Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, while isolated publicly from the Royal Family, is said to be leading a comfortable lifestyle “of the upper echelons” at Marsh Farm, his new home on the Sandringham Estate in Norfolk.
He’s reportedly meeting with friends and going shooting, a favoured royal pastime. A skeleton staff – a housekeeper, a cook and a general aide – remain at the five-bedroom house in Norfolk following his downsizing from 30 rooms at Royal Lodge, his former home in Windsor.
Ahead of his move this year, workmen were photographed installing CCTV and Sky, with firms specialising in fine art, carpeting and flooring also spotted at the grounds. A mobile home was also set up on the grounds, reportedly for security staff.
Which weight-loss drug ads are being banned
Two online pharmacies have been sanctioned by the advertising watchdog after they for oral weight-loss medicines.
Which pharmacies are being sanctioned?
The Advertising Standards Agency (ASA) ruled that and wrongly used ads on social media and on their own websites to promote GLP-1 anti-obesity treatments.
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What you need to know
- Medicines cannot be advertised in the UK until licensed for use by regulators. Even once authorised, prescription-only drugs cannot be advertised to the public.
- The ASA found that Simple Online Pharmacy broke these rules by inviting people to join a waiting list for GLP-1 slimming pills on 1 June. The first such medicine was not authorised in the UK until 11 June.
- Pharmacy Online also had its adverts banned after it promoted the oral version of Wegovy after it had been licensed as prescription-only. The ads included a website pop-up inviting people to “pre-order” the medication.
The licensing of GLP-1 pills, seen as easier to administer than weight-loss jabs, has boosted the £210m market for anti-obesity drugs obtained with private prescriptions.
However, it has also provided regulators with a headache as they seek to ensure use only occurs under proper medical supervision.
‘Treatments could put people at risk’
“These are powerful medicines, so it’s important that ads don’t encourage people to seek treatment in ways that could put them at risk”
Catherine Drewett, investigations manager at the ASA
Daniel Craig’s Bond suit from Skyfall up for auction
A suit worn by Daniel Craig in the 2012 film will go up for auction this month.
Bond suite for sale
A worn by Daniel Craig while playing James Bond in the 2012 film is among the lots being offered in a from the 007 franchise.
A collection of 400 items spanning every Bond film since 1962’s is being sold via an online auction open until 27 October. It also includes a complete set of 14 first edition 007 books written by Ian Fleming.
What you need to know
- The grey suit, complete with branded shirt and a tie and cufflinks, was worn by Craig in the opening sequence of as Bond chases a villain across Istanbul, Turkey.
- The outfit, part of Craig’s wardrobe for his fourth of five outings as Bond, has a pre-sale estimate of between £20,000 and £40,000.
- Also offered is a navy dress with a plunging neckline worn by Hollywood star Ana de Armas as secret agent Paloma in the most recent Bond film, .
The Bond memorabilia up for sale
A cinema poster for , the first Bond Film and starring Sean Connery, has an estimate pre-sale price of £8k to £16k.
A clapper board used for miniature special effects sequences in is offered with a pre-sale price tag of £4k to £8k.
With an estimate of £20k to £40k, another star lot is 14 first-edition, first impression 007 books written by Ian Fleming.
What you need to know about new air travel rules
As the October half-term looms, British holidaymakers taking to the skies may notice a number of changes as they head to Europe.
Here’s what you need to know…
Air travel changes
Face as passport
E-gates at UK airports will soon work without a passport for British nationals by using facial recognition to match travellers with their passport image held on Home Office systems.
Free personal item
Since July, passengers can take a small bag (40x30x15cm) on board for free. EU airlines must also include at least a carry-on trolley bag in the starting price for flights.
The EU’s EES is now in full effect at most Schengen area airports, causing delays for passengers who will now need to register biometric data at gates.
Anyone trying to avoid the queues should try to secure a seat towards the front of the plane to be able to dash to passport control before queues form.
Pro-Palestine march to go ahead on 7 October anniversary
A pro-Palestine march on the anniversary of the 7 October Hamas attack has been given the go-ahead by police, under strict conditions.
The protest
Who is protesting?
A group of students called the University of London Coalition are expected to march in the capital on Wednesday.
Why they are marching
Organisers urged people to “take to the street and demand an end to the Palestinian genocide”.
Why is it controversial?
It has drawn criticism for being held on the anniversary of Hamas’s 7 October attack on Israel.
Police restrictions
- The group is required to form at Lincoln’s Inn Fields by 12.30pm, take a prescribed route to Russell Square, and finish the rally by 2pm.
- Demonstrators must not wear a face covering which conceals their identity, with the Met Police saying anyone who breaches these conditions can be arrested.
