Transcription
There'll never ever be a return to public life for Prince Andrew. He, uh, there was only ever the slightest chance, but this program, uh, draws up the drawbridge and releases the portcullis on him, barring him forever.
My name is Michael Cole. Uh, I'm the former BBC Royal correspondent, uh, and public relations expert, um, reporter for 62 years and in the business, uh, for all that duration. I, uh, have known Prince Andrew since 1986. I started reporting upon him when he was only 17 years old, riding a horse in the Calgary Stampede in Alberta, Canada.
Have you watched *Scoop* and what do you think of it? I've watched *Scoop*. In many ways, it is essentially a tragedy. It is a man of high status and position brought down by hubris, simple stupidity, and a disastrous, ill-judged relationship with the late, unlamented pedophile Jeffrey Epstein. Uh, the bigger tragedy, of course, is that that was suffered by an uncounted number of young women, girls, children really, who were abused, trafficked, and maltreated by Epstein over a number of years. Uh, they are mentioned in the program, but perhaps not enough.
The program is about Palace politics, but it's also about BBC politics, and it's very much seen through the eyes of Sam McAllister, a producer at *Newsnight* who was fairly low down on the totem pole. But sometimes the worm's-eye view is the clearest one. And her view of what went on before this, um, interview was broadcast on the 19th of November 2019, is one of her attempting to get the interview, then bagging the elephant, so to speak, managing to bring home this interview. And what goes on in the BBC thereafter, and she ends up looking at the credits and sees that she doesn't get a credit for the work she's done. Uh, so there was that aspect of it, and her interrelationship with her producers, going up to the Director General Tony Hall, and her personal relationship, uh, with Emily Maitlis, the interviewer who did the interview, who walks around with a Yorkshire Terrier all the time, in and out of the studios, and in and out of the offices. So it's a human, personal story of her battle, her achievement, and how she feels quite clearly that she wasn't given the credit she was due.
But it's also about what happened to Prince Andrew on this, uh, ill-judged occasion. This was always a disaster. Uh, I don't say that in hindsight. Uh, on the day it was transmitted, the Saturday, I was on BBC up in Manchester on the breakfast show, 14 hours before the interview was broadcast. And the interviewer put it to me that this would clear the air as far as Prince Andrew was concerned. And I said, the reverse was the truth. It was an unutterable disaster for him. It shouldn't have been allowed to happen. I couldn't understand, somebody's worked both sides of the journalism and PR street, how anybody had agreed to this disastrous course of going on television and answering these questions. I said it would be something which would reverberate through the years, which, of course, it has. Uh, and that the repercussions would be very grave, mainly for himself. And within days of the transmission, he had to step back from Royal life, from public life. And ever since, he has taken, uh, the blows which have resulted in giving this ill-judged interview about an even more ill-judged friendship with with Epstein.
You know, we often see with, um, dramatizations of real-life events that there is this blurring of lines between fact and fiction. You've met Prince Andrew yourself. How realistic do you think *Scoop* portrays Prince Andrew? Of course, it's a dramatization, and it's admitted at the front of the program, the beginning, that, uh, some episodes are invented for dramatic effect. But overall, I think it's a work of art, of course, not a documentary, but it has integrity, and it is entirely plausible. It's entirely believable. With regard to the performance by Rufus Sewell, I think it is masterful. Uh, last seen by me, anyway, playing Lord Melbourne, uh, Queen Victoria's favorite Prime Minister. But in this, he, he does inhabit, uh, the character of Prince Andrew. I know reasonably well, and I, it is a most convincing portrait that he portrays. In fact, Rufus Sewell's portrayal of Prince Andrew makes you feel at the end rather sorry for Prince Andrew. But as a royal prince, a prince of the Royal Blood, you don't want people feeling sorry for you. You, you would like people to admire you, but you certainly would hope that they would respect you. You don't want people to feel pity for you. And of course, you do feel pity for him in a personal way. However, that pity is tempered with his, I can only call it arrogance or stupidity, because Emily Maitlis, during the interview, and I thought this at the time, gives him ample opportunity to offer his heartfelt apologies to the young women who were abused by his friend Epstein, and he repeatedly doesn't take the opportunity to do so. However, in the statement from Buckingham Palace, um, announcing his withdrawal from public life, it is made clear, because it was obviously drafted by somebody who knew what they were doing, that he, he did regret what had happened, and he hoped there would be a recovery by the women who had been the victims of this vile man in New York, uh, in the Caribbean, at his ranch, in in the American West, and elsewhere.
