Queen 'got herself a bit exhausted' says Gyles Brandreth

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This week the Cabinet Office is expected to try and persuade the Information Commissioner, which judges what the public has a right to know, that the thoughts of the first Earl Mountbatten of Burma should stay under wraps. Earl Mountbatten was the maternal uncle of the Duke of Edinburgh and mentor to the young Prince of Wales. He was killed by an IRA bomb in 1979.

The royal household appears to share the Government’s concerns, having sent a representative to check the diaries after the author, Andrew Lownie, requested access to them using freedom of information laws.

Officials fear both the diaries and letters of Lord Mountbatten and his wife, Edwina, the first Countess Mountbatten of Burma, who was rumoured to have had an affair with Jawarharlal Nehru, the first Prime Minister of India and a leader of the country’s independence movement, could affect relations between the UK, India and Pakistan.

It is estimated that the Government has spent £300,000 fighting the case brought by Mr Lownie.

He has been battling to gain unrestricted access to the Mountbatten archives which are kept at the University of Southampton and contain about 250,000 papers, 50,000 photographs as well as recordings and films.

The Information Commissioner ruled in his favour in 2019, ordering the release of the entire archive before the Cabinet Office appealed against the decision. It continues to block access to parts of the diaries.

The appeal this week is expected to consider evidence concerning the royal household’s role in vetting the papers.

Professor Chris Woolgar, who was chief archivist of the Mountbatten Archive, wrote to the Cabinet Office 10 years ago, proposing to censor sections of the diaries referring to the Royal Family and the partitioning of India.

As the last Viceroy of India, Lord Mountbatten oversaw the transition of British India to independence and the creation of what went on to become India and Pakistan.

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In an email to the Cabinet Office, Prof Woolgar wrote: “I don’t believe these should be available to researchers, possibly from as far back as the mid-1930s, given their many references to the Royal family (which I can spot).”

The Cabinet Office stated in reply: “We really do think we should keep these closed, given the Royal material which you have already spotted… also the material concerning India and Pakistan is, in some cases, still sensitive from this period.”

The exchange led to a 10-year ban on the release of sensitive sections.

A fellow of the Royal Historical Society, Mr Lownie requested access to the material in 2017 for a biography entitled The Mountbattens: Their Lives and Loves.

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An email sent by the Cabinet Office to the University of Southampton on January 24, 2018 notified Prof Woolgar that “representatives of the Foreign Office and the Royal Household” would carry assess the material. This was carried out in March the same year.

The writer was then told some material was being withheld, which prompted the tribunal.

Mr Lownie told the Telegraph: “This is a complete waste of public money and it is censorship of our history. There are good reasons to protect national security and the dignity of the Queen but there are no good examples of that in any of the material that we know lies under the redactions.”

He insists much of the censored material has been published elsewhere, including a diary entry on Lord Mountbatten’s 70th birthday in which he describes telling the Queen he was ready for bed at 2am, only for Her Majesty to say it was his party so he should stay up.

The issue of whether Lady Mountbatten had an affair with Nehru is considered sensitive by some because of its potential for such a relationship to have influenced partition, which ignited violence and mass migrations between India, West Pakistan, now Pakistan, and East Pakistan, now Bangladesh.

Further withheld parts of the diaries are understood by the Telegraph to relate to the sexual preferences of Lord Mountbatten, including a fetish for women in riding boots.
Mr Lownie has so far spent £250,000 of his own money on legal fees, with another £50,000 raised from crowdfunding.

Rupert Earle, a solicitor who is representing Mr Lownie, added: “It seems the Cabinet Office has a default setting of secrecy, which is not the intention of the Freedom of Information Act, and it will stop at nothing to keep secret even the most anodyne information, at considerable cost to the taxpayer and at the expense of transparency, learning and historical research.”

A Cabinet Office spokesman said: “This case is currently before the Information Tribunal. We cannot comment further whilst legal proceedings are ongoing.”

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