992: Royals | Skeptical Sunday

992: Royals | Skeptical Sunday

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[00:00:00] Jordan Harbinger: Welcome to Skeptical Sunday. I'm your host, Jordan Harbinger. Today I am here with Skeptical Sunday Co-host Andrew Gold on the Jordan Harbinger Show. We decode the stories, secrets, and skills of the world's most fascinating people and turn their wisdom into practical advice that you can use to impact your own life and those around you.

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Just visit Jordan harbinger.com/start or search for us in your Spotify app. To get started today, we're going to embark on a fascinating journey with our guest, Andrew Gold. Andrew is the host of the On the Edge with Andrew Gold Podcast that looks into cults true crime and the royal family, and, uh, my what a diverse sort of set of topics.

That is Andrew Today, he's here to help us navigate the somewhat turbulent waters of a truly intriguing topic for many of us, the relevance and fairness of the British Royal family. Andrew, as we begin our discussion. Let's lay down the foundations, the British royal family. This is a centuries old institution, a lineage steeped in tradition, weird tradition that I don't quite understand.

A legacy that has significantly impacted the UK's culture, politics, and history from pillars of Constance like Queen Elizabeth ii, who died after reigning for 70 years, which just sounds exhausting, even reading it. And Queen Victoria, after whom an entire era was named, and we even use that in the United States.

For whatever reason, the Victorian era lasting 63 years to flashes in the pan like Prince Harry and Meghan, who jumped ship essentially. The royal family's really fascinating, varied, and has a lot of flawed characters like I guess probably most people's families do, but you know, it's more so in the world stage.

But here's the question. Considering the significant changes we've seen in the world over the past few decades, a world that a. In theory, aspires to be more democratic, more transparent, more fair. Is the royal family, do they hold relevance today? In other words, this might just be very American of me to say this, but why the hell do we even care about these people at all in 2023?

[00:02:53] Andrew Gold: That is a substantial question, Jordan, and it's one with well without a straightforward answer, and it wouldn't be skeptical Sunday if it was simple. So yes, the monarchy doesn't have any real political power anymore, but there's still a big deal in British society. They stand for continuity tradition, and they're a big part of the country's history.

Mm-Hmm. The British monarchy is a constitutional monarchy, which means that the sovereigns, so the king or queen's role is largely ceremonial and symbolic with real political power lying in the hands of elected officials in parliament. As such, the royal family does not directly participate in the day-to-Day governance of policymaking in the country.

They do however, have roles and influence, they meet heads of state from other countries. They officially appoint a prime minister. Hmm. They actually do that. But I mean, it's just a tradition they do, you know, it's ceremonial.

[00:03:49] Jordan Harbinger: Right. So it's like, this guy's the new Prime Minister, you have to say yes now.

And they're like, fine with my blessing. And they do something with a sword and we're good. Is that kinda Yeah. Well, exactly.

[00:03:57] Andrew Gold: And, and you know how it gets when somebody gets elected that is quite controversial. And I think the most controversial in recent years was probably Boris Johnson. Mm-Hmm. Uh, who was seen as like a Trump light kind of character.

I mean, he

[00:04:07] Jordan Harbinger: even had the weird hair. Yeah. It's so on brand. Somehow, but he came first in politics anyway.

[00:04:14] Andrew Gold: Uh, well in politics, Boris for years I suppose. Yeah. But in terms of Prime Minister, I'd have to check who was prime minister or president first. But it was roughly the same time, wasn't it? Mm-Hmm. Boris for his whole life, looked up to Winston Churchill.

He wanted to be another Winston Churchill. And the funny thing is now he's now remembered as another Trump. Really? Yeah. So it's not what he wanted. I think he sees himself as a much swing swinging and a miss folks. Yeah. He sees himself as a far more educated character and a far more subtle or whatever, but he's not very subtle in his personality.

Yeah.

[00:04:42] Jordan Harbinger: By the way, I wanna qualify that. Whatever you think of Trump, he's not Winston Churchill. And that's just all I mean by that. So I don't want people to be like, yeah, ah, Jordan's an anti. I'm just saying if you compare those two guys and you're on the same reality as everyone else, they're just, they're very different.

And I'll leave it there.

[00:04:57] Andrew Gold: Yeah, I agree. Yeah, no problem. Vote for who you want to. Right. And I don't, you know, but yeah, Winston Churchill is different to Trump. I mean, it, it's the education level. It's, Boris was very highly educated and, and wanted to be seen as this super intelligent guy. So that was the, I.

The issue there,

[00:05:12] Jordan Harbinger: what the hell was he thinking then if he wanted to be seen? I mean, I wanna be seen as a super intelligent guy, let me go outside in like shorts and a track jacket to the press with my hair looking like I just got, it's so deliberately ridiculous.

[00:05:29] Andrew Gold: You've hit on it. Right? It was deliberately ridiculous and it helped him get away with so many scandals because it was always like, oh, you know, he was almost doing this Hugh Grant.

Mm-Hmm. Impersonation. And people didn't really pick up on that, but I've always thought they've got very similar voices and ways of speaking. Hugh Grant and all the nineties rom-coms and Boris Johnson, they look as different as can be, but the voice and it's sort of, oh gosh, he's just, boys are being boys.

Until it got to a point where he had lied so many times that the country gave up on him and now he's not very popular in any quarters. Mm-Hmm. Now Mm-Hmm.

[00:05:59] Jordan Harbinger: I know he got, one of the reasons was, didn't he have a bunch of parties when he was like, COVID, lockdowns. And then he was like, but not for me. I'm gonna have a bunch of parties and there's gonna be a bunch of documentation and videos and photos of it.

Yeah,

[00:06:09] Andrew Gold: that was it. Yeah, that was it.

[00:06:11] Jordan Harbinger: Interesting.

[00:06:11] Andrew Gold: He got in trouble for that and he, he was lied over and over again. You know? He doesn't mind lying. Apparently he's a politician. Well, that's it. That's the point is politicians, and that's what they do, unfortunately. But the point was because he was quite a controversial new prime minister, a lot of people, maybe more on the left were saying like, oh, the Queen should step in.

She's gonna step in. It's like as if she would do that and like what that would mean for democracy in the country. Just because you didn't get the person you wanted. I understand if it was literally somebody who's saying we gotta go out and kill people. Mm-Hmm. But Boris wasn't doing that. You know, that would be awful if the Queen did step in and do that, and she didn't.

And she looked very composed and lovely and fine and, and had to anoint Boris as the prime minister. So they never say no. That's the point. But they do hold private meetings with the Prime Minister. God knows why and what they talk about. It's all very hush hush. It

[00:06:59] Jordan Harbinger: seems so senseless. Yeah. What is why Nice fluffy thing you got there, uh, your Highness.

Yes. It's been in my family for 400 years. What is that? I have no idea. Alright. Well thanks for driving all the way down here. I mean, I know. Yeah. None of it makes sense

[00:07:15] Andrew Gold: to be a fly on the wall as, but you know, that did happen a lot with Prince Charles at the time, and he wasn't the king of course. And, and Tony Blair.

And there was a lot of talk of political influence from Charles, which people weren't happy about. But the point is they're supposed to play a big ceremonial role, the royals that is Mm-Hmm. At the same time, I would just like to dispel the myth that the average Brit is any more obsessed with the royal family than say Canadians.

Personally. I started researching the Royals. The reason I started doing them on the podcast is just realizing how interested Americans were Yeah. In the royals because. It's ultimately a gossip reality show. It's the Kardashians or whatever, and we all find ourselves glued to the social hierarchies and tribe dynamics.

But growing up myself, I couldn't have told you the difference between Princess Anne and Princess Margaret, or who the Prince now King Charles's brothers were. Although my namesake Andrew obviously has those links to the girls in Jeffrey Epstein's horrible islands.

[00:08:09] Jordan Harbinger: I wasn't gonna bring that up, but it's funny when you mentioned those two, like having private meetings, I was like the political influence.

If we really knew what those guys were doing, we'd probably be, well either really disgusted like they were doing something gross, or they'll be like, yeah, I'd rather have, people think we're doing inappropriate political influence than having them know that we're together playing. Uncooked too, or whatever on the Xbox for hours every week alone in the basement of Buckingham Palace, because it's a less embarrassing if they just think we're like shagging underage girls instead.

Yeah. I mean, like who knows what's going on. Yeah. It's probably way less exciting than people think, but it is true that many Andrews that I know are sketchy bastards with questionable taste and morals. So go on.

[00:08:54] Andrew Gold: Yeah. Yeah, that is a problem. I get on YouTube commenting all the time. People just go, Andrew's a bastard, Andrew's a p, and these kinds of things.

I'm like, what? Wait a minute. Oh, right. The other guy, the other Andrew, please, can everybody put Prince beforehand so that we know who we're talking? Maybe. Maybe you don't wanna give that title to a person accused of doing what he's done, and I, I say accused because again, a lot of people get very angry and defensive and say it hasn't been proved and all that stuff, and okay, fine.

