(I wrote this post during the time when the blog was down so it is slightly dated but here it is anyway.)

The Jeffrey Epstein fallout continues with Peter Mandelson, a Labour Party bigshot and former UK ambassador to the US, being arrested.

But the big shocker occurred when British police arrested Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, King Charles’s brother on “suspicion of misconduct in public office”. What that misconduct consisted of was not made clear (there is no indication as yet of it being part of Epstein story) but there are many possibilities because Andrew is a long-time sleazy grifter who took advantage of his privileged position to enrich himself while also cavorting with pedophile Jeffrey Epstein. So there is a lot for the police to look into.

Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor has been arrested on suspicion of misconduct in public office by police investigating the former prince’s dealings with the convicted child sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

In unprecedented scenes, unmarked police cars and plainclothes officers were seen at Mountbatten-Windsor’s residence at Wood Farm on the Sandringham estate at about 8am.

The former prince, who was stripped of his titles last year but remains eighth in line to the throne, was held in custody on his 66th birthday by Thames Valley police as officers searched the Norfolk property as well his former home in the Royal Lodge in Great Windsor Park.
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Mountbatten-Windsor has always denied any wrongdoing or accusations against him. Thames Valley is one of a number of police forces to have assessed allegations that resurfaced when the so-called Epstein files were published by the US justice department.

The force said previously it was reviewing allegations that a woman was trafficked to the UK by Epstein to have a sexual encounter with Andrew, and claims he shared sensitive information with the disgraced financier while serving as the UK’s trade envoy.

While Andrew had already been stripped of various titles and benefits by Charles, I thought that those largely symbolic punishments would largely be the end of it. Charles had ordered him to move into Wood Farm on the royal Sandringham estate. That was not actually much of a hardship, since it is not as rustic as its name might sugges.

Wood Farm is a farmhouse on the British royal family’s Sandringham estate in Norfolk, England. Historically occupied by members of the Royal Family and their guests, the house was a long favourite of Elizabeth II. From his retirement in 2017 until his death in 2021 the house was home to Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh.

Wood Farm is a five-bedroom cottage located in a secluded part of the Sandringham Estate, overlooking the sea. It has been described as a “comfortable open beamed cottage two miles from the ‘big house’”.
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The cottage is also a guest house for visitors who want “complete privacy.

The British royal family is given great deference so this move by the police was a surprise. I am pretty certain that Charles must have given tacit approval for the police to go ahead, given the reverence with which the royal family is held in by much of the British public.

In yet another sign of his fall from grace, after having a whole string of fancy names and titles that have been removed, the newspaper report on his arrest has the police describing him merely as “a man in his 60s from Norfolk”, which sounds like the first line of a limerick. He was also arrested at 8:00 am on his 66th birthday, which must have stung.

After his arrest, he was released after some questioning and asked to be available for further investigation.

Andrew, thanks to an indulgent mother who seemed to treat him like her favorite e child, from a very early age developed a sense of entitlement that resulted in him acting like a jerk, with massive blowout parties for his birthdays

Andrew has always maintained that he has no memory of ever meeting Giuffre, and that he committed no wrongdoing in any of his relations with Epstein, who died in New York’s Metropolitan Correctional Center in 2019, while awaiting trial on sex-trafficking charges. Nonetheless, in 2011, Andrew stepped down from his decade-long role as a U.K. international-trade envoy. In 2019, after a disastrous television interview in which he admitted that he had “let the side down” by his association with Epstein, Andrew stepped back from royal duties.

Just over two years later, Andrew was stripped of his royal patronages and military roles; soon afterward, he reached a reportedly multimillion-dollar settlement with Giuffre in a civil sexual-abuse suit, in which he admitted no liability. Last October, with the posthumous publication of Giuffre’s memoir, in which she alleged that she had had sex with Andrew on three occasions, he surrendered the use of his title Duke of York. Then—in what would once have seemed an impossible demotion—he was effectively stripped of his royal status altogether, and reborn as Mr. Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor. For a man whose identity was constituted around a sense of social superiority—according to Lownie’s book, if Andrew was met with insufficient deference upon entering a room he would loudly announce, “Let’s try that again,” before exiting and reëntering to hastily performed bows and curtsies—the reduction in status was surely a profound humiliation. Even Charles I, who was executed for treason in 1649, went to the scaffold as King.

This long history of entitlement was detailed in a biography of him by Andrew Lownie who says that this penchant for greed and grifting made him very vulnerable.

“That’s what the Chinese and Russian secret services realised – that the easiest vulnerability of the British establishment is the royal family,” says Lownie. “There’s no scrutiny. They’re greedy. They’re short of money.” And in Andrew’s case in particular, “they’re kind of immoral because of the way they’ve been brought up. And they mixed with lots of important people.”
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Mountbatten-Windsor at school was known for being a bully, a loner, supercilious, entitled, indulged. One story from Heatherdown says that he took someone’s exotic stamp collection, simply crossed their name out and wrote in his own, and was never punished. This foreshadows a toe-curling incident 30 or so years later, described in Entitled, quoting Tim Reilly, a former risk management executive. On a museum visit in Russia, Andrew “was angling to be given a Fabergé egg”, Reilly told Lownie. “Even they were stunned by his undisguised avarice … Putin could finish Andrew any time he likes with photos, tales and evidence he no doubt has on Andrew in Russia.”

Jonathan Pie also weighed in, suggesting that this is a very serious blow to the monarchy.