this in
[9:07]your diary as a pivot point in the relationship between the palace and parliament was how they expressed it. I think it's also worth saying is look clearly behind the scenes I'm told that
[9:18]there were expressions of concern about this coming from the sort of government end of things to the palace and the palace of course is incredibly sensitive to public opinion. The government is
[9:29]also very sensitive to public opinion and therefore when politicians are really picking up on public opinion and then knocking that up the you know up white hole geographically to the royal end of of uh the poshest one of the
[9:41]poshest bits of London that does matter. It does make a difference and you mentioned there the line of succession. I think you know there's already politicians calling for a debate on
[9:51]that. The government won't want to touch it with a barge pole but also think about it. This is a government that's not always fully in charge of its own destiny. Could this be something that
[10:01]its opponents and critics even on the Labor benches actually start to try to kind of push at which might usher in a whole kind of new era of challenge? And we should also mention, you know, Chris
[10:13]Bryant, a government minister, said yesterday openly on the record on the telly to our colleagues at BBC Breakfast that if Andrew is called by American
[10:24]politicians to go and give evidence in America, well, then he should cooperate with that. And you know what? Until a few weeks ago, I can't possibly imagine
[10:33]a government minister expressing a view about what a member of the royal family should do like that in a million years. I just can't imagine that it ever would have
[10:45]happened. And that is though now where some of the drama around this now moves, isn't it? Is to Capitol Hill. And what would the next steps for the Americans be? >> Yeah. Because there has been increased pressure on that front as well. So we've
[10:56]had a number of congressmen, Democratic congressmen in particular, who belong to this really powerful committee in the US, the House Oversight Committee, which has been doing a whole lot of work looking at the Epstein situation much
[11:08]more broadly. And in fact, they've led on some of the work in producing the documents and the birthday book and some of those revelations, which have actually increased some of the pressure on the figures here in the UK that have, you know, been involved in all of this.
[11:20]But what they are now saying explicitly and clearly is that they think Andrew should come to the US or at least remotely potentially give evidence to that committee about what he knew about
[11:31]the wider kind of Epstein scandal and his links and his connections and the people and the money and the travel, you know, and they're saying that openly and this isn't just one of them. I think the sort of challenge around that, of
[11:42]course, is twofold. The first is how likely is it that Andrew is going to volunteer himself to do that? I mean, when he gave that interview to News Night back in 2019, he did suggest that if he was asked to give evidence, he
[11:54]would. But we've had absolutely no signal up to this point that that will actually come to anything because even, you know, even Andrew's behavior in terms of when he's clearly been
[12:04]sidelined by the royal family. He's still in public events tried to sort of insert himself into the foreground. So, you wonder how much voluntarily he's going to go, "Yeah, okay, look, I'll come and tell you everything I know." That's the sort of one element of it.
[12:15]And the other bit is the technicality that it's actually quite hard like this committee to to force Andrew to do anything around this, you know, to actually make him and they recognize that and some of the congressmen have
[12:26]said that it would actually be quite difficult for us to force Andrew to do this. So we encourage him to do it voluntarily. Will he? >> I think the chances of that are slim to
[12:36]none. But as we always say on weekend newscasts, we are always happy to say very openly when we get things wrong. But this was how the Democratic congressman, who's one of those calling for Andrew to testify, Su Subraman, he
[12:48]was on the Today program this morning and this is how he put it. >> I would like for him to come to our committee and tell us everything he
[12:58]knows about Jeffrey Epstein and the crimes that were committed. Uh, I think this would be a great way for Andrew to clear his name. It would be a great way
[13:08]for us to continue our pursuit of justice for the victims and frankly Andrew's name has come up many times
[13:17]from the victims and so he clearly has knowledge of what happened and we just want him to come forward and tell us what he knows. >> We should remind newscasters also that
[13:28]Andrew has always denied doing anything wrong but we've heard a lot in the last few weeks. In fact, we did for the first time around Lord Mandlesson's links with
[13:38]Jeffrey Epstein. We've heard from the families of Virginia Duayra, who was of course was Epstein's most prominent accuser right after Buckingham Palace
[13:47]made their statement. Patty spoke to her brother Sky Roberts and her sister-in-law Amanda Roberts. And this is what Amanda said just after the news had broken.