But the point is the royals, that they serve a purpose from a British perspective. Mm-Hmm. The crown is said to bring in tourism. Many people visit the UK to check out the various castles and museums packed with diamonds and rubies and historical paintings of ghostly former kings and queens. Mm.

Buckingham Palace brings in thousands of tourists, as do Windsor Castle and the Tower of London. I used to work right by the Tower of London at the newspaper job at the Sun. My first ever job really, I was 21. And it's a fascinating site. The place, because it was initially built the Tower of London that is not the sun as a residence for William the Conqueror.

So we're talking 11th century, but in the 18 hundreds it was a zoo with exotic animals that were held in the tower, which is really weird. Yeah. And it was also a prison and that's where most interest lies. And the sort of ghastly Goey past of history apart those parts of history. Well, the Tower held many prisoners, including Henry the Apes wives, and Berlin and Katherine Howard.

Many of them met a grizzly end there. So one of the arguments, and there are a few for the monarchy, is the influx of tourism, money, intrigue, and history.

[00:10:26] Jordan Harbinger: Well, yeah, it's almost like you could have tourism and history without currently supporting these people, but that's probably something we'll talk about in a minute.

Basically, my point is I think history is still there, even if the royal family is no longer there. But I would even say that the tourism spots are just as interesting, maybe even more interesting, because we could see all of them. You know, you can't go into Buckingham Palace and see the whole thing, right?

Because the royals live there. So if they weren't there, you could see the whole thing. Just saying. Some people. Would probably argue that the monarchy is a little bit like a dinosaur. And I would imagine it's not just Americans saying that there's gotta be Brits who are like, wait, how much money do we give these schmos again?

Oh yeah. And in a world that values democracy and equality, I just can't get over. It seems like having a monarchy, it's so out of place. It's something you expect from Saudi Arabia, not the uk, and the cost of keeping it all going, you have to subtract that from the tourism dollars or the pounds. Yeah.

Tourism pounds,

[00:11:20] Andrew Gold: absolutely. Right. And. I would imagine, to your point about British people being anti monarchy, probably the most fervent anti monarchists are British. I mean, in America you probably are either, either you love the monarchy and some people do, or they're fascinated by the royals, or you don't care.

Yeah. Like why? Why would you care that much about this far-flung place that has this sort of fairytale weird stuff going on? Yeah. Whereas in England, if you're like, Hey, I pay my tax pounds and I'm doing all the, you know what? What the hell are these guys doing there? Yeah. You paid for Kate's hat. One of many, many hats.

Yeah. I want to get to choose her hat if I'm paying for it. So it did not escape the public's attention that King Charles II's coronation in 2023. It cost a hundred million pounds. That's $127 million.

[00:12:03] Jordan Harbinger: That's a breathtaking amount of cash. For something that, and I'm gonna be a little bit gross, but fully honest here, you're gonna have to do that again in like 10 years, right?

Yeah. I mean, he's not, he's no Spring chicken King Charles. He's

[00:12:15] Andrew Gold: not. He's not. And yeah, I mean, the jokes for years in England or in Britain, I should say. Were that the queen would outlast him and you know, these TV shows and sitcoms would portray him as scheming against his mother because he wanted her out the way so he could take on the crown.

'cause if that's something, it does seem silly and ridiculous, the royalty and all that, the royal family. But if you've grown up with the sole purpose of like, you are the person who is going to be the king that is your role and you're like 70 and you still haven't gotten to be that thing, it must play on your mind.

I

[00:12:47] Jordan Harbinger: would

[00:12:47] Andrew Gold: imagine. So,

[00:12:48] Jordan Harbinger: yeah,

[00:12:48] Andrew Gold: it does cost a fair bit to keep the monarchy going, maintaining their homes, paying the staff security and all of that. And there's a bit of a lack of transparency because no one is exactly sure how much comes out of our taxes and how much comes from the Royals personal wealth.

[00:13:04] Jordan Harbinger: Wait a second, this is skeptical Sunday. So we can't just say, eh, we're not sure. You don't know how much, where does the money come from? You gotta show me the money. I just assumed I. This was mostly funded by their own investments over the past centuries with some public facing stuff like the tourism through Buckingham Palace and all the stuff that they don't use.

That is just like you said, tickets to a zoo slash prison slash castle. That stuff I would imagine is taxpayer, but I figured the rest is like, you're rich and famous and we keep you that way, but like you have to pay for it. That's crazy that you're, is it just that we don't know, like you and I or nobody's telling you how much of your tax money goes to this?

[00:13:46] Andrew Gold: Okay, so I can tell you what we do know because I've done some research. Mm-Hmm. But the average person doesn't know most of this, and you have to really sort of dig in to get to this. The British royal family receives funding from the public. That's me, but also about 70 million others who sound a bit like me, although some sound a bit like that, you know, London accident work.

Yeah,

[00:14:06] Jordan Harbinger: some do indeed. Some I can't even understand, frankly. Yes.

[00:14:10] Andrew Gold: Well, those would be the Scottish up north, but, but they've got beautiful accents depending on the person, of course. But we are paying a lot of this, and it's through what's known as the Sovereign Grant. The sovereign grant is an annual payment made to the Monarch by the government, which comes from the public purse.

It's starting to get all like Hogwarts, the public purse and the sovereign grant and the this and that. But basically, yeah, taxpayer money. The Sovereign grant is calculated as a percentage of the profits made by the Crown estate. So the Crown estate is a collection of lands and holdings in the United Kingdom, owned by the Monarch, which is the king or queen, such as agricultural lands, residential and commercial real estate.

And some areas of the seabed, apparently. Hmm. The Crown estate is managed by an independent organization with the revenue it generates going directly to the Treasury. And then a percentage of this is given back to the Monarch as the sovereign grant. Hmm. So the sovereign grant is used to cover the official expenses of the King's household, including official receptions, ceremonial functions, property maintenance and staff costs.

It also covers the cost of royal travel for official duties 'cause those are so important. In addition to the sovereign grant, the monarchs of the king or queen has personal income from private estates, which is the Dutchie of Lancaster. That's basically a, a portfolio of property. The Prince of Wales, which is just the Prince, that's the son who's gonna be king at the moment.

That would be William has income from another estate called the Dutchie of Cornwall. These are historical lands and holdings that provide the Queen and the Prince of Wales, or now the king, I should say, with personal income, the King and the Prince of Wales. While the royals do contribute to the economy, particularly through tourism related to royal palaces and ceremonies, and indirectly through the revenue of the Crown estate, their direct funding for official duties does come from public funds.

So again, me and the impressions I did before of someone from London and someone from Scotland, although I am from London, but don't have that accent. It's also worth noting that the cost of security for the royal family is covered separately by public funding and is not included in the Sovereign grant.

Oh gosh, this is complicated.

[00:16:17] Jordan Harbinger: Okay. That is a mouthful and kind of complicated. So it sounds like it's a very fancy way of saying that they are. Living in public housing and on welfare. But you know, that's again, that's the American in me.

[00:16:32] Andrew Gold: That's, no, it's a great point. And I can't remember if we're gonna cover this in a bit, but among the royals, this is a known thing that it's sort of, they wouldn't admit this, but it's sneered upon, it's looks down upon for people to earn money.

Whereas the American dream is this whole thing of like, you know, somebody who comes from nothing can rise up. And obviously we have that same aspiration in the uk, which is why a lot of people don't like the royal family and that kind of upper class. But the snooty upper classes, which I imagine is the same in the States as well, the really upper, upper echelons old money, we call it old money, and they're

[00:17:01] Jordan Harbinger: basically like Brits that came over loaded and stayed that way.

Yeah, yeah. Got be. Yeah. Yeah. That kind of thing. Yeah. That's interesting. I never even thought about that. But even in America, I will tell you this, this is kind of. A little dark, but uh, recently a billionaire died in a, a fire, he was 70 something years old. He died in like a fiery racing car crash while he was driving.

And people were like, oh, that guy never earned a penny in his life. And people were like, actually, he's the CEO of these companies and his general director of these three companies. And then other people were like, let me just clarify what that means. His name is on documents because his dad or granddad started the company.

But even then, even when you are old, money rich, don't really have to explain anything to anyone. You will still spend time and or money. Or just energy looking like you do something other than exist because it's so looked down upon to be a guy who's just loaded for absolutely no reason in this country.

[00:17:57] Andrew Gold: Okay. Yeah. That's the opposite to the Royals then. But they are, they don't represent the typical British feeling. 'cause I think we are more sure geared to, we're very similar I think in that sense with American, the individualism and you know, anyone can succeed kind of thing.

[00:18:11] Jordan Harbinger: It's strange because you would think, that's why I can't really relate.