What is, um, terrible about the whole thing is that there'll never ever be a return to public life for Prince Andrew. He, uh, there was only ever the slightest chance, but this program, uh, draws up the drawbridge and releases the portcullis on him, barring him forever from taking part in public discourse and playing the role that he quite clearly enjoyed, uh, as a trade envoy for for the British government, and also with his various charitable endeavors. So in that sense, it's tragic. But one can only say, like most of the great tragedies in Shakespeare and elsewhere, uh, it's not the stars that are to blame, it's ourselves. The trouble, the trouble does not lie in our stars, it lies in ourselves, as Cassius says to Brutus in *Julius Caesar*.
So on a human level, you can feel very sorry for Prince Andrew. And, uh, I started reporting on him when he was only 17 years old, riding in the Calgary Stampede in Alberta, Canada. And I saw him when he was on board HMS Invincible as a helicopter pilot, and indeed on board another Royal Navy ship, HMS Brazen, when he was the helicopter pilot. And he served this country in the Falklands War as a helicopter pilot. And, uh, at the time, I interviewed him, his first ever interview in 1986, on the day his engagement to Sarah Ferguson was announced. Of course, it was also at Buckingham Palace, but it was a very different sort of interview. But in a way, it was the same, because at that time, he, and, uh, Miss Ferguson, who later became Duchess of York, and is now Sarah, Duchess of York, they were very candid, they were very humorous, they were very open. In fact, the interview which I conducted together with Anthony Carthew of ITN, it was a joint interview by BBC and ITN, uh, was so remarkable that it was reprinted verbatim in the newspapers the next day. And people said that it was the most, uh, remarkable Royal interview at that date ever recorded. Well, in those days, Royal interviews tended to be very rare indeed, and so there wasn't a great deal to measure the interview against. But on that occasion, he and his fiancée were bubbling with good humor and happiness because they'd just got engaged, and they were looking forward to a wonderful life together. Well, unfortunately, the marriage only lasted 10 years. And from time to time ever since, I went on the earliest tours with the Duke and Duchess of York, as they then were, around the world, and I got to know them in the sense that a journalist covering a subject ever gets to know that subject. And from time to time since, I've seen Prince Andrew, uh, on on various occasions, and he's always been very pleasant. I must say that of all the Queen's four children, he was the one I always found more amiable, more easy to get along with, and more open. And perhaps it was his openness in this interview, which should never have happened, by the way, that actually, uh, did him, did him, did him good on this occasion.
Do you think, um, because you talked about how when you watched *Scoop*, it made you feel sorry for him, you felt pity for him by the end of it? Do you think that perhaps your relationship with Prince Andrew prior to that has influenced how you felt? You know, if we take it to the court of public opinion, perhaps, you know, a lot of people in the public wouldn't feel that sense of pity. I think anybody, you know, to know all is to understand all, and is to forgive all, to some extent. I don't know Prince Andrew very well, but I knew him, and I knew him in happier times, in better times. When he served in the South Atlantic as a helicopter pilot, he'd done his duty, he came back, and he was very well regarded. He didn't, uh, play the part of a war hero. He was just a member of the crew of HMS Invincible. He did his job. I think any journalist meeting anybody for the first time, or for the second time, goes with an open mind, and you form your own personal impressions. Of course, over the years afterwards, maybe he changed, maybe he became more arrogant, maybe he became, uh, more dismissive with people. And certainly that, uh, features rather disastrously in this film, where he's, uh, unkind to a chambermaid over the arrangement of the the dolls, toys, teddy bears, or whatever it is, kangaroos on his bed. And he's shown not to be a man of, uh, to be admired in that sense. But I think what it comes down to is, she,
