Royal family

Why Meghan Markle’s Netflix show was cancelled

In their post-royal careers, Harry and Meghan have learned two lessons in quick succession: firstly, that membership of the royal family opens the door to media deals less well-connected celebrities could only dream about. Secondly, they have learned that even royal fame will not, ultimately, help one of the biggest media organisations in the world sell a product that the public finds unappealing. No doubt Meghan thinks mightily of the concept of Pearl, her proposed animated Netflix series in which a 12-year-old girl is inspired by great women in history. But it seems potential viewers are rather less enamoured. Netflix has cancelled the series before it was even made. Considering

How much of a litre of fuel is now tax?

Common knowledge Tensions in the visit of the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge to Jamaica led some to speculate that the Commonwealth might not long survive the present Queen’s reign. Who came up with the idea of naming the successor organisation to the British Empire after a term first used by Oliver Cromwell? – Lord Rosebery is recorded as referring to a ‘Commonwealth of nations’ in 1884, a decade before he became prime minister. – The term was first used officially in the Commonwealth of Australia Constitution Act 1900, which established a federation of British colonies. – The idea of a British Commonwealth first surfaced at the 1926 Imperial Conference.

The Prince Andrew conundrum

Prince Philip’s memorial service yesterday was an affecting occasion. The hymns, including Guide Me O Thou Great Redeemer and Britten’s Te Deum In C were well chosen, and the Dean of Windsor’s well-judged sermon acknowledged both the Duke of Edinburgh’s sincere but never pious religious faith and his energetic, at times abrasive personality. The Dean suggested, rightly, that the Duke would never have wanted to be remembered as a plaster saint. After the low-key Covid-necessitated funeral service of last year, it was a public reminder that the royal family can still command both dignity and respect. So why, then, have today’s headlines been so dreadful? She was acting as a

Prince William is turning into his brother

For a tour that should have been an unmitigated success, the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge’s visit to the Caribbean has ended up being surprisingly controversial, described as nothing less than ‘a PR disaster’. Even if some of the negative coverage feels confected, especially in light of the exploits of Prince Andrew and Prince Harry, it seems extraordinary that the supposed outrage could not have been anticipated. It has been an inauspicious curtain-raiser to the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee celebrations in June: from the unfortunate images of the Duke and Duchess shaking hands with Jamaican children through a chain-link fence to the protests that have greeted their progress from local republicans. There is a sense

Will Prince Andrew fuel a republican boom?

So that’s that then. After years of claims and counter-claims, Prince Andrew has settled with Virginia Giuffre for an eight-figure sum thought to be in the region of £12 million. This, for a woman he said he had never met. Hmm.  The humiliation for the disgraced royal isn’t over yet though: self-promoting Corbynista Rachel Maskell, the MP for York Central, has been quick today to demand his title as Duke of York be removed to avoid offence to the good people of God’s own county. And it seems that Labour backbenchers aren’t the only critics to whom Andrew is giving succour. For pressure group Republic, which campaigns for the abolition

Prince Andrew settles. What next?

In some ways, the news is a disappointment. Prince Andrew’s decision to settle the civil case filed against him by Virginia Giuffre has likely deprived the public of weeks of damaging revelations. After much lawyer-led bravado about how the Duke of York was going to fight the scandalous and defamatory claims against him, he has now decided not to. This can only be seen as a terminal blow to what little remains of his public reputation. The statement released by the lawyers suggests that Giuffre will be receiving an undisclosed financial settlement and that Prince Andrew will be making ‘a substantial donation to Ms Giuffre’s charity in support of victim’s

Portrait of the week: Queen Camilla, a cabinet rejig and NHS waiting list warning

Home In a message for the 70th anniversary of her accession, the Queen said it was her sincere wish that ‘when that time comes, Camilla will be known as Queen Consort’. She signed the message: ‘Your servant, Elizabeth R.’ Rishi Sunak, Chancellor of the Exchequer, said that the government would pay energy suppliers to discount bills by £200 in October, but customers would then have to pay back £40 a year for five years. People living in houses of the A-D council tax bands would receive a £150 rebate. The regular Ofgem energy price cap adjustment meant that a typical household would pay £693 extra a year, a 54 per