Right? It's a completely different mindset. It's like, if I were to be Prince tomorrow, but I'm still me, I would be like, oh crap. I need to really figure out how I look like I deserve any of this. Whereas they're just kind of like, I deserve this because I am part of this weird inbred German family, and I'll ask you about this later, but like, I'm part, I was born into this position and thus my work is done.

That's what it looks like.

[00:18:37] Andrew Gold: Well, that's the issue that, and we'll talk about this in a bit as well, but that's what Harry and Meghan, that's why Prince Harry is right now, because yeah, imagine being in that situation and you are not the one who's supposed to be king. So it's like, what, okay, I was born and then I die.

And there was some stuff happened in between that, but it wasn't really relevant to anybody. And everything was easy to me. Like I'd rather be that than impoverished, but I, I would rather be sort of, as long as I can make ends meet, I would rather be that than born into the royal family. You know

[00:19:03] Jordan Harbinger: what's better than some inbred German DNA, the fine products and services that support this show, we'll be right back.

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Please consider supporting those who support the show now for the rest of skeptical Sunday. Yeah, interesting. Slightly possibly misguided thing, but I'm not him. Okay. So I will say security for a family like that. Is in the tens of millions of dollars annually. And so I, I would imagine that would be covered by the public funds just because otherwise it's untenable.

Friends of mine ran slash run personal security for Elon Musk, mark Zuckerberg, who coincidentally might be fighting one another in a boxing match that, or a MMA fight that I and millions of others cannot wait to see, which I, I doubt it's gonna happen, but holy crap, do I wanna see that each of those guys has a multi seven figure security budget annually, and they're not royals and the family isn't nearly as large as the royal family we're talking about like Zuckerberg and his immediate ish family and possibly some in-laws.

So that stuff gets very expensive very quickly when it's somebody who's even more famous, more wealthy, and has, I, I don't know how big the royal family is, but there's a lot of random people that you don't think about and they all have a security detail, so. That stuff is tens of millions of dollars annually, like I said.

So, alright, let me see if I've got this right. They just seem to own lots of land and stuff and that land generates revenue because it's maybe being used for farming or fishing or whatever, or tourism. That money goes to the UK government as it should, who then give a percentage back to the Royals to pay for stuff because at some point the Royals owned all the land in the whole country or whatever and the government gives more money that is from another source, I guess taxes to cover their security in addition to that money.

[00:23:18] Andrew Gold: Yeah, yeah, yeah. As I said, it's like, it's super complicated and weird 'cause it's like there are many steps there that feel like they've given back to them to give back to them and it's like, why have we done that? It, I, I am sure that it seems

[00:23:28] Jordan Harbinger: a little deliberately confusing so that you don't find out that they're getting like $3 billion a year from the treasury to exist.

Exactly. Yeah. I

[00:23:36] Andrew Gold: think so. And it, it, it's why no one's really sure whether they do pay for themselves. If they no longer existed as royals, would they then have to give up all all of this land? All of this land and these money spinning endeavors? Would the country then be richer from owning these, these things outright?

You know, it wouldn't be the royal family's land. It would be ours now. And what would we do with it? I don't know. Would the economy improve or would the government mishandle these properties and land as they often do and tourism might dry up? So these are unknowables. Mm-hmm. All we know for sure is that while they certainly generate tourism revenue and their estates contribute to the public purse, they do also receive a significant amount of public funding.

[00:24:16] Jordan Harbinger: Yeah, that's true. Right? You can't just make it for public use, because what good is a bunch of random seabed for public use. So you sell it to a company that does something with it and they're like, great, we're gonna drill it for oil. Oops, we ruined it. Well, that was cool for 20 years, and then it's just destroyed forever, or not used for.

What it was before. It's hard to say somebody has done the legwork on this, but it's a little bit in the weeds and I'm glad we're not gonna cover that here. Okay, so the cost and benefits tricky to balance. Then again, look, the US has national parks. We don't need a king or royal family to make sure that those national parks don't go to crap overnight.

So maybe I'm missing something there. Another thing that gets talked about a lot is fairness and with more and more people struggling in the uk, in the us, the monarchy, which is all about privilege and wealth, it gets a lot of flack and I kind of feel like they might deserve it, but how do you see the fairness issue?

[00:25:05] Andrew Gold: Yeah, I think this is what's making the Royals more and more irrelevant and is probably their biggest challenge as a company. And that's essentially what they are a family company. They're often known as the firm. It sounds all a bit Moby. It does. They have a big cult leader head of the company and their role is to seem as relevant as possible so that they can continue to bring in money, live lavish lives, and lead the commonwealth.

You know, if they lose popularity. People are gonna start to look in more detail into the kinds of figures, the money that they are taking. So they've hit a bit of a snag with current culture because culture took a big move towards progressive politics in recent years. Just look at the way we are now reflecting on the bad behavior of actors and musicians and other celebrities from decades ago.

We expect our celebrities to be more clean cut nowadays, to be fair, hardworking, decent individuals. And the same goes for our monarchs. Well, that doesn't work. You see these attempts by Charles to be, for example, an environmentalist. You see William and Harry doing work for mental health charities and asking that.

We talk more about our mental health. William is starting the new enterprise now to try to eradicate homelessness and good on him. I think these are really good things, but the problem is that they're now trying to appeal to the progressive side of the political spectrum. And that's the very side in which a monarchy with a divine birthright and billions of dollars in assets, cash can't exist.

It can't work. So they're in a bit of a bind. If they remain snobbish and aloof, they appear less relevant and less likely to continue receiving funding and res and support if they piggyback on the wave of progressive politics. Mm-hmm. They alienate the traditionalists. Who are the only ones who would support the idea of a royal family.

[00:26:46] Jordan Harbinger: That is a bind. That is an interesting point. So what can they do? Is this eventually gonna be the end of the royal family? I just can't see how they stay relevant forever. I mean, so far so good. But still as an American, it's so tempting to wanna just check the sell by date on concepts like divine birthright.

When we're essentially, again, we're talking about. Inbred Germans at the end of the day.

[00:27:10] Andrew Gold: Yeah,

[00:27:10] Jordan Harbinger: I'm sure the traditionalists love it when I say things like that too. That's probably deeply insulting, but whatever. I don't know Harry. Yeah.

[00:27:16] Andrew Gold: Well, I don't know. Maybe even they can joke about that. I'm sure there were jokes about the German heritage and things like that, and maybe even, I don't know.

I, I, I would love to be a fly on the wall, but I don't know if they're joking about the sort of rumors of incestuous lineage. I think that all royal families are slightly inbred because they aim to maintain that pure blood, not to get all Harry Potter or Nazi about it, but also to get the sort of, um, tactical collusions between different countries.

It was strategic, so all the royals were into marrying. Prince Albert, who married Queen Victoria in the 18 hundreds was German, which is where a lot of the German talk comes from. And the late Prince Philip, who was married to the Queen, queen Elizabeth II, was also part German, part Greek. So the whole German thing happened with that.

And it's become a sort of running joke, I guess. I dunno how funny they find it. The royal family, a lot of people speculated that the whole thing would gradually disintegrate after the death of the Queen. She was such a figurehead and a symbol of constancy. Mm-hmm. And longevity for people that even the most fervent anti monarchists weren't too bothered about her being there.

You know, at the end they sort of had a. The respect for her. If you look at the obituaries of Queen Elizabeth, I second, well, very few, knew very much about her personality or if she even had one outside of what we projected onto her. People spoke all the time of her being very funny. She had this amazing sense of humor.

But I think that was more out of surprise because she was so stern looking. She wasn't exactly Seinfeld, you know, she was, we grasped at personality traits that we wanted her to have, and I think that was deliberate, perhaps on her part. Sure. She knew she was a symbol, the head of a country, a figurehead, that while the country was divided by politics and ever changing political landscape and the fear of change and technology, she remained ever present.

So her obituaries were all about her dedication, her duty, her longevity. She was simply there.

[00:29:11] Jordan Harbinger: I do have stuff to say about that, but how is that fair though? She was simply born into ridiculous money and went around in like a gold fricking chariot while many of her subjects struggle to put food on the table.

I mean, it's, it's a little gross. It just, it's a little gross. It.

[00:29:27] Andrew Gold: Yeah, you're absolutely right and it's not fair. I agree with you. The monarchy is all about privilege. It's all about who you are born to. A lot of people see that as unfair as you and I do, but I think that most people were patient and understanding of that, providing that the queen remained apolitical, I see.

Kept herself to herself, performed her duties, and held up this stiff upper lip in times of adversity. Then for a lot of Brits, she was a connection to history, a symbol of who they are as a nation. But for that to work, she had to remain stoic, a bit boring, a bit su and stern, as I say, and somehow other worldly, like she's not a real person.

She was this sort of grandma figure for the whole country, and she was always there, and then one day she wasn't. I think if you want to see how quickly that can turn, look to Prince Harry and Meghan Markle. Reports from polls recently showed Meghan at minus 47 points popularity and Harriet minus 36 for perspective.

