Ed Davey stood in the House of Commons and demanded to know how a disgraced royal became a global trade envoy without a single background check. Documents released on Thursday by the British government reveal that no formal vetting or due diligence was performed on Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor before his 2001 appointment. The role allowed him to spend a decade meeting world leaders and billionaires as a special representative for international trade.

The released files include a letter showing that the late Queen Elizabeth was very keen for her son to take on the prominent role. According to the documents, the Queen pushed the trade body to ignore standard security protocols. This occurred even as questions swirled around Andrew's ties to the financier Jeffrey Epstein. The government admitted there is no evidence that any formal security clearance was ever granted during his ten-year tenure.

This is the Ghost Era in its purest form. While the working class is subjected to biometric scans and credit checks for a car loan, the elite move through the world with total impunity. The trade envoy role was unpaid, but it provided the diplomatic cover required to build a network of influence that bypassed every mechanism of democratic oversight. The documents prove that in the halls of power, a mother’s letter carries more weight than a national security file.