Do you think that, um, that example with the teddy bears on the bed, do you think that was realistic? I think, I think it was based on on something. Uh, certainly I've been in, I went in his private apartments, uh, when I did the interview with him in Buckingham Palace. Uh, it was full of sort of boys' toys, airplanes, tanks, cars, model cars, and so on. I didn't go into his boudoir, into his bedroom. I didn't see how many teddy bears he had on on his bed. Uh, of course, um, I've never had a close relationship with a teddy bear. I'm sure many other people do, though. And what even the strangest people, and the most unlikely people, talk about their teddy bears. Uh, you don't have to be in *Brideshead Revisited* to have a close relationship with a teddy bear. But that, of course, is something between that person, probably, and their psychologist, rather than me. I wouldn't condemn somebody for having a teddy bear, neither would I necessarily look up to them. I would just accept it as part of their character. So, of course, uh, I formed my own personal opinion. One never sees another fellow human being brought down with equanimity, or with any degree of pleasure, not if you're a proper grown-up human being. Schadenfreude is for the Germans. Enjoyment of other people's discomfort or disaster is not for me. So I'm sorry to see it. Uh, he's the, the Queen's second son, apparently, or said to be her favorite child, I don't know about that. But he, he wasn't a malicious person, he wasn't a nasty person. But over the years, perhaps experience and what he went through in life has calloused him a little bit, uh, and changed his character. What I see now, though, uh, is a man who has no future unless it's on the golf course, because he cannot return to public life. And this production, *Scoop*, which is one of two dealing with this very subject, uh, will make it even more difficult, because he's not held up to be somebody you can respect or admire, quite the reverse. And his disaster, apart from the actual disaster of agreeing to do the interview, was not to take the opportunity to express regret and to offer, uh, reparations as best as possible, and to do all the human things that I would hope to think human beings would do in normal circumstances. But on a human level, I can't help feeling sorry for him, in the same way I feel extremely sorry, uh, and concerned for the many young girls who, for whatever reason and by whatever circumstance, came into the orbit of Epstein, who by anybody's standards was an evil man.
I guess, you know, you said that you do feel sorry for Prince Andrew, but I'm sure many people would say this is a man who's now facing the repercussions of his own actions. You know, he is still living quite, you know, a luxurious lifestyle compared to the average person. You know, some might argue that he's come off quite lightly. I think that's a reasonable point of view. Uh, of course, he would see it slightly differently. He would see that what he had, he has lost. He's fallen a very great deal in his tragedy. And that, of course, is the nature of tragedy, the downfall of somebody in high position to the lowest of the low. And he has come down very low indeed. Uh, he, of course, and I think it's worth saying, has never admitted any wrongdoing. He's never been charged with anything, let alone convicted of anything. His big mistake, and it was a disastrous one, was to become friendly with Jeffrey Epstein. And even after Epstein was revealed to be a child abuser with a minor girl in Florida, and having served a jail term, partly on day release, uh, and then coming back into society, at the moment Epstein was convicted, at that moment, uh, he should have ended the relationship there and then. Had he done so, much of the damage that has been caused since may not have happened. But he didn't do so. And even four years later, he was, uh, he was close to him, visiting him, staying at his huge townhouse in New York, the biggest private residence in the city, uh, and apparently still on close terms with him, although in the interview, he said he went there that time in order to end the relationship. Whether that's true, we don't know, but we have to take it on the word of a Prince of the Royal Blood.