Princess Anne, who most people don't know who that is. Oh, I've never heard

[00:30:28] Jordan Harbinger: of Yeah, yeah.

[00:30:29] Andrew Gold: Is at plus 60. They love her. Prince William is at 57 plus 57 and his wife Kate is at plus 59.

[00:30:37] Jordan Harbinger: Uh, it's so funny. It's like I just have no clue who most of these people are. I do know, of course, who Kate and William are, but Ann and some of the other folks, I just, I feel like I've never heard of them before this show.

Meanwhile, Harry and Meghan are like the most talked about couple in the United States anyway of the last year or two. I feel like a lot of the people think that maybe they're disliked because of racism, because I guess Meghan is, I. Mixed race, which, what do you say to that? I, by the way, I heard the term mixed race is that is polite in the us but I've told it's racist to say that that way in the uk.

Is that correct? I don't think so. Okay. Who told you that? Somebody was like, you can't say that. You have to say half. And I'm like, what? But what if they're not half? What if they're like a quarter? That doesn't make any sense. No, no.

[00:31:21] Andrew Gold: You can't say half. You can't say half. The old word was half cast, which is now that sounds not allowed.

[00:31:27] Jordan Harbinger: Not good. Okay. So this person just had it backwards completely. 'cause half sounds not right at all to me. They were trying to get you in trouble? I think so. I think so. Or maybe this is an Australian telling me that not a uk I don't know. Now I'm curious what Australians say, good arm, although do we look to Australia for as bastions of polite society?

I don't know, Mike. Yeah.

[00:31:47] Andrew Gold: Yeah. It look, the, the racism thing is, is very possible. I'm just doing my Australian Mm-Hmm. Accent. Very possible. I think it is very possible, plausible, even it's unusual to have ethnic minorities of any kind in the royal family, and it is something that the press have picked up on.

In fact, in another poll, 50% of British journalists said they believe there has been some racist coverage of, oh, wow. Meghan, one example was a reference to her exotic, DNA. Ooh, cringe. Another example often, yeah. Is Cringe. Cringe. Yeah. Cringe and horrible. Another example often touted is journalist Sarah Vine in the Daily Mail, whose headline was Yes, they're joyfully in love, so why do I have a niggling feeling or niggling worry.

I think it was about this engagement picture. That's so deliberate. Yeah. Yikes. If it is, it's just like the worst thing ever. But maybe it's not, but maybe it is and it's the worst thing ever. Yeah. So I, I don't know. Yeah. Yeah. So another one, this one was a little bit awkward, right? It's gonna sound bad at first, but this one was, I actually believe the guy, it was a former BBC personality or presenter, Danny Baker, who tweeted a photo of Royals holding a chimpanzee when Baby Archie, that's Meghan and Harry's son was born.

Oh, wow. But Danny had previously tweeted photos comparing all the members of the royals to zoo animals. He found it funny to suggest that royals were like chimps. He said The photo of a chimp dressed as a Lord was a way of lampoon privilege, and the racist elements hadn't crossed his mind. It's so bad

[00:33:13] Jordan Harbinger: that I almost believe him, because otherwise it's so bad that he's,

[00:33:18] Andrew Gold: you've got a guy with like no history of saying particularly controversial things.

Mm-Hmm. Particularly nothing like racist or, or anything like that. Who suddenly tweets out this photo, oh man. Of the royal family with a chimp. So he said in like, this is a quote. In attempting to lampoon privilege and the news cycle, I went to a file of goofy pictures and saw the chimp dressed as a Lord and thought that's the one.

Had I kept searching, I might have chosen general Tom thumb or even a baby in a crown, but I didn't. God knows, I wish I had minutes later, I was alerted by followers that this royal baby was of course, mixed race and waves of panic and revulsion washed over me. What had I done? It was a genuine, naive and catastrophic mistake.

So I guess only he'll know what his intentions were. He instantly deleted the tweet and apologized, but was fired. Oh, immediately by the BC? Yeah. Lost his job. Never got back to the same standing.

[00:34:11] Jordan Harbinger: Ah,

[00:34:12] Andrew Gold: but vilified. 'cause I think a lot of people just go, I don't care what he says.

[00:34:15] Jordan Harbinger: Yeah.

[00:34:15] Andrew Gold: But he does raise an interesting point because many people, including me had no idea that Meghan was of mixed heritage until that tweet.

It seems mad to think that now, you know, it does.

[00:34:23] Jordan Harbinger: I honestly just, when I first saw her, I just thought she was like. Really tan, which I know could get me canceled. Even saying that she's beautiful, I didn't, but it didn't occur to me that she, I had, I just don't pay enough attention. I just thought she was very, yeah.

Tan or dark skin, obviously I have no, I had no idea. I.

[00:34:40] Andrew Gold: God.

[00:34:41] Jordan Harbinger: Oh my God. I

[00:34:41] Andrew Gold: agree. She's clearly a very beautiful woman, and I lived in South America for like eight years. Could be South America, could be Latina, could be Jewish. I got a lot of Jewish friends who look like that, and it turns out she's mixed race, you know?

Fine. But I, I believe this guy when when he says that he didn't know, it's too awful. It's like, why

[00:34:57] Jordan Harbinger: else would he do that? Yeah. It's just too awful to have been anything other than a mistake if he hasn't been like flirting with white nationalism his entire career and this was the final step, right? Then it's like, okay, buddy, you got your just desserts.

But it sounds like he was just ni naive to the point of torpedoing his own career. My goodness.

[00:35:15] Andrew Gold: Which some people would say is problematic, which is a word I don't like to use. I know some people would say, well, that's an issue then if you didn't know. You need to be more connected. You need to actively know that doing that has been done in the past, and that me is mixed, right?

You need to know these things. I wouldn't say that, but I think some people would argue that point. Do you know what I mean?

[00:35:33] Jordan Harbinger: I do. I mean, he's a journalist, right? So it's almost like you shouldn't just be willy-nilly do it, but then again. It's just really, that was a minefield and he found himself in the middle of it, and he didn't, he made a misstep and he couldn't find his way out.

That's what that was. I mean, I guess that's what it looks like from the, the context you've given me. Yeah. So I don't want people to be like, you're justifying I'm not. I'm just saying, holy crap. I, if it was an accident, which it looks like it might be, I really feel for the guy. The Royals have the same issue, though.

Like they can't do anything at all without also having that same level of scrutiny applied to them in a very unfair and ridiculous way.

[00:36:08] Andrew Gold: Well, that is true. But then a lot of the other accu, uh, accusations, sorry, of media racism revolve around comparisons between Meghan and Kate, who is of course white.

And when Kate eats an avocado, it's like, look at this brilliant person who's eating an avocado. It's a fantastic new age idea. You should all eat avocados too. And when Meghan eats an avocado, it's like, she's killing the rainforest. Don't, you know what? And there's like loads of pictures of that. So there definitely is some of that.

But then, then you've gotta go, well, okay, is that racism or is that to do with the different behaviors of Kate and Meghan, or is it somewhere in between?

[00:36:37] Jordan Harbinger: Yeah. Oh God, it's hard to know. Which is just racism or just some bias held by the press, or just whoever's polling that week is viewed with a rose colored glasses or, or vice versa.

Oh gosh. I don't envy these people at all. As rich as they are, I still don't, I still would never wanna be in their shoes, honestly.

[00:36:54] Andrew Gold: Yeah. Well so that's the thing. You know, going back to my point about. The queen and duty and all of these things. It's the fact that we don't mind people having immense privilege providing that they are aloof other worldly distance and you just weird little things that don't seem like real people.

Mm-Hmm. Kate performs that role, you know, to perfection. She's almost inhuman. I don't think I'd want to be friends with Kate.

[00:37:17] Jordan Harbinger: I don't think you can. I mean, even if you were in that circle, I don't think, are they even allowed to have normal friendship and interaction? Wasn't that kind of the complaint?

[00:37:26] Andrew Gold: No, I think they do, but it's all like a little bit.

The word incestuous keeps popping into my head now, but it's all just very etonian. As in they went to Eaton College, the posh school in the world. I don't think Kate did, by the way, and she was called in the papers when she started. There was a lot of about her family not being quite as posh, even though they're much posh than the vast majority of the country, but not as posh as the rest of the royals.

So I think for her it was about showing how posh and graceful she can look as though she was a, an Eaton college, whatever. Whereas for Meghan, it was a whole different thing. So Kate turns up, she does all of her duties. These are charities, events, galas, whatever it is, and she smiles and Curt sees and remains apolitical, stiff upper lip and so on.

She retained a dignified silence even when the press invaded her privacy, as they did many times, they think there were photos of her naked sunbathing somewhere and she didn't say anything just, and I'm not saying that that's an admirable trait or a good way to act. I don't think we should encourage people to be so boring and and just go, okay, well I don't mind.

I just think that people in general don't mind that privilege of the royals so much in those cases. William is the same. Harry on the other hand, has for years been stumbling drunk out of parties. He dressed up as a Nazi. Oh yeah. That was cute. And has now released, yeah, he released a book now about his own victimhood.

