The Lownie Report Podcast: When I Met Fergie & The 'Jolly Good Chaps' Theory of History

The updated paperback of Entitled is out now and I'm thrilled to announce that it is this week's Number One Sunday Times Bestseller! Order your copy here with 50% off! https://amzn.to/4vlOJME Subscribe to The Lownie Report Podcast on Substack here for exclusive new material and extracts from my books! I'm delighted to share this week's Lownie Report Podcast where we discuss the latest developments regarding Andrew and Fergie and also cover some pertinent parallels taking us back, via Mountbatten, to the Cambridge Spy Ring and how I first learnt about the British establishment's cover-up playbook while writing Stalin's Englishman: The Lives of Guy Burgess. We cover a fascinating 1997 TV interview with Sarah Ferguson that has recently been uploaded to YouTube by Ruby Wax. It was recorded when some of her biggest early scandals were only just in the rear view mirror. Wax's inimitable interview technique is highly effective in revealing as much about Ferguson's modus operandi post-scandal as the multitude of reasons she gives for her mistakes. She claims ignorance and naivety in her consistent attraction to the wrong men and bad decisions, refers to the solace of the words of St. Francis of Assisi, compares herself to Morgan Freeman's character in Shawshank Redemption and doesn't demur when Wax generously posits that she's actually more of a Robin Hood figure, since she donated some of her £5m Coutts overdraft to charity. As I wrote in Entitled, the former Duchess would wheel out exactly the same excuses after the scandals that peppered the following three decades of her career, ostensibly outside the Royal Family but very much operating within its protection via her ex-husband. I also discuss my meeting with Sarah Ferguson when I began work on my book back in 2022. She had all the charisma you might expect and brought her recent Mills & Boon book and some Ginger & Moss products as a gift, and initially seemed co-operative. Discussions with her team carried on for a few weeks before interviewees began to drop out and letters from lawyers began to drop in through the letterbox. The conversation also looks at the mixed messages coming out of the police investigation, with briefing that seems contradictory at times, and how there seems a distinct possibility that if no charges are brought, the public will be told the matter is closed as far as the crown and the government are concerned. We also look at what effect this has actually had on the Royal Family and whether anything substantial has changed in respect of public accountability and transparency, and why the 'good chaps theory of history' might win out again, as it has for so long before. As Harold Macmillan famously said: "When my fox is killed in my garden, I bury it in the garden. I don't bring it into the front hall." An apt metaphor for how the establishment covered up for Andrew until Virginia Giuffre and the Epstein Files forced them into action. 00:00:00 — Introduction & Paperback Goes to Number One 00:01:52 — Commonwealth Interest & Shifting Royalist Opinion 00:02:57 — What Surprised Me Most: Fergie's Finances & Andrew's Predatory Behaviour 00:03:44 — MI6, Intelligence Cover-ups & the National Security Dimension 00:04:54 — Epstein as One Player in a Much Bigger Operation 00:07:29 — Epstein, the CIA & the Intelligence Wilderness of Mirrors 00:08:19 — The Police Investigation: Real or Performative? 00:10:27 — The Fawcett Parallel & the Establishment Stitch-up Playbook 00:12:01 — Charles, Fawcett & Royal Nepotism 00:15:04 — My Meeting with Sarah Ferguson 00:19:06 — The Ruby Wax Interview & Fergie's Jekyll and Hyde Character 00:22:21 — Mandelson, Charles & a Network Nobody Has Exposed 00:23:55 — Foreign Investigations: More Chance of Justice Across the Channel? 00:25:08 — The Cambridge Spy Ring & the Cover-up Playbook 00:27:35 — Who Is the Fourth Man? 00:29:18 — Attacks on My Credibility & the State of Royal Journalism 00:31:01 — Money Laundering, Shell Companies & Andrew's Accountant 00:32:19 — Why the Press Won't Challenge King Charles 00:34:07 — Royal Fan Armies & Who You're Allowed to Criticise 00:37:10 — Have I Started the Next Book? 00:38:06 — Has Anything Actually Changed?