- The march was originally set to leave from King’s College London, but restrictions require them to be further from the university.
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Education Secretary Lucy Powell called on the student march organisers “to for others by moving it” to another date. She added that universities should take “a zero-tolerance approach to antisemitic abuse, backed by robust disciplinary policies”.
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‘High bar for ban not met’
We hear the calls for this event to be banned. The police cannot ban protests and can only ask the Home Secretary to do so if the risk of serious disorder is so high that it can’t be managed by conditions. That high bar is not met here.
met police Deputy Assistant Commissioner James Harman, who leads Met Operations including public order policing
What we know as Ofcom opens first investigation into Meta
Ofcom has launched its first investigation into Instagram and Facebook parent company Meta under the Online Safety Act.
Here’s everything we know.
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Why is Ofcom investigating Meta?
Online safety regulator Ofcom is investigating Meta regarding its disappearing content feature.
- Ofcom said it was looking into whether the tech giant adequately assessed the risks of Instagram Instants before launching it in May.
- The feature allows users to take and share photos that disappear after being viewed. It cannot be seen after 24 hours.
- Meta said it had “conducted a risk analysis” and briefed Ofcom “on a number of occasions” before launch.
What risks does the feature carry?
Ofcom said on Tuesday it had launched a formal investigation to establish “whether Meta failed to comply with its duties under the Act by not carrying out a suitable and sufficient illegal content risk assessment and children’s risk assessment before the launch of Instants”.
Meta’s response
Meta takes its regulatory obligations under the Online Safety Act seriously
A Meta spokesperson insisted Instants has in-built protections including “blocking screenshots, reshares and forwarding, no public feed, and Teen Account protections on automatically”.
Mark Zuckerberg’s toxic empire is starting to crack
Meta’s decision to pay more than $17bn (£12bn) to settle a landmark US lawsuit is being seen as a reckoning for a company that has got away with preying on children and ransacking its users’ data for decades.
Paramount and Warner Bros mega deal creates Skydance
Paramount has completed its $110bn (£83bn) takeover of Warner Bros Discovery to create a new Hollywood giant.
Details on the deal
Big money merger
The mega deal will bring both major film studio brands under the name Skydance.
Which channels are involved?
It also brings together streaming services and TV networks including CBS and HBO Max.
UK channels
In the UK, meanwhile, Skydance will control assets such as Channel 5 and TNT Sports.
Issues with regulators
Paramount, which was bought by Skydance last year, initially launched a hostile approach before gaining the approval of the Warner Bros board.
Britain’s regulators greenlit the deal in August, with the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport promising not to intervene after several “legally binding commitments” from Paramount over its footprint in the UK.
The deal had to gain approval from regulators across the world, while also settling a lawsuit lodged by Democratic attorney generals in 12 states seeking to block the merger.
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Now, as the former prince launches a judicial review against Thames Valley Police, questions are emerging on how he is funding this lifestyle.
‘How is he paying for it?’
Mountbatten-Windsor is seeking to quash the search warrants that led to his February arrest on suspicion of misconduct in public office. He has denied all wrongdoing.
The costs of a judicial review are “substantial”, and can “run into the hundreds of thousands of pounds”, Quentin Hunt, a barrister at 2BR, told The i Paper.
“It may be that he has quite big legal bills, and that he is getting legal advice beyond this [judicial review],” said Dai Davies, head of Scotland Yard’s Royal Protection Command between 1994 and 1998. “So, how is he paying for it?”
The former duke of York has no obvious means to foot the bills – having been stripped of a roughly £250,000 annual allowance when he stepped down from royal duties in 2019 – and his finances are shrouded in mystery.
All that is certain is that he gets an Armed Forces pension from his Navy service, worth around £20,000 a year.
Mountbatten-Windsor also receives an annual stipend from King Charles’s private funds, but the amount not been disclosed. A Buckingham Palace source said this week that the money should not be used to fund the judicial review.
It is possible Mountbatten-Windsor is relying on inheritance from the late Queen, along with money saved from previous business ventures and property deals, said royal commentators. It is also possible he is getting financial support from wealthy friends, they suggested.
Rent money
After Mountbatten-Windsor left public duty, he continued to live at a 30-room mansion at the Royal Lodge in Windsor until earlier this year, when he downsized to a five-bedroom house at Marsh Farm in Norfolk.
Ingrid Seward, editor-in-chief at magazine, told The i Paper that Mountbatten-Windsor could partly be funding his lifestyle and paying his legal bills “from the monies he received from the Royal Lodge” when he sublet three cottages at the estate.
It emerged earlier this year that the 66-year-old had been able to charge rent to staff at three cottages while paying only a “peppercorn” rent for his own mansion at Royal Lodge, thanks to a deal with the Crown Estate.