Geez. Now these are things that if a friend of mine did it, it's like, oh, you, what have you done? You know? Yeah. But people don't then wanna look at this super rich person who's born into wealth and see somebody claiming they're a victim. No. And I read that book Spare and it's full of scenes where he complains and moans about how hard things were for him.

And they were hard, you know, his mom died and the, the paparazzi were all over him. But it makes him seem more human and flawed, and that makes people realize how privileged he is. He's no longer this sort of ghostly queen character. He's like a real person who sees himself as a victim and is complaining.

There's a scene in the book when he's at Eaton College, the world's POS high school, looking out the window, and he's telling us the reader how lucky everyone outside that window was compared to him. Well, Eaton is a beautiful college and a beautiful place, but it's surrounded by low income areas such as SL and stains.

That's where those

[00:39:35] Jordan Harbinger: just sound like low income areas. Those have been low income areas for centuries. But given the name right, they, those are Unbeautiful names.

[00:39:41] Andrew Gold: SL was the chosen location of the British office, the original sitcom, the Office, because it sounds so du and boring. That's the whole point. It does.

So that was Slough and Stains. That was Ali G, Sasha, Barron Cohen. His first character was Ali G, and he was from Stains. So again, these were places chosen for that. They're right outside Eaton. People are sometimes struggling, by the way. I don't want to say that everybody in those places is, you know, it's difficult for them.

It's just that they're not the same as Eat. Mm-Hmm. So people are sometimes struggling to put food on the table for their families, and they're being told by the Prince. They're lucky compared to him.

[00:40:15] Jordan Harbinger: That's like big. Let them eat cake vibes. Hearing something like that, are these places dangerous? Because Ali GI remember that's when he had the do-rag and like the ridiculously loud clothes and he used all these improper phrasing and didn't know what words meant and was basically like super ghetto gangster.

Talking and looking guy, but UK version.

[00:40:35] Andrew Gold: Yeah, I think they might have been some time ago. I don't know how it is right now. And also I wouldn't want to, your, your reach on the Jordan Harbinger show is so large that just saying that could actually reduce house prices further there. So I don't wanna,

[00:40:47] Jordan Harbinger: well, I just wonder, is it like South Central LA where it's like, do not even drive through there?

Or is it like, yeah, you don't wanna buy a house there, but you could go eat in the neighborhood and leave and it's fine.

[00:40:57] Andrew Gold: I think it's a second option there. Mm-Hmm. But certainly people who Harry shouldn't be envying, he was envying them because they don't have police escorts everywhere. And I do understand that point.

They, they can live their life without that privacy they invasion. But I wish in the book, he just, at times, because I agree with him about that, I just wish that at times he said like, however, I do understand that I was born with immense privilege and that it must be very difficult for these people in another way.

And he doesn't say that. There's another scene in, in the book that frustrated me in a similar way where he was out in South Africa doing some press. Or something with his dad and he hates the press because he thinks they killed his mom. And I get that as well. He happens to be with the Spice Girls 'cause they were on the same sort of tour.

I dunno why the Spice Girls and the Royals are touring together, but they just were in the nineties. And the Spice Girls, he sort of describes them. He snes at them and he is like, oh, look at them the way they were just fawning over the cameras and blah, blah, blah. But the Spice Girls were mostly working class women who had to work extremely hard by flaunting it, by dancing, by singing.

And they were talented at what they did. And Harry meanwhile is this guy, obviously he was a kid at the time when he was getting photographed with them. But now as an adult, he's looking back and he's unable to realize like the immense privilege he had compared to them. So that frustrated me a little bit.

So with Meghan, it's a similar backlash for what is perceived as an attempt to play the victimhood card. That's what South Park was suggesting about her as well. And I think that inspires in the public a sense of competition. It's like, look, you can't compete with the queen or the king for status, money and power.

So you just see them as like some different league. But by making victimhood the key part of their strategy, Meghan and Harry brought themselves down to our level. And we can all compete for victimhood. We love to compete for victimhood, right? And we don't want to hear it from people with a combined wealth exceeding anything most of us can ever ev imagine earning.

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That's a really good point. You're either, yes, I exist in a completely different plane, and that's the way it is in yada yada royal family. Or you play the victim card as they've chosen to do, but it's really hard to do that credibly when you're hanging out with Oprah. Yeah. And you have your bodyguards flying you on private jets and stuff like that because of the paparazzi.

It's like, mm, you are not going to get in the weeds and win on that one when somebody's like, yeah, I am a single mom with four kids that I can't really feed without food stamps, and they didn't arrive in the mail or like, whatever. You're just never gonna get there and do it in a credible way. And they're still being paid pretty damn good money too.

I presume Harry's got some money already, as does Meghan from her acting. Maybe not millions and millions, but it probably, and then it's gotta have just skyrocketed with their recent deals, right? They've get had a Netflix thing, they had a podcast thing. Do you have the details on that?

[00:46:46] Andrew Gold: Yeah, yeah, that's right.

A, a big recent fur was around whether Harry could get the Royals to pay for his security whenever he was in the uk. Mm-Hmm. And his father, Charles was like, we're not doing that. You left us and you gotta make your own way. They were paid a hundred million dollars in 2020 to produce series documentaries and children's shows for Netflix.

They were also paid $20 million by Spotify to make podcasts. And Harry got $20 million for his book spare, which I read. So you don't have to, as I like saying he made this whole thing about his privacy being invaded and then he wrote this book impinging upon the privacy of pretty much everyone he ever encountered in great detail.

Yeah. At least when it's the press doing it, it's like, okay, Harry can shut the door and ideally they're not gonna hack his phones, which he's saying they did and they might've done. But this is like detail about the person he first had sex with and what was going on. Like only he could know that. And like details about his dad doing like handstands.

He did these weird headstands or handstands just in his underwear in the house and stuff like that. And he's supposed to be this elderly statesman. And now we are, listen, we're reading this in Harry's book. So the impinging upon free, uh, privacy stuff was just mad.

[00:47:51] Jordan Harbinger: Come on Andrew. How's a brother supposed to get by on a measly $140 million and plus whatever they'd saved from their previous careers as a-list.

Celebrities slash royals pay for your own damn bodyguards. Look, they're expensive, but $140 million. Yeah, that can go a long way. I feel like you could get by on the interest on that. Yeah. Even if you needed millions of dollars worth of security. It's ludicrous. It's unfathomable. Yeah.

[00:48:16] Andrew Gold: I imagine that. Just admit to a few millions, done okay, you don't have to worry about my life anymore.

And he is got hundreds. It's ridiculous. And as for duty, that's the other thing about God. I'm starting to rant a bit here and I don't mean to 'cause I want to be a neutral, skeptical Sunday person, but duty obviously that being important to the Queen and the King and Prince William. They were supposed to make several films, Harry and Meghan, for Netflix as part of the a hundred million dollar deal.

Yeah. And they made one, it's been three years they've made one film. Well, and it's not like they're the filmmakers who have to go and like get the cameras and get the, how are we gonna get the acoustic panels in the studio on the wall and stuff. It's just like, sit on the sofa and talk for 20 minutes.

And somebody else will do all the work and make the documentary for you. Like

[00:48:57] Jordan Harbinger: show up is the thing you have to do. Show up vaguely knowing who you're about to talk to and try to make it interesting. That's it.

[00:49:03] Andrew Gold: Yeah. Mm-Hmm. Just didn't do it right. They were supposed to make many podcasts as well, and podcast episodes.

They made like one series in three years again, and it had about 10 episodes. So again, you know, I look at what you've done, Jordan, and what I've done. We are in the hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of these episodes where at least from the start, we're doing every single part of it. Mm-Hmm. And this is why I'm bitter.

I started to get bitter 'cause we're doing every part of it, and then I'm being told that they're victims. It's rumored that Meghan didn't even dein to interview the low status individuals on her podcast. That was done by producers. That's alleged anyway. Mm-Hmm. The podcast head of innovation at Spotify has come out incredibly and publicly stated that Harry and Meghan are effing Griff, can we swear?

[00:49:48] Jordan Harbinger: This is Bill Simmons from The Ringer. So he is a well-known sports personality, and he's like the head of development or something at Spotify podcasting. I'm not exactly sure his position, but Yeah, he said they're grifters. Yeah. But he, he was, it wasn't like, oh, they're freaking gr He's like, there's a bunch of grifters.

Like he was, he was fired up.

[00:50:08] Andrew Gold: Yeah. Because they don't do any work and it's like, Mm-Hmm. Either stick with the royal family and just do your thing. Or if you wanna be taken seriously, go out there and work really hard and people will respect it. She just got given the world's most famous people to be on her show.