[13:58]>> I think both countries need to look at collaboration here. the US government hold the key to the larger scope of the
[14:07]Jeffrey Epstein case. So, Prince Andrew may be just one of those people that are implicated and I do believe if he's willing to come forward now and
[14:17]cooperate, it will lead to the larger scope of what really gone on here because there's so many people that need to be held accountable. And again, the
[14:27]UK is setting an example for what the US should be doing right now. And I would ask that your leaders put that pressure
[14:36]on our leaders to do the right thing. >> I mean, it's so interesting, Alex, isn't it? Because I remember speaking to Sky and Amanda when the Mandlesson scandal
[14:47]around his links at EP with Epstein was running so hard as a news story. But then just to hear and be reminded of the
[14:57]impact that Epstein's abuse had on families and the impact that his behavior had on his victims was very
[15:07]meaningful. Um, and that at the end of the day is what is began all of this scandal, this incredible scandal that has led to the downfall of a prince, as
[15:18]they said elsewhere in that interview with Paddy, that an ordinary girl from an ordinary American family brought down a British prince. >> Yeah. And it was also I think not notable that in the statement from the
[15:30]palace what they were keen to stress when they were announcing this decision about stripping Andrew of titles and lodgings was their concern and care for the victims who quite clearly are at the
[15:41]at the heart of all of this. And you wonder with the palace referencing the victims whether that has then added the sort of emboldens in some ways some of those calls from the US to say well look
[15:52]if this is about the victims come and tell us what you know come and you know to Andrew come and tell us what you understand the wider situation was share this information. If you have that belief that the victims are at the heart
[16:02]of all this which so many people absolutely rightly say of course they are then you know come and tell us. And and of course the other bit of this is that we totally understandably have been
[16:14]talking a lot about Andrew in the last few days because of all the developments that there have been and because of the questions that still remain. But in the US a lot of the pressure more widely has
[16:24]come from the victims who want you know more information about Epstein himself, more information about others who may or may not have been involved with Epstein. all of those huge unanswered questions and the sense that the people, the
[16:35]accusers, the survivors, the victims at the heart of this still want to know more. You know, that pressure isn't going to go away in the US either. You know, it is this this is I think by far by far from over by any stretch of
[16:46]anyone's imagination. >> It was interesting when we spoke to the family really some weeks ago now around the Mandlesson scandal, they said at that point they had never heard anything at all from any member of the royal
[16:57]family or the royal household. I wonder, and I'm not suggesting this because I have any information, I just wonder now if that is still the case given the way that the palace has shifted its tone to
[17:08]refer explicitly to the victims. But emotions on all of this have been running incredibly high. You know, these
[17:15]are very sensitive, emotional stories because they pertain to serious, terrible things that happened to far too
[17:26]many people. And Paddyy told us, he sent us a voice note from his holiday very kindly. He told us what it was like speaking to the family just hours after that huge story had broken, knowing that
[17:38]their relative who died by suicide earlier this year was one of the had been the person to put the pressure on that has resulted so many years later in
[17:49]these seismic changes in the royal family in a country not of her birth. Hello. Producer Chris has asked me to
[17:58]send you a quick voice note because I interviewed Sky Roberts, who's Virginia for his brother, just hours after King Charles, who's Andrew's brother, drew a line, attempted to draw a line under the
[18:10]whole Epstein scandal and the royal family. When I spoke to Sky Roberts, it was clear that a huge sort of steam cooker of pressure came out into the
[18:20]open because something had happened after years and years because these events go back 20 years. The other reflection that's really important for newscasters because I read the messages
[18:31]that the king has sought publicly to talk about the victims. And that's the big difference with his brother when he had the opportunity with Emily Mateless.