Do you think that the Palace will make any comment about this film? Um, you know, we saw that when the Princess of Wales, um, when she was going away for medical treatment, there was a lack of communication there from the Palace about what was going on. And some critics do suggest that maybe that helped to allow for conspiracy theories to flourish, because there wasn't any information there for people to base the truth of. Do you think that the Palace should make a comment? Will they make a comment? I think the damage has been done. There's nothing more that the Palace could say to make the situation any better or to clarify the situation. The facts are well known, they are well documented, they are now the subject of not one, but two television productions, because Emily Maitlis is doing her own one, which will follow in due course. Yeah, there's nothing to be gained by the Palace from saying anything. They can only hope, with the passage of time, uh, that recollections of this will go away. But in the meantime, people say, well, is it possible for Prince Andrew to return to public life? Well, I, I would say, quoting Muhammad Ali in a completely different context, there are only two chances of this: slim and none. And after *Scoop*, I would say the money is on none. It is not possible. People have seen in the raw, whether it's entirely factually accurate or not, the circumstances surrounding the interview, how it was given. It's enough to say that the, the character Amanda Thorne, his public relations advisor, played by Keeley Hawes, left the Palace employ very soon thereafter. Uh, and quite clearly, it was seen for what it was, a Grade A disaster from beginning to end. Uh, and the Prince was either given wrong advice, or he was given good advice that he then ignored. Either way, what happened was, uh, the most disastrous Royal interview by a human being, by a member of the Royal Family, could have been given. The circumstances surrounding the 1995 interview by Diana, Princess of Wales, to Martin Bashir, those circumstances were very, very different. Uh, and she obviously at that time had her purpose for doing it, although subsequently, circumstances have emerged which have called into question the whole enterprise and whether ever it should have been shown in the first place. But that's beside the point. From Prince Andrew's point of view, uh, revisiting this disaster four years ago, he's now 64. I think he can look forward to a life outside the Royal Family on the golf course, having, having his private life, maybe rebuilding his life with Sarah, his ex-wife, who lives at Royal Lodge, Windsor, in the middle of Windsor Great Park, a beautiful white wedding cake of a lovely house. He's got his private life, but his public life has been destroyed with no hope of rebuilding. And, uh, you can say he's lucky. I'm sure he doesn't, he doesn't feel that he's lucky in any way whatsoever, because everything he lived to do, everything he wanted to do, is now denied him. And rightly so, I think people will, uh, condemn him, and he will always be, uh, a pariah to many, many, many people because of one fateful, ill-advised, ill-judged, and disastrous friendship with Jeffrey Epstein.
AMC Studios are doing a three-part series about Prince Andrew, which will be coming out. Um, as we saw with the ITV sub-postmaster scandal, when they dramatized that, we saw that within the public, it reinvigorated debate around that subject. Do you think *Scoop* is going to have the same effect on the public, or do you think, like, as you said, that's what's done? I think, uh, everything that you need to know has now been aired fairly thoroughly. And if it hasn't, it will be in the next program. The only, uh, caveat to that is that there are civil cases going on in America by victims of Epstein, who will be taking action in civil cases, civil cases, not criminal cases, cases that are, uh, decided on the question of money, not jail time. So the story will be bubbling across the Atlantic. Uh, Prince Andrew hopes, uh, that he has made a settlement with Mrs. Virginia Giuffre, who was a 17-year-old, known as Virginia Roberts when he allegedly had sex with her when she was a 17-year-old in London, in New York, and on an island of Little St. James in the Caribbean. Uh, she, he has always denied that, and he continues to say that he cannot recall ever meeting this lady. Well, uh, it's strange beyond question that, uh, he should give 12 million, 12 million pounds in damages to a woman who says he's never met or cannot recall meeting. So he's settled that case. Whether the other cases which are going through the civil courts in America will bring him back into focus, only time will tell. He will hope that he's put the matter behind him, but of course, it's something he can never ever really put behind him. It will always be there in the background. And when his obituary comes to be written, which I hope is many, many years hence, that will be in the second paragraph.