Mm-Hmm. Any other podcast? And I bet there are a lot of podcasters in your audience and a lot of people who are looking to make TV series and things like that. Yeah. How difficult that is when you're starting the first episodes, trying to get guests to come on, stuff like that. Look, I'm not saying that Harry and Meghan are evil or bad people even, and I think they're actually right about a lot of the things that they're upset about.

They have a cause to be upset. The point is that they've made it so that you can compare yourself with them. They brought themselves down to our level and now it's like open season. We all feel like we didn't get these starts that they got and they, they call themselves victims. Mm-Hmm. Whereas Kate Williams, Kate, for all I know, you know, she eats babies.

I don't know what she does. She might murder whoever, but she lives on a different planet from me. Yeah. She's not telling me that she's had it harder than me. I don't even care, you know, I don't know about her aspirations, ambitions. I wouldn't say I have a lot of respect for her or William or any of these people.

And perhaps they don't have ambitions and aspirations, and that's probably a good thing. Yeah. There's no point. Why bother? Yeah. Just you live your life, do your thing. You're a princess or you're a prince, you're a king, a queen. Do your thing, Charles, William, you know, who are these people? Who cares? So I think that's why Meghan and Harry get so much bad press.

They made it so that they're competing with the rest of us.

[00:51:33] Jordan Harbinger: Yeah. I can't imagine starting a podcast and they're like, oh, who do you want to interview? Barack Obama. Oprah. Maybe you could have like Jay-Z to spice things up a little bit. I don't know. What about the Rock? Yeah, I don't. Just name whoever you want, Elton John or something like that, and they'll drop everything.

They'll make it work for your podcast, we're gonna pay you $20 million. Maybe you do like 36 episodes and you do Yeah, 10. Yeah. And they're like, nah, we'll do 10, but we're gonna like mail it in. And then I don't, I don't know if I want to write these TV shows and by right, I mean, sit in a room while other people flip ideas at me and I approve them and then do some voiceover or whatever.

It's crazy.

[00:52:15] Andrew Gold: Who was your first guest? Do you remember?

[00:52:17] Jordan Harbinger: Oh gosh. Like 16 years ago? No, I don't remember. You don't remember your first ever guest? No, no, no, no. On this new show. It was Frank Abignail from Catch Me If You Can. Oh wow. But I'd already been podcasting for 11 years by then. So it's not like I just called Frank Abignail, who turned out to be a scammer, by the way.

Like his whole story's a lie. It

[00:52:38] Andrew Gold: was a scammer pretending to be Frank Open. No, no.

[00:52:39] Jordan Harbinger: So Frank Abignail of Catch Bay, if you can, for that movie, right? He's that big scammer and he goes through that whole thing and now he's like a consultant. Turns out none of that ever happened. He just lied about it. He was like a petty criminal and it's all bullshit.

[00:52:51] Andrew Gold: That's amazing though, isn't it? Yeah. That's almost better. It should be the final scene when, uh, Leo climbs out of the airplane toilet and it's just like, by the way, none of this happens.

[00:52:59] Jordan Harbinger: There's a director's cut waiting to happen where at the end he is like, Hey, that whole thing you just saw never happened.

Yeah. So there the whole thing, he never worked. The FBI like it's all bullshit. It's just all bullshit. The whole thing about him being this prolific scammer is also just a scam. He was in jail for check fraud during most of the time that he said all of these other things happened.

[00:53:18] Andrew Gold: Wow. That's amazing.

[00:53:20] Jordan Harbinger: And he won't talk about it.

[00:53:21] Andrew Gold: Well, I'm not surprised. Yeah. My first guess was, uh, Nate Phelps, who was the son of Gramps Phelps from the Westbrook Baptist Church. Oh, well, I mean that's a decent one too. It's no Oprah. No. It's about finding people I suppose, who are not like super famous, but the things they've done are pretty like insane.

And everyone know the things they've done are famous, but they're not famous. And those people are who you can get at the very beginning.

[00:53:41] Jordan Harbinger: There you go. Okay, so all this controversy, nonsense. Has that been good for the monarchy because. It looks bad if you're in the monarchy and you're old and you're like, we want everything to be completely staid and tried and true, but also they thrive on the drama and publicity.

So because people have been so put off by the showiness of Meghan and Harry, I. Have they sided maybe more with the royal family and it's like, oh, I'm more sympathetic towards these people who maybe I didn't like so much before. Could there be a resurgence in public goodwill towards the Royals in life?

Even beyond the Queen? I basically, they're almost like a foil character now. Mm-Hmm. That puts the other one where you're like, God, I just miss when they were boring and not embarrassing the crap out of everybody.

[00:54:24] Andrew Gold: Yeah. Yeah. I think that's definitely true. And I definitely have, whenever I've criticized Meghan and Harry, I've definitely had people going, oh, right, and you think the royals are perfect?

And it's like, what? No cool straw man. You know? It's become this, this real tribal thing. You've gotta be one or the other. Instead of thinking the whole thing is just bananas, which I do think so. I think so. And I don't know if it's necessarily a good thing for the royals, the whole Meghan, and you know, my enemy's enemy is my friend, that kind of thing.

Mm-Hmm. It's hard to know how that's gonna play out in the long term. People see Charles perhaps as a victim of a deserting son that could help. Mm-Hmm. Rather than the short tempered mean man, which he appears to be. He's also, you know, he's meddlesome having gotten involved with former Prime Minister Tony Blair writing secret letters to one another.

It's a huge faux pa for the Royals. And he doesn't come across King Charles iii. This is, he doesn't come across well in the Netflix series, the Crown, where he is portrayed as this cold conniving antagonist. So Meg sit, or the exit of Meghan and Harry might have helped Charles and taken the attention away from that portrayal of him in the crown.

Whether the Crown can continue. I mean the real life Royals, not the TV series remains to be seen.

[00:55:31] Jordan Harbinger: I just have to slow clap for the term that is Chef's Kiss. Perfect. That's so funny. I've never heard that before.

[00:55:39] Andrew Gold: Yeah, it wasn't mine. I think it's been talked about a lot in the UK papers and stuff after Brexit makes it.

Man, that's hysterical.

[00:55:46] Jordan Harbinger: God, that's

[00:55:46] Andrew Gold: funny. We do that with words, don't we? Like, you know, Watergate or whatever. Suddenly everything's a gate. Now everything in England is a zit.

[00:55:53] Jordan Harbinger: Yeah, well you remember when the iPhone, the new iPhones were bendable. If you put 'em in your back pocket and sat down, they would sometimes bend and they called it Bend Gazi, and it was like, it's still just so tragic but funny.

The actual Benghazi was tragic. Like anyone gives a crap about the iPhone design. It's like, this is such a big deal. We have to name it. Oh God. Yeah.

[00:56:13] Andrew Gold: That's it. That's it. Look, some really value the tradition and heritage that the monarchy stands for, and for them it's a key part of being British. Mm. Others see the monarchy as something old fashioned, something that doesn't fit with today's democratic values.

They'd rather the UK was a republic. What the public thinks can also change depending on how popular different members of the royal family are. Personally, I'm not one way or the other. To me, they're just sort of their existing. It doesn't bother me, although it is mildly ridiculous. One thing I'll always remember is the comedian and public intellectual, Stephen Fry, of whom I'm a great fan.

Speaking about the royals, he always has something interesting to say, a different angle or outlook. Countries, that's how he talks. Countries that have kings and queens, I won't do the whole impression, which are rationally stupid, weird ideas are empirically freer and more socially just than countries that don't look at social justice, happiness, and equality in the world.

And your thinking. Sweden, Denmark, Norway, Britain, and Holland. I'm not saying therefore, you must have a king or queen in order to be free. Having one doesn't stop you from being freer. From being opener. These are very open societies, Denmark and Sweden and Norway in particular. And so similarly, I'm not necessarily in favor of separation of church and state.

I come from a country, the uk, where church and state are absolutely like that, and it's the most secular society I've ever experienced. It has the highest level of atheism anywhere in America. They have separation of church and state, and 74% of Americans think angels walk on the earth.

[00:57:49] Jordan Harbinger: Wow. Okay. I didn't know that.

That's a, I wonder if that is that stat. True. 74%. 'cause that's a lot. That's high. That's too high. That's what Stephen said, and it's a bit of a dig in America. But I suppose what Fry is saying is that the monarchy might be considered one of those mad irrational things that actually helps in some ways.

Have you given much thought as to why that might be?

[00:58:10] Andrew Gold: Yeah. Well, firstly, we have to consider that it might be a coincidence that these free or so-called free Democratic secular societies. All have royalty. Perhaps it says something about the age of the countries that have had centuries to work out what their ideals and philosophies are.

Maybe due to the tribal nature of humans, having a head of state who is essentially powerless, but nonetheless a symbol. One we can't choose, but are just sort of stuck with just sort of works. It can be said to take some symbolic power away from politicians. The head of state in, say the US is Biden or Trump or George W.