70 years on: the making of Queen Elizabeth II

Princess Elizabeth was 25 when her father died. She was on the first leg of a Commonwealth tour and she spent the night of 5 February 1952 at Treetops Hotel, set in the branches of a large fig tree in Aberdare National Park in Kenya. ‘For the first time in the history of the world,’ wrote the British naturalist Jim Corbett, who was a guest at the hotel at the same time, ‘a young girl climbed into a tree one day a princess and, after having what she described as her most thrilling experience, she climbed down from the tree next day a Queen.’ As interest in Queen Elizabeth II

Is Putin the reason my house is so cold?

Justin Webb is normally one of the least self-righteous BBC presenters, but he was out-Maitlising rivals on the Today programme on Tuesday. In that special, shocked tone broadcasters usually reserve for stories about racism or paedophilia, Webb contrasted ‘the final goodbyes not said’ by those who followed the rules with the Prime Minister’s birthday party/gathering in the Cabinet Room. He quoted Adam Wagner, ‘the human rights lawyer and Covid rules expert’, that it had been ‘obviously a birthday party’. It was ‘not denied’, Webb gravely intoned, ‘there was birthday cake’. How does he prevent himself bursting out laughing? The longer this story runs, now with added police, the more preposterous

Prince Andrew’s royal excommunication is complete

Prince Andrew has been well and truly cut adrift. By his only family. From birth, he was styled His Royal Highness. He will go to his grave unencumbered by it. The removal of the style HRH, at the age of 61, will hurt a son of the Queen who doesn’t wear his royal status lightly. He remains a prince and a duke, but the Falklands veteran has no military titles. The uniform of an admiral he’d asked a tailor to run up will now remain in a wardrobe. Unworn in public. His patronages are gone too. Henceforth, he’s Prince Andrew, Duke of York: the non-royal, royal This is what a

Most-read 2021: ‘My’ truth about Meghan and Harry

We’re closing the year by republishing our ten most popular articles in 2021. Here’s number one: Rod Liddle writing in March on Harry and Meghan.  Caroline Rose Giuliani, the daughter of the former mayor of New York, Rudy, has been talking to the press about one of her hobbies. Apparently she likes nothing more than playing the role of a ‘unicorn’ — the third partner in a sexual liaison. She explained: ‘Finding the strength to explore these more complicated, passionate aspects of my personality became the key to harnessing my voice and creative spark, which in turn helped me better cope with depression, anxiety, and the lingering cognitive effects of adolescent

A riveting cheese dream of a film: Spencer reviewed

Go see Pablo Larrain’s Spencer, which stars Kristen Stewart as Princess Diana, and the next day you will wonder: did I go to the cinema last night or did I have a cheese dream? Did she really clear the room of staff by saying she wished to masturbate, or was it the cheddar and crackers I foolishly had before bed? This is a total cheese dream of a film —did she really just eat a pearl? — but also it’s a riveting one as well as a thrillingly entertaining one. Plus it all somehow feels true even if it isn’t. Broken woman, unfeeling family. That seems about right. This is

Fit for a Queen: why Windsor should be on your property radar

It’s rumoured that Prince William is considering a move from Kensington Palace to be closer to his grandmother in Windsor. Since her return from Balmoral, she has based herself full time at Windsor Castle and it’s certainly a great town but should you consider moving there too? Years ago I worked with American investors looking to buy commercial real estate in the UK. One thing they could never quite appreciate is how old everything was. They’d often ask why anyone would build Windsor Castle under a flight path. I’ll merely leave that there with a raised eyebrow and let you know that an original castle was first built on the site