[18:42]He did not. So, those are my reflections because I know that you'll be talking about this and I hope that newscasters will tell us what they make of it all. >> What do you think might be next in this
[18:53]royal saga? >> So, a couple of things really. I think there has been a sort of and this takes us back to where we started, Laura, with that reaction from the questiontime audience. I think there has been a sort
[19:03]of quiet admission that this is this could well be one of those examples where public opinion has been ahead of the institutions. you know that which is quite often the case you know you can sense the way that people are feeling
[19:14]about something but then it takes a while longer before the institutions involved react you know so I wonder because of that if the upcoming questions that still remain so we've got
[19:25]a couple of things ongoing this this issue about succession to the throne I think there might still be a push from some people in parliament because it would take legislation to change that position of Andrew currently being
[19:35]eighth in line to the throne could that rumble on a bit more there is also this questions still remaining about the Royal Lodge because that select committee's written for some answers around that. Now, that of course would be retrospective because we know at some
[19:47]point Andrew is going to move out of the Royal Lodge. But there are still kind of questions remaining about that. But more broadly, I think it is this bigger sense of whether or not what we have definitely seen during the course of the
[19:58]last few weeks and months is a shift in the way that parliamentarians attitudes are towards the royal family, whether that continues beyond this. So whatever the outstandings are about Andrew, does
[20:10]this change that wider relationship in the long term? Or actually, if Andrew does disappear off as clearly the palace want him to and others want him to, do we then revert to those old conventions
[20:21]where there is a sort of less challenging, less accountable approach from parliament to the family? I don't know. But I think that's where the kind of politics around it, those three key areas are going to center in the next
[20:33]few days and weeks. It was really interesting because also from number 10's point of view, there was one former occupant of uh number 10's team uh said to me actually whenever there was a big
[20:43]royal story, we used to all breathe a huge sigh of relief because it meant you lot all went crackers about something else for a few days. So maybe actually that sort of oma that rule of silence actually suits them very well. They said
[20:54]the eye of Sauron looks at something else and actually it's one of the few areas where number 10 actually can't be held to blame and they can't be held to ransom about journalists because they can just stand behind that no comment.
[21:06]But maybe no comments will not be good enough in future. We will see. There is also, Alex, aside from the politics, the Met Police saying it is actively looking into the media reports about whether or
[21:17]not Andrew tried to get personal information to discredit Virginia Duay through his police protection. But the police watchdog has said it hasn't had
[21:27]any referrals from the Met yet. But that is another unfinished end. >> Yeah, it definitely is. It definitely is because actually it's also worth saying that the police watchdog, the independent office of police conduct,
[21:39]you know, it's been noted on Saturday that they could actually launch an investigation themselves. You know, they have the powers to do that. So I think it's still another question outstanding about all of this. So kind of back to that point that despite the efforts by
[21:50]the palace to move on as much as they can, draw a line as much as they can, there's still definitely some outstanding issues and I suspect we'll be talking about it again. >> I suspect we will. All that power, but
[22:01]not the power to shut this story down. Well, uh, tomorrow on the program, we will be talking to John Haley, defense secretary, will be with us. I suspect will also be talking about Andrew, uh, rather a lot. And also the new climate
[22:12]chief, uh, the new boss of the climate change committee will be joining us for his first interview. So, what will he say about those politicians who appear to be running away from the what was quite conventional politicians saying
[22:24]climate change is terribly important and we must do everything we can, everything possible to slow it down. That's not so politically in fashion anymore, is it? Oh, that's be so interesting. The kind of move away from the consensus of net
[22:35]zero, the view and the verdict, >> moving away from all sorts of consensus. Uh gives us interesting conversations. Um Alex, it's been lovely to have you with us on Saturday's newscast. >> Joy, it's been a joy.
[22:45]>> Marvelous. Well, I'll be on BBC 1 tomorrow morning. And and I'm pleased to say, Alex, we will be reunited again for Sunday's newscast tomorrow. But for Saturday, that's it. Goodbye.