Bush or Clinton, and these are all divisive figures, but also revered figures. I'm just thinking about how like roads, street signs are named after presidents and things like that. Mm-Hmm. They can sometimes be celebrated and hated an equal measure just for being these elected figures. Whereas I think we are more likely in the UK to have a royal family member, you know, king George Avenue or something like that.

We would never have a Prime Minister's name in a street sign. It sort of takes away that symbolic power of the politicians. Again, pointing to our tribal nature. It's possible that if you have a president, so a head of state who appears to be particularly conservative, you might then in response become a bit more liberal and vice versa.

But you don't need to respond to the queen because nobody knew what she supported anyway, she was this empty slate onto which we projected our own desires. Ah, this is just conjecture, but with church and state, the reality is that religious beliefs have a very limited effect on laws in real life in the UK where things like abortion are legal and not even questioned really, even by the religious right.

The head of state is King Charles iii, and he is the head of the Church of England. So there's no getting away from that. It's weird. Mm-Hmm. The Church of England even has 26 bishops in the House of Lords, so they do have a vote on certain policies. It gets complicated because the Church of England's role is limited to England, so there are different heads of churches in Scotland, for example,

[01:00:11] Jordan Harbinger: and they sort of invented the Church of England.

Right. Take us through that little bit of history with Henry viii. He kind of literally made up a religion so he could get divorced from the sound of it.

[01:00:20] Andrew Gold: That's right in, in that sense, I suppose he was an old fashioned El Ron Hubbard, the science fiction writer who made up Scientology Henry viii, did make up the Church of England to get out of his marriage to Annuli with Catherine of arrogant, which sounds like a Lord of the Rings.

It definitely

[01:00:37] Jordan Harbinger: does.

[01:00:37] Andrew Gold: That's some Game of

[01:00:38] Jordan Harbinger: Thrones

[01:00:39] Andrew Gold: nomenclature

[01:00:39] Jordan Harbinger: there.

[01:00:40] Andrew Gold: Catherine of Aragon, I'll take you back, Jordan, to the roaring twenties, the 1520s, everybody smelled bad, had rotting teeth, which is also like Scientology founder, L one Hubbard, as he hated and feared dentists, his teeth rotted into his face.

That's why he

[01:00:54] Jordan Harbinger: talks funny, huh? I did. I knew he, because for talks for a little bit like gl and I was like, why did he do that with his teeth? Yuck.

[01:01:00] Andrew Gold: That's also like an old worldy thing. 'cause that's like, um, Marlon Brando in The Godfather with the stuff in his, he put stuff in his face, didn't he? Like a chipmunk?

So he would talk like,

[01:01:09] Jordan Harbinger: yeah, that's right. He did talk funny, but I don't know if maybe, but it was it because his teeth are rotting into his face. 'cause he didn't go to the dentist. I don't know.

[01:01:16] Andrew Gold: I'm gonna make you a proposition. Did you? Yeah. Something like that. Yeah. But yeah, the 1520s, Henry Thei has been married at that time for 20 years, which is a long time actually to Catherine of arrogant.

And she's just not given him a male heir at all. She's just not done it. And also he fancies and. Henry sought the Pope's permission to annul his marriage or null his marriage to Katherine, arguing that their marriage had been invalid from the start because Katherine had previously been married to his late older brother Arthur.

There. We get all the inbred stuff as well. Oh yeah. However, the Pope refused to grant the annulment. In response, Henry decided to break with the Catholic church. He pursued a series of acts known as the Acts of supremacy, which were passed by Parliament in 1534, and declared Henry to be the supreme head on Earth of the Church of England and lovely big Scientology kind of name as well.

This effectively created a separate Church of England and severed its ties to the Pope and the Catholic church. Hmm. Henry was then able to get his marriage to Catherine annulled by the newly independent Church of England, and he married Anne Berlin. This move had far reaching consequences and marked the beginning of the English Reformation.

[01:02:29] Jordan Harbinger: Wow. I mean, here. Wow. He must have had a hell of a crush. Annie B. Also, the Pope lost a ton, uh, T-O-N-N-E of power by refusing to bend the rules For this one, I have to say, I think I almost admire that level of conviction from the Pope, and I'm a little surprised by it because he had to be like, I. Huh? This entire country in Royal family is gonna leave if I don't let him slide on this one thing.

Nope. These are the rules.

[01:02:54] Andrew Gold: Yeah.

[01:02:54] Jordan Harbinger: Good on

[01:02:55] Andrew Gold: him. Yeah, he's thinking the same thing. Like, I don't have to, I want to get a divorce. I'm not doing it. So what? Mm-Hmm. I dunno if the Pope can get mad. I doubt it seems like a priest thing. It does. Oh yeah. It's worth noting though, that while Henry's desire to divorce, Catherine was a major catalyst for these events.

I'm talking about the English Reformation that it sparked. Yeah. There were other factors at play including political considerations and wider dissatisfaction with the Catholic church at that time. But this all led to the English Civil War. And the only time that England didn't have a monarchy from 1649 to 1660.

Anyway, they're back maybe for good. And so for the moment, England, the monarchy and the religion are intrinsically linked and you can't have one without the other two.

[01:03:37] Jordan Harbinger: So was that the only time ever that England was a republic? How did they get rid of the monarchy for a decade? I have my suspicions. It sounds like somebody got the ax literally.

[01:03:47] Andrew Gold: Yes. Well, I love this story actually because even British people, we grow up and we hear about like the American Civil War, and we don't even know there's a British one or an English one or whatever it is that most people don't realize, and it was a big part of our history. So it was the parliamentarians, which is a bit of a mouthful.

Hmm. They fought against the royalists, so you can imagine a watch side. They were on. And the parliamentarians executed King Charles the first in 1649, at which point, Lord Protector, that's the name he gave himself. Yeah. Oliver Cromwell took charge. Charles the second. The son of Charles, the first. After Charles, I first was executed, famously hid in an oak tree to avoid captured by the parliamentarians and fled to France, and then the Spanish Netherlands, which sounds like a made up country.

Yeah. And then the Dutch Republic, they all sound like, I dunno if you ever had that when you went to restaurants when you were a kid and you could like get the cup and put like Sprite and coke and all the different drinks all together in one drink. Do you know what I mean? Yeah, yeah,

[01:04:48] Jordan Harbinger: yeah. Because you control the fountain.

That's,

[01:04:49] Andrew Gold: that's the span. That's the Spanish Netherlands in my mind. But yeah, that all that all happened.

[01:04:54] Jordan Harbinger: Is it a giant oak tree or was this like a, a little boy at the time. I

[01:04:58] Andrew Gold: don't think he was at that young at the time.

[01:05:00] Jordan Harbinger: It's a big old oak tree.

[01:05:01] Andrew Gold: So that was in 1651. It was the Battle of Worcester, which I challenge any American to pronounce.

Uh, to spell, I should say, because it's spelled like wares.

[01:05:11] Jordan Harbinger: W-O-R-C-E-S-T-E-R.

[01:05:14] Andrew Gold: You know it. You know it. Yeah. We

[01:05:15] Jordan Harbinger: have worst assure sauce.

[01:05:17] Andrew Gold: Ah, right. So, exactly. Okay, so you do know that. And it was a big thing of Leicester City, which is the soccer team who won the Premier League a few years ago and it was a similar spelling.

You

[01:05:25] Jordan Harbinger: mean Li Eser is what it looks like. Exactly,

[01:05:30] Andrew Gold: exactly. So Charles the second was 21 years old, so it was a big oak tree.

[01:05:35] Jordan Harbinger: Yeah. Big oak tree. Although back then, 16, 49, 21 years old, he could have been like four foot two and been quite a normal Yeah. Size for that era, I would imagine. But maybe

[01:05:44] Andrew Gold: trees were also shorter, who knows?

[01:05:46] Jordan Harbinger: Yeah. I don't know if that's how trees work, but definitely how people worked for sure. Alright, so those do sound like, by the way, the Spanish Netherlands definitely sounds like a a made up, it sounds like me bullshitting a geography test in high school. Ah, yes. The Canadian Mex Californians and their revolution back in Swedish, Denmark.

I know it well.

[01:06:08] Andrew Gold: Yeah, I love that. Well, look, it's funny because you know, since it's so far back in history, this civil war and the parliamentary uprising is seen as, you know, just a time without a king time as a republic, but it was really a military dictatorship of sorts, sparks by a military coup. When Oliver Cromwell, that was the Lord for protector.

Remember when he died, his son Richard took over and he didn't have much of a passion for the whole thing. So parliament reconvened and they decided like, Hey, we need a monarch to unite the country again and gained stability. And they invited Charles II back to the throne.

[01:06:44] Jordan Harbinger: Interesting that they tried what sounds a little bit like democracy and they were like, oh, this is a mess.

What we need is one guy just telling everybody what to do. That would be a lot easier. It seems like you, it's hard to put that toothpaste back in the tube. I guess if I'm Charles II though, I. Would assume it's a trick. I'd be a little suspicious if I barely survived by hiding in an oak tree after they killed my dad.

