You can really tell, from the way royal reporters are talking and writing about Clive Alderton, that he was one of their main sources. Maybe he wasn’t on the royal rota WhatsApp, but all of the reporters know him and have gotten stories, quotes and briefings from him. They’re not just mourning King Charles’ longtime gatekeeper and private secretary, they’re mourning their loss of access. Speaking of, Valentine Low appeared on The Royalist Podcast to talk about Alderton. Low wrote the book on “the courtiers,” and Alderton was clearly one of Low’s long-time sources, especially when it came to the palace’s campaign against the Duke and Duchess of Sussex.
King Charles has lost the gatekeeper who stood between him and Prince Harry—and a pair of experts say it could mark a turning point. Buckingham Palace announced last week that Sir Clive Alderton, the King’s most senior aide, will step down next year after working for Charles and Camilla for two decades.
Speaking on The Royalist podcast, royal reporter Valentine Low said Harry views Alderton as one of the key figures in Charles’ inner circle responsible for driving a wedge between him and his father.
“Harry… is pretty scathing about Clive in his memoir Spare,” Low said. “One of the things about Spare is he doesn’t actually name his enemies, but the intelligent or the well-informed reader knows who they are. And he comes up with this description of… the important private secretaries as being the bee, the fly, and the wasp. Clive in that was the wasp. Harry basically describes how he’s very sort of charming and courtier-like and self-effacing, but, you know, if you cross him, if you push back—in Harry’s view—you’d learn about it.”
Low, a former royal correspondent for The Times, noted that he had learned firsthand that “it’s not necessarily a strategically wise thing to get on the wrong side of Clive Alderton…. Speaking as someone who, you know, he hasn’t always treasured everything I’ve written about him. And I think he, should we say, remembers that to this day,” he added.
Tom Sykes, the Daily Beast’s royal expert and European editor-at-large, asked what “went so wrong” between Harry, 41, and Alderton, 59. Low noted that Alderton represented the 77-year-old king’s interests as well as those of the “palace machinery,” which was not necessarily aligned with those of Harry and Meghan, who left their roles as working royals and moved to California in 2020.
“There was a certain amount of antipathy—I mean neither Meghan nor Harry liked Clive. He wasn’t their kind of guy, and they didn’t trust him, rightly or wrongly,” Low said. “Because what you have to remember about these palaces, it’s all separate fiefdoms, isn’t it? And sub-fiefdoms. And so Harry’s was a sub-fiefdom.”
Sykes said that “if you speak to Harry’s people now,” they blame Alderton for blocking Harry from receiving taxpayer-funded security from the Royal and VIP Executive Committee (RAVEC), on which Alderton sits—a dispute over RAVEC nearly derailed Harry’s trip to the U.K. in July. Harry, Meghan, and their two children, Prince Archie and Princess Lilibet, met Charles and Camilla at Highgrove House in Gloucestershire during the trip—the first time the King has seen his grandchildren in person in more than four years.
But blaming Alderton for “everything” is “a bit absurd,” Sykes said. Low agreed, saying that regarding the RAVEC security Harry is seeking, “The palace private secretaries have an input—obviously, their voice is listened to—but in the end, I don’t think it’ll affect it.”
“The palace private secretaries have an input—obviously, their voice is listened to—but in the end, I don’t think it’ll affect it…” Yeah, it was all one big coincidence that King Charles and Prince William have representatives on RAVEC and that Charles and William’s position has always been that the Sussex family must never receive security because they’re still being punished for leaving! Not only that, but Charles and William are desperate to control the Sussexes’ movements, which is another reason why RAVEC just *happens* to never give them security since QEII died. I still want to know why RAVEC paused their risk assessment for the Sussexes in March and no one told Harry until just before he traveled to England last month.
Photos courtesy of Avalon Red, Cover Images.
