{"id":2426263,"date":"2026-05-21T12:07:13","date_gmt":"2026-05-21T12:07:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/?p=2426263"},"modified":"2026-05-21T12:07:13","modified_gmt":"2026-05-21T12:07:13","slug":"andrew-mountbatten-windsor-preferred-to-visit-more-sophisticated-countries-trade-envoy-files-show","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/andrew-mountbatten-windsor-preferred-to-visit-more-sophisticated-countries-trade-envoy-files-show\/","title":{"rendered":"Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor preferred to visit ‘more sophisticated countries’, trade envoy files show"},"content":{"rendered":"

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

11:51 BST<\/span>Breaking<\/span><\/p>\n

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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

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  • \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”.<\/i>\n <\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
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    Image caption, <\/span><\/p>\n
    \n

    An extract of the letter as it appears in the documents<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p><\/div>\n

    \u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n

    \u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.bbc.com \u2019 <\/em><\/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 visiting “the more sophisticated countries”, and “should not be offered golfing functions abroad”, according to a letter released as part of the documents. The letter is dated 25 January 2000 and is written by British diplomat Kathryn […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2426264,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[43],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2426263","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-royalty"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/Andrew-Mountbatten-Windsor-preferred-to-visit-more-sophisticated-countries-trade-envoy.webp","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2426263","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2426263"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2426263\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2426265,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2426263\/revisions\/2426265"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2426264"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2426263"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2426263"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2426263"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}