Fact check: did Charles make Andrew a Counsellor of State?

What better way to mark the death of the monarch than via some good old royal disinformation? Twitter users have been in a strop today about Prince Andrew, the black sheep of the Windsor mob. Apparently, his brother, King Charles, has taken it up on himself to appoint the Duke of York as a 'Counsellor of State', to whom the monarch can delegate royal functions.

That certainly was the view of the the Twitter handlers at ‘PoliticsJOE’when they claimed that Prince Andrew will ‘carry out Royal duties’ as a Counsellor of State; implying that he wasn’t one already, and that this appointment had been signed off by the new King. Naturally, the usual rent-a-mob seized on this claim with gusto, with Guardian columnist Owen Jones leading the charge. Counsellors of state may carry out 'such of the royal functions as may be specified in the Letters Patent'. In practice, this means most of the monarch's official duties, such as attending Privy Council meetings, signing routine documents and receiving the credentials of new ambassadors to the Court of St James's.

A great story, aside from the fact that, er, it wasn't actually true that Charles had given his brother anything. As others were quick to point out, King Charles is bound by the Regency Act 1937, as amended in 1943, which stipulates that the counsellors of state are the monarch’s spouse and the four next in line to the throne above the age of 21. Charles has no say in the matter; responsibility rests instead with our elected masters in parliament who can amend such laws.

And given that the Queen Consort, the Prince of Wales and Prince Harry are all higher up the pecking order, there probably wouldn’t be much point in telling Andrew when meetings would be held. Indeed being eligible to be a Counsellor of State doesn't mean you actually get called upon to do the job (one former Counsellor never served as such). In any case, the decisions would need to be taken by two Counsellors acting jointly: Camilla and William would be the obvious choices.

Let's hope the next constitutional row has a bit more grounding in a fact-based reality.