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- King Charles III and Sir Clive Alderton (left) and Idris Elba, founder of the Elba Hope Foundation and an alumnus of the King’s Trust, listen during a Youth Opportunity Summit at St James’s Palace in London, with young people, youth organisations, government officials, and representatives from the sports, education and arts sectors. Picture date: Tuesday July 15, 2025.,Image: 1022135357, License: Rights-managed, Restrictions: *** NO UK USE FOR 48 HRS ***, Model Release: no , Credit line: Aaron Chown/Avalon
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- (left to right) Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer, Sir Clive Alderton, King Charles III and Idris Elba, founder of the Elba Hope Foundation and an alumnus of the King’s Trust, during a Youth Opportunity Summit at St James’s Palace in London, with young people, youth organisations, government officials, and representatives from the sports, education and arts sectors. Picture date: Tuesday July 15, 2025.,Image: 1022135333, License: Rights-managed, Restrictions: *** NO UK USE FOR 48 HRS ***, Model Release: no , Credit line: Aaron Chown/Avalon
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- (left to right) Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer, Sir Clive Alderton, King Charles III and Idris Elba, founder of the Elba Hope Foundation and an alumnus of the King’s Trust, during a Youth Opportunity Summit at St James’s Palace in London, with young people, youth organisations, government officials, and representatives from the sports, education and arts sectors. Picture date: Tuesday July 15, 2025.,Image: 1022135346, License: Rights-managed, Restrictions: *** NO UK USE FOR 48 HRS ***, Model Release: no , Credit line: Aaron Chown/Avalon
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- King Charles III and his private secretary Sir Clive Alderton arriving for the King’s Christmas lunch at Buckingham Palace Featuring: King Charles III and his private secretary Sir Clive Alderton Where: London, United Kingdom When: 19 Dec 2024 Credit: PA Images/INSTARimages **NORTH AMERICA RIGHTS ONLY**
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- The Duke of Sussex speaks at the annual WellChild Awards 2025, which celebrates the achievements and resilience of seriously ill youngsters and their families, at the Royal Lancaster Hotel Featuring: Prince Harry Where: London, United Kingdom When: 08 Sep 2025 Credit: Aaron Chown/PA Images/INSTARimages **NORTH AMERICA RIGHTS ONLY**
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- Prince Harry, Duke of Sussex departs a visit to The Community Recording Studio in Nottingham, United Kingdom Featuring: Prince Harry, Duke of Sussex Where: Nottingham, United Kingdom When: 09 Sep 2025 Credit: Cover Images **NOT AVAILABLE FOR HELLO MAGAZINE**
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- The Duke of Sussex leaves after a visit to Imperial College London’s Centre for Blast Injury Studies, at Sir Michael Uren Hub in White City, west London Featuring: Prince Harry, Duke of Sussex Where: London, United Kingdom When: 10 Sep 2025 Credit: Suzanne Plunkett/PA Images/INSTARimages **NORTH AMERICA RIGHTS ONLY**
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- Meghan, Duchess of Sussex and Harry, Duke of Sussex and other celebrities attend the Project Healthy Minds 3rd Annual Gala Featuring: Meghan, Duchess of Sussex and Harry, Duke of Sussex Where: New York, New York, United States When: 09 Oct 2025 Credit: Janet Mayer/INSTARimages.com
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- The Duke of Sussex takes part in a session of Pickleball, one of the two new sports for the Invictus Games, during a visit to Birmingham’s National Exhibition Centre (NEC) – the primary venue for the 2027 Invictus Games – as part of the One Year to Go celebrations for the Invictus Games Birmingham 2027. Featuring: Prince Harry Where: Birmingham, United Kingdom When: 31 Dec 1903 Credit: PA Images/INSTARimages **NORTH AMERICA RIGHTS ONLY**
I have no hope that Harry will ever get his security back
I think Harry’s chances of getting security actually go up when his father dies. He’ll finally be free to blackmail William with all the “deep, dark” secrets he’s been protecting for years. Harry’s obviously been keeping quiet out of respect for his father and to preserve their relationship. But once Prince William is on the throne, Harry can reveal that the now-King William’s favorite pastime is taking leisurely strolls through his rose garden. 🌹🌹🌹
They do sound like they long for their access which is being minimized. Especially if Theo Rycroft who I imagine is in charge in the interim isn’t as forthcoming or as negative. They are probably worried that going forward they will not only have lost a key source, but the new boss/bosses may have a little more control over the leaks coming from the Palace.