HBO’s The Prince should leave George alone

Last year Netflix refused to add a disclaimer to the beginning of every episode of The Crown, warning viewers that it is part fiction. HBO Max’s new cartoon The Prince, however, had no choice: the series has been sitting on the shelf so long that it was out of date before it was even broadcast, so every episode bears a warning that ‘this isn’t really the royal family. It’s like, a parody, or whatever. And certain recent events will not be reflected in this programme.’ The streaming service’s new cartoon comedy (if one can call it that) is based around an imagined child’s-eye-view of life in the palace. The protagonist

My brush with a royal literary crisis

The past week has seen another media splash about the self-exiled Duke and Duchess of Sussex. Following the recent ruckus over the statue of Princess Diana, the latest crisis to come off the royal conveyor belt was news that the Duke has written what his publishers sedately describe as a ‘literary memoir’. Cue general outrage. I was duly put to work by a weekend newspaper on an article that was expected to follow the anti-Harry orthodoxy but somehow it wandered off course. None of us has all the facts about why he and his family have moved to California, yet that hasn’t stopped pro- and anti-Sussex camps mobilising with a

Prince Harry could learn from Kate Middleton’s mental health work

I wonder if the royal family realise how lucky they are to have Kate? She may have been born a commoner, but she is proving herself to be the best asset the Firm have. As naff as this sounds, she comes across as actually caring and wanting to use her position of power and influence to do some good which is quite refreshing in today’s self-obsessed, navel-gazing world where those in the public eye only seem to care if there’s a long-lens camera trained on them while they do their good deeds. Along with William she has championed causes such as mental health which were profoundly uncool when they first

Spare us Prince Harry’s ‘literary memoir’

However you look at it, ‘freedom day’ turned out to be a bit of a damp squib. So thank goodness for Prince Harry who managed to squeeze in some good news to cheer us all up. His formerly-royal highness is to publish his memoirs. It’ll be an ‘intimate and heartfelt’ account no less, written, he tells us, ‘not as the prince I was born but as the man I have become.’ I can’t be the only one barely able to contain my excitement. One tantalising question is what more Harry still has to reveal. Having spent a tempestuous couple of years desperately seeking privacy in between pouring his heart out

What the Romans would have made of Diana’s statue

The recently unveiled funerary monument of Princess Diana prompts comparison with Greek and Roman archetypes. To many, Diana was a heroic figure. Greek sculptors represented females as dignified figures, intricately coiffed, in graceful, loose-fitting, free-flowing tunics and ankle-length cloaks, with contrasting vertical and diagonal folds. Males were nude, a public statement of power and physical perfection, as if human significance did not end in death. Both were idealised figures, illustrating character and quality, not likeness. There is no hint of heroic ideals in this Diana, dressed presumably as a nursery teaching assistant. She does not even look like Diana, an attractive, delicate-featured woman. For Romans, in contrast to Greeks, likeness

How many countries have royal yachts?

Royal waves Does any other country have a royal yacht? — The Queen of Denmark uses HDMY Dannebrog, a 260ft vessel built in 1932 to replace a paddle steamer of the same name. — The Dutch royal family own a 50ft 1950s yacht, De Groene Draeck, used only locally. — King Harald V of Norway has the use of HNoMY Norge, a 264ft vessel originally built for aircraft manufacturer Thomas Sopwith in 1937 and bought by the Norwegian people for their royal family after the second world war. It was restored following a serious fire in 1985. — King Mohammed VI of Morocco owns El Boughaz I, a 133ft yacht

The curious appeal of old Land Rovers

When the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge arrived at Holyrood House to watch a drive-in screening of the Disney film Cruella with NHS staff last month, the Daily Telegraph reported that the couple ‘paid tribute to the late Duke of Edinburgh’ by travelling in one of his ‘beloved’ Land Rovers – which, as any Landy fan will tell you, was a long wheelbase station wagon in Bronze Green with glass ‘alpine lights’ in the roof and, unusually, a colour-co-ordinated hard top and bumper. Judging by the royal couple’s un-dishevelled appearance – he in a dark two-piece, white shirt, no tie; she in a belted, ankle-length coat of muted blue tartan