Monarchy

How can we stop Australian politicians from touching up members of our Royal Family, in the manner of a libidinous BBC Radio disc jockey? If you remember, the former Prime Minister Paul Keating once groped the Queen, without even having first invited her out for a drink. Now the current PM, a man called Tony Abbott, has draped his meaty arm around the Duke of Cambridge, probably while making some over-familiar or even vulgar aside about his wife. “Punched above your weight there, you sly old bugger,” or something similarly grotesque. Obviously the Royals will need to visit the Antipodes from time to time, to let them know that we

Only a few hours before the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge landed in Sydney for the start of their much-hyped royal Australian visit, Barry O’Farrell, the popular Premier of New South Wales, stunned the nation by resigning. His reason? He couldn’t remember having quaffed a bottle of wine. (No ordinary wine, mind you, but a bottle of 1959 Penfolds Grange, valued at around GBP 1,700.) In years to come, no doubt among Barry’s many regrets will be the fact that he didn’t get to hob nob on the harbour with the glam royal couple. A timely coincidence, because what links these two events goes to the heart of why Australia’s

It’s great news that this summer will see the launch of Britain’s biggest-ever warship, the HMS Queen Elizabeth, built on the Clyde and weighing 65,000 tons. This beast will be carrying Merlins, Chinooks, Apache and 250 troops, and also features a ‘Highly Mechanised Weapon Handling System’, which I don’t quite understand the meaning of but definitely makes me aroused. But couldn’t the Powers That Be have come up with a more original name? I love the royal family and everything, but how many things do we have to name after them? Most recently, a year or so ago it was announced that they’d come up with a name for our

Prince Harry’s disdain for the media is well documented; but it was William who got grumpy today, telling Guardian journalist Robert Booth: ‘Why don’t you put your notebook down and give us a hand with the sandbags?’ Booth offered to help: ‘But when your reporter agreed to help, aides stepped in and said it would not be possible due to a lack of the right sort of clothing.’ Typical health and safety mumbo jumbo, etcetera. The royal PR operation is a slick machine these days. Opportunities are rarely missed, which is why the princes were up bright and early this morning to get in on the action. William and Harry,

When I interviewed Valéry Giscard d’Estaing, the former president of France, for my biography of Margaret Thatcher, I asked him why, when she lunched with him at the Elysée Palace for the first time, he had been served before her: she had been offended. M. Giscard explained that no slight had been intended. It was a matter of protocol — the president is the head of state, the British prime minister only the head of government. ‘You must remember,’ he added, ‘that the president is in the line of sovereigns.’ I recalled these words when reading about President Hollande and his amorous adventures in his helmet. To the British, it is

These are troubled times for Princess Michael of Kent. Austerity has hit Kensington Palace. ‘We’ve cut back dramatically,’ she tells the Times. ‘I mean we never go out to dinner unless we go to somebody’s house. We never go to restaurants. That’s too extravagant.’ It sounds just ghastly. And, I regret to say, that the princess travels in less style than she used to: ‘I love Easyjet. It’s the only direct route to Biarritz. We always fly tourist-class anyway in Europe.’ Although it may sound like the Baroness Marie Christine Anna Agnes Hedwig Ida is enduring Dickensian privations, she does say: ‘for long-haul, we go club.’ Phew! I was about to call for a

Steerpike particularly enjoyed this close-up.

The astonishing level of enthusiasm over the birth of the new prince goes far beyond the pleasure that people naturally feel for an attractive young couple who have had a healthy child. If there is any truth at all to these estimates in the North American media that trinkets and other bric-a-brac, and even increased numbers of tourists, will produce hundreds of millions of pounds for the British economy, the answer lies not just in normal goodwill and the effusions of the most strenuous monarchists. If my memory is accurate,  the last time there was so much public interest in a royal event, albeit of the exactly opposite nature, was

Prince Charles told it like it is when he was hijacked by the royal baby press pack this morning: ‘Absolutely nothing at the moment, we’re waiting’. Others, though, are not so patient. The BBC is excelling itself: this is a royal occasion so it must provide hours of vapid commentary, conveyed in hushed tones. It’s a thankless task, as newsanchor Simon McCoy made clear on air: ‘Plenty more to come from here, none of it news of course, but that won’t stop us… Let’s speculate, because that’s all we can do.’ Over on Sky News, Kay Burley is the real queen of days like this: ‘I asked how many centimetres…but

Commenting on the imminent royal baby, Brenda, who is set to become a great-grandmother again, seems overwhelmed with joy: ‘I hope it arrives soon because I’m going on holiday.’  Classic Windsor coldness.

Mr Steerpike is a romantic at heart and a conservative, so I like love and marriage. Yet I was irritated by one detail of the nuptials of Lady Melissa Percy and Thomas van Straubenzee (pictured), dubbed the ‘Royal Wedding of the North’ at Alnwick Castle, which took place this weekend. It was quite a bash. Prince Harry was caught between two blondes, when his ex and latest squeeze came face to face. Prince William (who was Best Man to his childhood friend van Straubenzee) was flying solo after the heavily pregnant Duchess of Cambridge decided to stay in London lest she be forced to give birth in a northern NHS

I am on my first ever visit to Sweden and enjoying it greatly. My idea of this country had recently become rather confused. I used to picture it as a social democratic paradise, a tolerant, law-abiding welfare state in which everyone was a good and caring citizen. But then came the Wallander television series and the Stieg Larsson books and films in which Sweden was portrayed as a country in which violent crime was rife and corruption, sadism and perversion held sway. The reality, as I have experienced it over the past few days, has neither upheld nor discredited either of these stereotypes. But this is hardly surprising, since I

I wonder what Prince Charles makes of the fashion for abdication? Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands and the Pope are both vacating the seat of power before shuffling off this mortal coil. Perhaps the old Lupin-whisperer imagines his destiny is close. Royal chatter reaches Mr Steerpike that someone at Clarence House recently commissioned a private poll on the public’s perception of senior royals. I hear that they were delighted with one pearl amongst the grit: Prince Charles is the most popular Prince of Wales ever. Funnily enough, the living population had little recollection of how previous heirs apparent conducted their public duties; smiled as they opened leisure centres; worked the room; or treated