And they can’t possibly expect us to believe that the private secretaries have nothing to do with the security decisions, when they have also written articles about how the people on RAVEC that are part of the security apparatus agree that Harry needs the highest security and that there are a few ” holdouts” that are blocking it. Geez I wonder who those could be??
Well, the reporters actually pretended that the holdouts were not from the palaces, but from “Home Office representatives”, but people saw through that, so Low is back to doing cleanup duty for his pal Clive Alderton the Wasp. It’s not about “Harry and Meghan” didn’t like the Wasp. LOW himself once admitted, as did a few of the other rota rats, that there was “one courtier who really LOATHED Meghan”. That was the word used. One got the impression that the individual was so utterly racist that he could not countenance the fact that she was a senior member of the royal family while he was a servant, and that she was not bending to his will or bowing and scraping to him. Pretty sure it was him. The Bee as well, but this Alderton man most definitely was that one being referenced.
Given that he is leaving, I hope they have already removed him from RAVEC. Its reputation has well and truly been sullied, both at home and abroad, thanks to the vindictive actions of this man and William’s nameless, faceless representativeS.
It begs the question: how many other British citizens and high profile visitors have been deprived of well-needed protection because someone on RAVEC didn’t like them?
He definitely overplayed his hand and did something that made KC back him all the way up, which I find intriguing. The sad part is that these “advisors” or “proxies” feel like relics from medieval times, when access to information and education was limited. Today, they seem about as necessary as a Beefeater. Sure, the Royals need professionals on staff, but they should be able to make informed executive decisions without someone constantly running interference.
Yet they continue to behave in these privileged, “can’t set out my own clothes” ways, which feel out of step with the current times and their actual needs. It is also deeply damaging to their family relationships. The fact that he did not like Meghan seems indicative of this grasping at pseudo-power, because she could see right through all of them. I once worked for a very large, old bureaucratic institution, and rather than modernizing, people spent far too much time justifying their positions and procedures, many of which were largely unnecessary in the current day.
I definitely think he overplayed his hand. I don’t know if its tied to H&M’s visit in July, but I wouldnt be surprised if that was a factor. Charles looked so bad that whole week – I know some keep talking about H&M being “humiliated” but i think it was Charles who was humiliated. I think that may have been the first time he realized most of the public thinks hes a dogshit father. I feel like even hardcore royalists acknowledge that. so he changed course. And maybe realized how the bad advice from Alderton is making him look bad.
I dont know. but I think something happened, or else they wouldn’t have announced it at this particular moment.
For once, Camilla’s leaking can come in handy. She must know what he did. Spill it, Cams!
Right, we’re supposed to believe that Clive Alderton sits on RAVEC and just keeps his mouth closed when Harry comes up? the only reason I can see for the line about how nothing will change is if the people William has on RAVEC are even more anti Harry (which is likely) and they’ve been the ones blocking his security. Honestly the royals shouldn’t have representatives on RAVEC. There should be expert security officials and government representatives that are not associated with the royals.
OK, RAVEC. You have a whole year before Birmingham to lift the pause and sort out Harry’s security. If you can’t manage it before next July, there will be absolutely doubt that you’re compromised and biased.
Unfortunately, I don’t think Alderton is leaving BP until next spring. But still.
Am I the only one who thinks it’s wild that these people think it’s acceptable to “gatekeep” an elderly man from his son.
