{"id":596165,"date":"2026-05-21T12:46:09","date_gmt":"2026-05-21T12:46:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/596165\/"},"modified":"2026-05-21T12:46:09","modified_gmt":"2026-05-21T12:46:09","slug":"andrew-mountbatten-windsor-preferred-to-visit-more-sophisticated-countries-trade-envoy-files-show","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/596165\/","title":{"rendered":"Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor preferred to visit ‘more sophisticated countries’, trade envoy files show"},"content":{"rendered":"

Andrew preferred to visit ‘sophisticated countries’, letter sayspublished at 11:51 BST<\/p>\n

11:51 BSTBreaking<\/p>\n

Mountbatten-Windsor had a preference for visiting “the more sophisticated countries”, and “should not be offered golfing functions abroad”, according to a letter released as part of the documents. <\/p>\n

The letter is dated 25 January 2000 and is written by British diplomat Kathryn Colvin, though it is not clear who the letter was for.<\/p>\n

It includes notes from a meeting she had held with Mountbatten-Windsor’s then-private secretary Captain Neil Blair.<\/p>\n

Colvin writes she was told that Prince Andrew was “particularly good on high-tech matters, trade, youth (including primary schools and outward bound projects), cultural events, with a preference for ballet rather than theatre, the Commonwealth and military and foreign affairs”.<\/p>\n

Captain Blair, according to the letter, said Mountbatten-Windsor “tended to prefer the more sophisticated countries, particularly those in the lead on technology”, Colvin added. A line after that is redacted in the released document.<\/p>\n

She continued: “Captain Blair particularly asked that The Duke of York should not be offered golfing functions abroad. This was a private activity and if he took his clubs with him he would not play in any public sense.”<\/p>\n

In a statement, the government says it has redacted documents “to remove the bare minimum of personal information and information whose release would prejudice international relations”.
\n \"AnImage caption, <\/p>\n

An extract of the letter as it appears in the documents<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Andrew preferred to visit ‘sophisticated countries’, letter sayspublished at 11:51 BST 11:51 BSTBreaking Mountbatten-Windsor had a preference for…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":596166,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[49,50,51,47,52,48],"class_list":["post-596165","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/596165","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=596165"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/596165\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/596166"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=596165"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=596165"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=596165"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}