Article

2023-12-24 Britain

[DECLAS] The government is blocking the release of all information about Andrew’s decade as a taxpayer-funded trade envoy. This culture of unnecessary secrecy needs to end, says royal biographer.

Documents are the lifeblood of historians, the tools with which we build our picture of the past. For most historians and biographers there is a surfeit of sources to draw from, ranging from documents in public archives and private collections to accounts in books and interviews.

For the royal historian, however, there is very little beyond often inaccurate press cuttings, and briefings by "sources" in royal circles.

This is because there remains a deference and culture of secrecy with regard to the royal family.

They are largely exempt from the Freedom of Information Act and the Royal Archives have no public inventory — rather like a restaurant with no menu. What papers are deposited in the National Archives are subject to a series of exemptions, and those who have worked with the family are almost inevitably subject to confidentiality contracts.

Writing about the royals operates on a lobby system with favoured journalists fed titbits, tame writers rewarded with positions on quangos and those who choose to operate outside the cosy arrangement marginalised.

We have the absurd situation of publicly or covertly authorised biographies of royal figures, of members of the royal family appearing on American chat shows talking openly about royal life, where Prince Harry can write about the most intimate aspects of royal life from a few months ago for commercial gain, and royal households constantly briefing against each other, yet historians cannot see files which are 100 years old.

This is the mark of a banana republic and not a mature democracy.

Posted by Besoeker 2023-12-24 08:42|| || Front Page|| [11142 views ] Top

#1 Andrew’s decade as a taxpayer-funded trade envoy.

You mean like Hunter Biden? Have sales districts been established? Are comely young maidens sometimes shared ?

Posted by Besoeker 2023-12-24 09:05|| 2023-12-24 09:05|| Front Page Top

#2 He was "important" by birth. Didn't we fight a war to get away from that?

Posted by M. Murcek 2023-12-24 09:08|| 2023-12-24 09:08|| Front Page Top

#3 ^ you might ask Harvard about that.

Posted by Procopius2k 2023-12-24 11:43|| 2023-12-24 11:43|| Front Page Top

#4 The thing about opening your books, is it establishes a history of opening your books.

Posted by ed in texas 2023-12-24 12:07|| 2023-12-24 12:07|| Front Page Top

#5 Bill CLinton is off the list as well, Hillary is on it but not Bill, or Oprah....

Posted by 49 Pan 2023-12-24 14:31|| 2023-12-24 14:31|| Front Page Top

#6 I’ll take my guess at what Andrew was hiding. Perhaps, he was doinking underage girls. Speculation on my part. It’s sort of ss ridiculous and ineffective as Liberace hiding his homosexuality

Posted by Super Hose 2023-12-24 14:42|| 2023-12-24 14:42|| Front Page Top

#7 ^ Wait. Whut? Liberace was gay? Get outta here!
Next you'll be telling Siegfried and Roy were...

Posted by Frank G 2023-12-24 14:44|| 2023-12-24 14:44|| Front Page Top

#8 Next you'll be telling Siegfried and Roy were...

It goes deeper than you think... the tiger was a ventriloquist.

Posted by SteveS 2023-12-24 15:08|| 2023-12-24 15:08|| Front Page Top

#9 I’ll take my guess at what Andrew was hiding.

Being just another one of those German aristocrats with peculiar tastes?

Posted by Procopius2k 2023-12-24 19:17|| 2023-12-24 19:17|| Front Page Top

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