Yes Chucky is a dogshit father, but to think it’s virtuous to exacerbate the situation is wild
Charles isn’t kept from anyone. Did anyone succeed in keeping him from Camilla? His own late mother said, to Harry, “your father does what he wants.”…. And only what he wants, and nothing else. Duty might come into it, but unfortunately Charles has passed his pig-headed, thin-skinned, self-absorbed temperament to William. And what William wants is to do nothing. LOL.
So will Clive Alderton also step down from RAVEC then once he retires? Who will be put in his place? Theo Rycraft?
That’s a good question!
Tom Sycko talks of speaking “to Harry’s people” as if he’s actually done it. Which is utter BS 🐂💩
Tom talks to clouds in his backyard and cockroaches in his kitchen, and claims them as sources. 🙄
The Times reporting in July that “it is understood” that Harry’s security assessment was paused because of strains in capacity of the team assigned to protect public figures doesn’t mention who or from where that source said that. Clearly the intended message was to say that Harry is insignificant, both as a public figure or a celebrity, so he doesn’t merit the attention of former prime ministers or actual celebrities like Taylor Swift, etc.
But the actual effect of that statement was to indicate vulnerabilities in lack of personnel to properly protect the country’s security interests, which forced this statement in The Times article: “ A Home Office spokesperson said: “The UK government’s protective security system is rigorous and proportionate.”” This is where family pettiness crosses the line into government business— a really bad look when the Home Office has to issue such a statement — and I wonder about the blowback to whoever that source was.
🎯
Low is either being obtuse or naive if he believes that the the Royal representatives on RAVEC don’t have a lot of power on that board or have no influence on decisions.
I’m of the mind that not granting around the clock security isn’t a punishment or a grand conspiracy. Harry is in the same position as his aunt and his uncles. They don’t receive around the clock taxpayer funded security. They receive it on official royal family business. Leaving the royal family to pursue an independent life accelerated that inevitable trajectory. I think Harry is struggling with the downgrade in his status that inevitably comes when the first born has children and those children are growing up. Charlotte and Louis will eventually meet the same fate once George marries and has a family.
That’s a lie told by the tabloids/right-wing media, many (here) are willing to believe and to amplify, without scrutiny.
All sr. working royals and their own family have a form of around the clock security with them – in public and privately – which can be enhanced when they do public engagements, with the likes of: police motorcades, bullet prove cars, extra armed/MET police, local police officers, medics/ambulance, etc.
Even other non-working family members who the monarch wants to have security (like the retired ones), get around the clock security, albeit in a lighter form. And as we are seeing, even disgraced Andrew has his security permanently with him on the Sandringham estate, and when out and about. When he went for questioning at the police station, he even got armed MET police with him v.v.
Prince Harry’s threat risk is HIGHER than every single member of the royal family, and it was only second to the Queen’s when she was alive.
Armed security and access to threat intelligence is not tied to being a working member of the royal family. Otherwise Taylor Swift and Salmon Rushdie and all those former prime ministers would not have it.
A “downgrade in status” has nothing to do with Harry’s request for security. He offered to pay for it: they refused. They won’t even share details of the current risks he faces even though they know about them. The CIA and FBI do this routinely the way they do for all high risk/high profile people in the US. And consider this: protecting Prince Harry and his family when they are in the UK also protects the PUBLIC, because an attacker is quite likely to harm members of the public in his/her attempts to harm the Sussexes.
The threats Harry and his family face did not vanish when they left to live in the US. And most of the threats originate IN the UK, as evidence by the detailed risk assessment which competent officials in the US did, because the UK refused to do one since 2019. Security is not a perk for privileged royals, it is a human right A right which every single country Harry visits acknowledges – except the country of his birth and for which he risked his life in two tours of a war zone.
And as Advisor2U stated, all of the royals have security teams whether or not they are on official royal duty. ANDREW still has royal protection for goodness’ sake! William’s children have EACH had their own security team since birth, and they are not working royals, and few among even the people who claim to be fans could pick them out of a line-up in public.