And it's like, no, really come back. Look, that whole thing with us killing your dad, that was just politics made You know how it is. All right. So in a sense, the whole of modern England today and Stephen Fry and you and all those people, you owe a great debt to an oak tree. So that's what it kind, it's obviously that story seems apocryphal and never really happened.

Who knows? Who knows what might've happened though? If Charles II had been killed by the parliamentarians, maybe you'd still be a republic. And maybe that would've been a less objectionable government to the American colonies because it's, I don't know, sort of democracy ish and well, we, maybe we would've had the same color passport.

Where did all the king stuff start anyway? Who was the first King of England?

[01:07:47] Andrew Gold: The title of First King of England is typically attributed or attributed, I should say, to Alfred, the great king of Wessex who reigned from 8 7 1 or 8 71 to 8 99, so the nine, the late ninth century. Although Alfred never formally held the title of King of England, his defense of his kingdom against the Viking invasion led him to become the dominant ruler of England, or ruler in England, I should say.

He was the dominant ruler 'cause it, at the time, it was lots of kingdoms. So it was actually Athelstan Alfred's grandson. And that, ah, at the beginning of Athelstan is spelt with like a capital A with an e joined onto it for some reason, that

[01:08:30] Jordan Harbinger: looks old English E to me.

[01:08:31] Andrew Gold: Yeah. I want people who are listening to be able to hear the old englishness of that.

[01:08:35] Jordan Harbinger: You guys still use that in the word encyclopedia, don't you? We

[01:08:38] Andrew Gold: don't use it. We drop that. We do. It's that e sound and you're right, but it's not joint like that. Or maybe it is in capital letters and that's why it looks so old worldy to me. I've never seen them joint. It's just ae uh, hemoglobin or whatever.

And well, pedophilia in English is P It's that e sound that you guys doing air for, like pedophile. Pedophile. I'll stop saying that word now.

[01:08:59] Jordan Harbinger: Yeah. Oh, you, you use that in the word pa, so it's like phi or like Yeah, yeah, yeah. Oc

[01:09:04] Andrew Gold: It's just, it's like a way of signifying that It's an E sound for us, I guess.

It's weird, huh?

[01:09:10] Jordan Harbinger: It's probably like from Germanic.

[01:09:12] Andrew Gold: I'm going with Greek. Although I bet

[01:09:13] Jordan Harbinger: it comes with the two dots over it in other languages. Right. It's probably the A with the two dots over it.

[01:09:18] Andrew Gold: Possibly. But the German a with two dots on it is an eh, eh, sound. Yeah. But it could be like another thing.

Someone's listening right now who's a linguist going, you

[01:09:27] Jordan Harbinger: idiots. How do you not No. Yeah. Tearing their freaking hair out and they're like, this guy says he speaks German. It's not, it's eh,

[01:09:34] Andrew Gold: come on.

[01:09:35] Jordan Harbinger: Yeah. Read a

[01:09:35] Andrew Gold: bloody encyclopedia if you, if you Yes, idiots. Exactly. Numb skulls. Anyway, Athelstan Alfred's grandson, who is genuinely considered the first king to rule over a United England.

His reign began in 9 24 and by 9 27 he had secured control over all the English kingdoms of his time, which often included regions not part of modern England, like parts of Southern Scotland, Scotland. This is why Athelstan is often referred to as the first king of England. He reigned until his death in 9 39.

I love all this stuff. Under Atherton's Rule, England began to take the shape of a unified, coherent nation with its own discreet identity as opposed to a loosely related collection of different regional kingdoms. Historians consider him really pretentious because all sorts of coins and things give him title, like from the time give him titles.

He didn't have like King of Britain, but uh, and there were a few other like mad ones I thought, you know, savior of the Universe. I made that one up. But before him and before his grandfather, it was just a sort of bunch of Vikings and Scots and Anglo-Saxons and other tribes messing about really.

[01:10:46] Jordan Harbinger: And here we are more than a thousand years later with the royal family Intact Save for a brief 11 year period as a republic.

That's kind of amazing. And even without Elizabeth ii, it doesn't show any signs of slowing down, at least nothing overt. Or if people losing interest, certainly they still take up lines and lines of gossip columns in a way that other monarchies really don't. I mean, I. Couldn't tell you the last time I read anything about other kings, I guess Mohammad Bin Salman in Saudi Arabia for different reasons.

I'm not like curious what he wore to the Met Gala or, or on vacation. It's more like, oh, he murdered these people, or is not delivering petroleum anymore. It's more like that stuff. So why do you think that is? How does the British monarchy compare to other royal families?

[01:11:31] Andrew Gold: Yeah, that's an interesting question.

I mean, the British royal family is definitely one of the most, well-known, probably the most, well-known. But there are monarchies all over the world, each with their own level of power and influence. Some like in Japan are mostly symbolic, a link to their country's past. In other places like Monaco or as you say, you know, Saudi Arabia, but Monaco's got quite a famous one as well.

The monarchy there. These monarchies are sort of in charge. Maybe the British monarchy is sort of right in between that, where they still have enough influence to be somehow sociopolitically relevant, but aren't scary enough to actually make a tangible difference. History plays a part too. Remember that the British Empire was the largest empire of all time, I believe, and one of the first things it indoctrinated, its new subjects with were God Save the King God, save the Queen, all that royal stuff.

Combine that with the fact that the English language is so well spoken across the globe, partly because of you guys. And then there are the big sensationalist characters like Henry vii, the Queen as in the Queen, which it was Queen Elizabeth, Elizabeth II for us, queen Victoria, Charles and Diana, Harry and Meghan.

They're, they're also one of the longest, almost continuous outside of that English Civil War time monarchies in the world. I. They know how to put on a good show with pomp and ceremony

[01:12:50] Jordan Harbinger: in the occasional dramatic disaster, I suppose, and I'm not making light of that actually. They've dealt with quite a bit of tragedy and uh, it is sad to see that happen in public when there are kids involved and things like that.

Especially with Diana. That was this awful. I assume part of Harry's rationale for wanting out. Well, there you have it. You may not agree with the concept of the royal family. You may not like them or their ridiculous hats, but they, and the hats are here for some time still, and people seem to be happy enough with it.

Thanks Andrew, for explaining something so quintessentially British to the rest of us, and I hope y'all listeners have a deeper understanding of what the monarchy means to its subjects and the role it plays in today's society. All right, see you next time on Skeptical Sunday. Thank you all for listening.

Topic suggestions for future episodes of Skeptical Sunday. Send 'em right to me, jordan@jordanharbinger.com. A lot of these are fans, suggestions. Keep 'em coming. We love it. Uh, outsource that brain power to you guys always, always does help a little bit. Show notes@jordanharbinger.com. Those include the transcripts as well.

Advertisers deals, discounts, ways to support this show, and we do need your support to keep doing what we're doing here all on one page. Jordan harbinger.com/deals. I'm at Jordan Harbinger on both Twitter and Instagram. You can also connect with me on LinkedIn. You can find Andrew Gold on his podcast on the Edge with Andrew Gold, anywhere you get your podcasts.

This show is created in association with Podcast one. My team is Jen Harbinger, Jace Sanderson, Robert Fogarty, Ian Baird, Millie Ocampo, and Gabriel Rahi. Our advice and opinions are our own. And I'm a lawyer, but I'm not your lawyer. Do your own research before implementing anything you hear on the show.

And remember, we've rise by lifting others. Share the show with those you love. And if you found this episode useful, please share it with somebody else who can use the a good dose of the skepticism that we doled out here today. In the meantime, I hope you'll apply what you hear on the show so you can live what you learn.

We'll see you next time and uh, God, save the king. You are about to hear a preview of the Jordan Harbinger show with a black man that befriends members of the Kku Klux Klan.

[01:14:54] Clip: I don't support the KKK at all. I don't support that ideology, but I support people having the right to believe as they want to believe, as long as they don't cross the line and hurt people.

And to show, to prove that I will stick up for somebody else's rights has also led to people just like that sticking up for mine. And no, I didn't convert anybody. I am the impetus for over 200 to make up their own minds to convert themselves because I've given them reason to think about other things, you know, that make more sense than what they're currently doing.

It bothers me a great deal that we call ourselves the greatest nation. On the face of this earth. You know, we have to admit that there are some flaws here. I don't adhere to that statement that we are the greatest. Maybe I would bend and say that perhaps technologically we are the greatest. So how is it that we as Americans can talk to people as far away as the moon or anywhere on the face of this earth, but yet there's so many of us who have difficulty talking to the person who lives right next door.

This is the 21st century. This racist nonsense does not belong in any century, let alone the 21st. We are living in space age times, but there's still too many of us thinking with stone age minds.

[01:16:18] Jordan Harbinger: For more on how Darryl Davis convinced 200 K, k, K members to give up their robes, check out episode 5, 4 0 on the Jordan Harbinger Show.