King should decide if laws are needed to remove Prince Andrew’s dukedom, minister suggests – UK politics live

Bridget Phillipson says that the government will be ‘guided by the royal family’ as calls grow for rule changes to strip him of his titlesGood morning. Bridget Phillipson, the education secretary and candidate for deputy Labour leader, has been doing an interview round this morning. She was meant to be talking about V-levels, a government plan to simplify and improve vocational education in schools in England. It is an important topic, albeit not an exciting one to people who don’t have children that might be affected. Instead, this being Britain, rather than a sensible, modern country, she ended up talking about the royal family.To recap: on Friday Buckingham Palace announced that Prince Andrew is going to give up using the title Duke of York in response to the revival of the controversy about his friendship with the late sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein and the claim (which Andrew denies) that Epstein arranged for him to have sex with Virginia Giuffre. Giuffre deied by suicie in April, aged 41, but her posthumous memoir is being published tomorrow.We would be guided by the royal family in this, and I imagine the royal family would want parliament to dedicate our time to our wider legislative programme. But we will be guided by them on it.Because the government, by long-standing convention, doesn’t involve itself in matters concerning the royal family. The royal family don’t involve themselves in the business of government, in terms of inserting themselves into the discussion. And it’s right that we respect that going the other way as well. Continue reading...