Prince William and Kate Middleton’s birthday privileges to be scrapped by Queen over concerns for Prince Andrew

Prince William and Kate Middleton will no longer enjoy a royal privilege on their birthdays as part of a government decision to protect Prince Andrew, according to reports. 

• The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge have lost a royal birthday privilege as part of a government decision to save Prince Andrew from 'embarrassment', it has been revealed. 
• The Queen has reportedly approved the scrapping of a tradition that flies the Union Jack at full mast on the birthdays of the Royal Family's senior members. 
• In other royal news, the dramatic history behind the Queen’s Grand Duchess Vladimir Tiara, a jewel that has survived the fall of an empire.
  

Prince William and Kate Middleton will lose a royal birthday privilege following a government decision to save Prince Andrew from 'embarrassment', according to reports. 

As part of a longstanding tradition, the Union Jack flag is flown at full mast on Government buildings in the UK to mark the birthdays of members of the Royal Family. It has now been revealed, however, that this honorable gesture will now only be made for the Queen and Prince Charles, in an effort to save the Duke of York from further 'embarrassment'. 

The news comes just a few months after it was confirmed that Prince Andrew's birthday tribute was scrapped in Northern Ireland, as Belfast City councilors voted against recognizing the 62-year-old's special day in light of his recent sex abuse case. 

The Duke was accused by Virginia Giuffre in 2019 of sexually assaulting her when she was a minor and holding ties to convicted sex offender, Jeffrey Epstein. He agreed to pay a financial settlement to the Australian-American human trafficking survivor in February 2022, after repeatedly denying all the allegations made against him. 

From 2022 onwards, the Union Jack flag will no longer be flown on the birthdays of any of the Queen's children or the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge. It's understood that the government decision has been approved by the 96-year-old monarch herself, who recently celebrated her Platinum Jubilee with a four-day-long bank holiday weekend. The flag will still be flown on the Queen's two birthdays on 21 April and 12 June, as well as on Prince Charles' birthday on November 14.

An inside source has told the Sun that the decision was made "so as not to upset Andrew, who is decidedly prickly on these sorts of matters", while another said that it hopes to "avoid embarrassment" for the duke. 

The Queen has already stripped Andrew of his royal patronages and his HRH title and confirmed that he will no longer undertake any public duties. He was absent from all the Platinum Jubilee celebrations due to testing positive for COVID-19 and, most recently, he was excluded from the Order of the Garter ceremony at Windsor Castle.