London - The Queen was left looking grimly po-faced as news of the deception spread this morning confirming Foreign Orifice DNA results of a direct hit between the missing Irish peer and Prince Andrew, Duke of York.
The royal cuckoo became a Palace shoo-in after the real Andrew perished in the Falklands' sinking of HMS Sheffield and was hurriedly replaced by the Lucan spawn to spare the nation's - and Mrs Thatcher's - blushes.
He's lived the Life of Riley ever since, jetting around on UK taxpayer handouts and spreading large ass/largesse to all and sundry who might have twigged to the er, switch.
Of course, some of the nation's top knob families have been in on the scam since the year dot.
"Mostly it's relatives of Blackshirts fascist Sir Oswald Mosley, Lord Haw-Haw and the late Queen Mother," a Palace lackey told QM-NewsCorpse amid frantic House of Windsor rearguard moves.
However a megabux paper trail sourced to royal bankers Cuntts & Co (now part of Royal Bank of Scot-Free Land) shows 30 years of illicit payments have kept 'Lucky' Lucan featherbedded in foreign climes.
"Bloody story's a loada bollox!" someone who once holidayed in Gaborone, Botswana said today.
Princess Beatrice and Eugenie may have to reconsider their own HRH scams.