Do you see this having a bigger impact on the Royal Family? Certainly *Scoop* doesn't come at an ideal time for the Royal Family, with both King Charles III and the Princess of Wales, Kate, undergoing treatment for cancer, and the ranks, the Royal ranks thinned out by illness. It certainly is not an ideal time for this to be resurfacing. But having said that, U Prince Andrew, Duke of York, was not in the calculations for Royal duties anyway. He's a, a combatant and will stay outside the magic circle of working Royals for the entirety of the rest of his life. So it's not a factor in that sense. But it is not a good look. It's most unwelcome. But we live in an open, plural society. Uh, one of the great things about being British and living in this society is that we have freedom of speech, freedom of communication, freedom of the press, uh, and a very large degree of freedom, uh, to the arts and, uh, and journalism. And that's one of the glories of this country, and long may it be so. If, if, um, if this hadn't happened, uh, then there wouldn't be these shows. The fact is, it did happen, and it's only right and proper that it should be aired, and done so in a very, um, responsible way. And there's no way that you can say that this production is not responsible. It's a work of art, of course, it's a work partially of fiction. And in a way, what it is, is not just about Prince Andrew, it's about Sam McAllister, this fairly lonely producer at *Newsnight*, and her story. And of course, nobody comes out entirely happy, because she had to leave, or decided to leave, um, the BBC after this experience, and decided to write her own book, so that her version of what went on is known. And she now works at the London School of Economics, teaching people about communication and reconciliation, and, um, and making arrangements, and, and making deals with people, and, and making, uh, a hard world slightly easier. So she has a new role. She's had her say. I'm sure she's quite satisfied with it. I, I've heard her quoted, or read her quoted, saying she's thrilled to be portrayed by Billie Piper, who of course does an extremely good job, as does Keeley Hawes, as does Rufus, uh, way, Rufus Sewell, Rufus Sewell, and Emily Maitlis, of course, is played brilliantly by Gillian Anderson. Gillian Anderson, I think, is a supreme actress on television. I would always say, if somebody said, what's the best thing I've ever seen on television, or one of them, was Gillian Anderson playing Lady Dedlock in *Bleak House*. She was absolutely brilliant, and she brings her skills to bear, uh, playing Emily Maitlis. I don't think, uh, the BBC politics, if you're interested in such things, I think is portrayed in a faultless way, with people taking the credit that isn't their own, and making sure the people who did the other work don't get the credit. All of that is entirely believable to me, who worked at the BBC for more than 20 years. I saw it happening on a daily basis. That's what happens in bureaucracies like the BBC. So I believe all that side of it. And the Palace politics also rings true. It was a surprise, a chastening surprise, to see how inept, uh, it all was, and how random and haphazard these decisions were. And of course, it was a disastrous decision. It's one that Prince Andrew will always have to live with. With the Queen, incidentally, did not veto him during the interview. She said, she said to him, her her second son, "I trust your judgment." Well, I'm afraid she was mistaken in that.
What do you think the Queen would think of *Scoop*? Well, I think she wouldn't watch it. She, on television, tended to watch things that she had a fair chance of enjoying, so I don't think she would watch it. I think she would be inured to this by now. Already six years, nearly six years on, coming up in in November, uh, she would be, she would be very sorry about it and be well aware of it. And of course, when the decision had to be made, when it was transmitted and immediately seen as a disaster, she acted. And she said, well, you better stand back, you better, you, you know, make yourself scarce. It was, it was put forward that he'd taken the decision to step back, but there's no doubt about it, the Queen told him that he had to take that, that decision. But from very early on, from 12 hours, 14 hours before it was transmitted, when we'd only seen clips of it, I went on television on BBC Breakfast Time, and then on other radio stations and television stations around the country, and I said, this is a disaster. And at the time, people felt, certainly people within the BBC, felt that he would, he would have his say, and that he would in some way clear the air and answer the allegations that were were made against him, and answer them satisfactorily. Well, that quite clearly was not the case. Um, and speaking with my public relations hat on, I don't know how on earth anybody could have allowed it to happen, because it was the wrong decision.
You've met him before, you know him well. What would you say would be going for his head? What would his plan of action be? I would say to him, look, um, there is nothing you can do. The facts speak for themselves. Accept the fact. Inure yourself to the fact that you're not coming back to play any sort of public role. Public life, Royal life, is over. Your patronages, your military ranks, your, your, your dignity and distinguished roles, it's all over. This is what has happened. The best thing you can do is to be contrite, to be quiet, to carry on as unobtrusively as possible. If the opportunity arises that you can do some good work in an unobtrusive way, without attracting publicity, do it for two, three, three, four, five years, and then allow somebody else to say that you've carried out this work. If you want to rehabilitate yourself in the eyes of the people of this country, there's only one way of doing it: knuckling down and doing something worthwhile. Don't seek credit for it, don't seek publicity for it. Do it very low-key, on a personal level, and make sure that what you do is important and worthwhile and makes a difference. And then stand back and do something else, and let somebody else who you've been working with tell the world, if they choose to, what you've achieved. That is the only way. Otherwise, uh, you've got a life which may be pleasant. It's certainly better than being the eye of a storm every day, but it will be confined to the golf course and private pleasures, and the pleasure of being a grandfather, and seeing your daughters and their families grow up, as a private person, and maybe think yourself lucky you've got away with it. But on the other hand, you've paid your price. Michael Cole, thank you very much for.