Property experts previously told The i Paper that Mountbatten-Windsor could potentially have received £180,000 a year from the sublets. A luxury cottage in an exclusive part of Berkshire could get at least £5,000 a month, according to one expert. Other sources suggested that the former prince’s subletting did not generate a net profit, and that the rent at the cottages covered only maintenance and running costs for his staff living there.
The Palace should reveal how much rent Mountbatten-Windsor received at the sublet cottages, said Norman Baker, a former Liberal Democrat minister and critic of royal finances.
“It’s totally ridiculous that we haven’t had the rental income details,” said Baker, author of Royal Mint, National Debt: The Shocking Truth about the Royals’ Finances.
Mountbatten-Windsor’s representatives did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The Palace declined to comment.
Property and inheritance from the late Queen
Money from property ventures may have given the ex-duke significant funds to fall back on, according to royal observers.
In 2007, Mountbatten-Windsor sold his 12-bedroom Sunninghill Park home for £15m (around £3m over the asking price and an estimated £7m more than market value) to Timur Kulibayev – the son-in-law of Kazakhstan’s then-president – who has said the high price was the result of a bidding war. The property had been a wedding gift from the late Queen in 1986.
An opaque trust structure allowed Mountbatten-Windsor to keep the proceeds of the sale of Sunninghill Park, which had been originally owned by the Crown Estate, reported last year.
Mountbatten-Windsor and his ex-wife, Sarah Ferguson, sold a Swiss chalet they co-owned for around £19m at the end of 2022, according to .
It was the same year that the former prince reached an out-of-court settlement with Virginia Giuffre – who died last year – reportedly worth around £12m. She claimed she was sexually assaulted by the former duke of York, a claim he has consistently denied.
reported that the late Queen helped foot her son’s legal costs from her private funds, but it has never been confirmed. The sealed will of Elizabeth II means it is also unclear whether she left her second son any funds.
“There may be some money from the late Queen’s inheritance,” said Baker. “But I’m not sure that would explain how he has funded his lifestyle.”
Some money may be available from the sale of belongings. Mountbatten-Windsor’s former Bentley Flying Spur is on sale at a luxury car dealership in Doncaster for £125,000, reported.
Business ventures
Mountbatten-Windsor was a “person of significant control” over a company called Urramoor Limited, which was described as the “private investment office” of the former duke by a South African firm that had dealings with it.
The firm was dissolved in April 2025, Companies House records show. Before winding up, the venture had secured £210,000 in the form of non-redeemable shares from a mystery, undisclosed donor in December 2023. It also owed £207,000 to creditors.
Pitch@Palace – a -style initiative allowing entrepreneurs to make connections with investors – was once also seen as a way for Mountbatten-Windsor to earn income.
That venture ceased operations in 2019, after the ex-prince’s disastrous interview, and the UK arm closed in 2021 with £175,000 in capital and reserves in its final annual accounts, according to Companies House. The international arm, Pitch@Palace Global, was dissolved in February 2026, having £12,000 in capital and reserves in its final annual accounts.
It is now unlikely that the former prince will be able to forge any new business ventures because of his links to Epstein, said royal commentator Richard Fitzwilliams.
“He’s in disgrace and there’s no comeback – I wouldn’t have thought he would be able to make money,” he said – before raising the possibility he could have significant savings or backing from rich friends.
“We simply don’t know what he has made from business ventures, or could be given by friends. He has made friendships of all sorts,” said Fitzwilliams.
“We don’t know if wealthy friends are standing by him and helping him,” Baker said.
Ferguson – who had lived with the former prince at Royal Lodge before his departure from Windsor – is reportedly returning to the UK after a period abroad.
But she is not expected to join him at his new, smaller royal property at Marsh Farm. “It would appear there’s nothing that ties them together [financially] anymore,” said Fitzwilliams.
‘Life of the upper echelons’
It is not clear how much costs at Mountbatten-Windsor’s new Sandringham home – including staff – are covered by the King’s stipend, and how much he funds himself.
“The spin from the Palace is that he’s hidden away like a refugee,” said Baker. “But he is living comfortably, far more comfortably that most of the country.”
Davies added that he was “living comfortably in a way most of population would envy – it’s the life of the upper echelons”.
Baker called for the Palace to explain how much Mountbatten-Windsor gets from the King and what the money is supposed to be for.
“It is pathetic, pointless plea to say they’ve asked him not to use the money for legal action,” added Baker. “If he can afford to take legal action himself, then the King shouldn’t give him any money.”
The Palace will continue to face questions about any signs that Mountbatten-Windsor is living in luxury, said Fitzwilliams. “He’s someone who is entitled. So, it could be difficult for him to project that is living a frugal lifestyle.”