Let us not blindly swallow UK media (they’re all tabloids now) rhetoric instead of looking at the facts.
You are right: it’s not a grand conspiracy. We KNOW that RAVEC and the royals know the threats against the Sussexes and they are signalling to the world that they WANT them to come to harm, or as that decrepit reporter said, “obliterated”. Diana 2 as others say, but far worse. Good grief, they signalled to every other country in the world that they should NOT protect the Sussexes, even though they knew that the threats had massively amplified thanks to their hateful rhetoric against them.
I’ll just add that Sophie, the Duchess of Edinburgh, or the Countess of Wessex as she was at the time, wife of Harry’s uncle, was not on official business of any kind when one of the outriders of her SPEEDING MOTORCADE hit that elderly woman who later died.
Nah, when he was the grandson of the monarch (QEII) he had security and now that he’s the son of the monarch (CIII) he doesn’t? He’s closer to the crown now but he gets less security? Balderdash.
This is a very good point! 😀 Common sense alone would make more people realise even this simple fact. Alas, there isn’t much of that about anymore.
So Sykes is admitting that Alderton deliberately tried to derail H&M’s July visit to the UK.
Thanks, but we been knew. All the shenanigan of pausing the Risk Assessment and only telling Harry that one day before his scheduled arrival in the UK, offering and withdrawing a one night stay at Buckingham palace, a one entrance/leave accommodation no other royal family members want to live/stay at?
Yeah Clive, you thought you were pulling your next stunt/victory lap over the Sussexes, but Harry and his team saw it coming – they had a plan B in place, (with security, accommodation and all of that) the minute they arrived in the UK on the Sunday of July 5th, and Harry went to his friend Misan’s movie premier before his official engagements on Monday 6th, to give y’all the middle finger, and to show you that he had everything under control, despite all your shenanigans that you turned around, to safe face, and called ”drama created by Harry”.
Then y’all (press and palaces) panicked, and the king then had enough of the chaos that you’ve been creating around his son, bypassed you and made main man #2 arrange to meet Harry and his family.
Now look how your career is ending, wasp – all that scheming, derailing and sabotaging that one melanated royal family and you are the loser in the end. That’s how people are going to remember you, no spinning by your allies in the tabloid press/media is gonna change that. Bye.
What I conclude from the excerpt of this article is that the private secretaries do what their bosses want, so the treatment of Harry is at the end, approved by Charles. Otherwise, Charles is shown to be weak and manipulated (which he is) by “allowing” what is obviously the mistreatment of Harry to any sensible thinking person. My question is though, can Charles make Alderton a permanent member of Ravec since he appoints his representatives. Regarding Invictus security, it is a government sponsored event, so if the current government doesn’t step in and do the right thing, what kind of tin pot country is the UK? In every country where Invictus has been hosted, the head of state/prime minister/presidents have always attended opening
ceremonies. In Canada, the opening was attended by the governor-general who is supposed to represent the monarch and the closing was attended by the prime minister. The king and the prime minister should each have a role in Birmingham. Charles will look like a useless petty fool if he does not show his face at a major event involving the armed forces of which he is technically the CIC. One should hope that he has at least one adviser whose head is not stuck in the previous two centuries to point that out to him.
Hi Level support is a little different, in that, while I do agree that they do what their bosses want, but they are largely acting as a proxy instead, and make their own choices, and will then brief their primary on events in a manner that is informational to what they see fit. So, the proxy is expected to represent the crown, and this is where the power starts to go their heads.
The hell he isn’t. He and Willy must have been very, very close to always be on the same page. I’ll leave it at that.
Speculation.
So Alderton was obviously very angry at this meeting; then may have tried to make sure it doesn’t happen but failed; then found out it will happen again and so threatened to leave and his offer was accepted.
I really hope so