Alexander Larman is an author and books editor of Spectator World, our US-based edition
Picture the convivial scene. You have been invited into the Duke and Duchess of Sussex’s palatial £11 million mansion in Montecito, California as an honoured guest. Once you have removed your shoes, been frisked for weapons or recording devices and been offered a kombucha smoothie, you are ushered into the inner sanctum of the world’s
Meghan Markle has starred in a Netflix show and married into the Royal Family, but has she got her eyes on even loftier ambitions? Since quitting the UK and moving to the United States, the Duchess of Sussex has involved herself in various soft-political campaigns. She’s asked Congress to legislate paid family leave. She has also placed
One of the cruellest and most accurate remarks made about Prince Charles is that he is less king-in-waiting and more the perennial prince, forever hanging about in his mother’s shadow and increasingly desperate to assume the throne. Yet he is now 73 years old, and will be the oldest monarch to ascend the throne since
The predictable yet somehow still hilarious news that Elon Musk is to acquire Twitter for $44 billion has been greeted with the usual chorus of anguished hand-wringing. The left seems appalled that such an unconventional and apparently ungovernable figure now has control of the most volatile social media platform in the world. (It’s hard to
It had been, for a change, a good few days for the Duke and Duchess of Sussex. Not only have they managed to make an atypically low-profile and successful visit to Windsor Castle for an air-clearing meeting with the Queen – which, unlike virtually ever other appointment they have had in recent years, appeared in
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
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
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
When Prince Harry was unveiled as ‘chief impact officer’ at a tech start-up in California, many people were baffled. What did his job title mean? Well, now we know: his mission is to spout meaningless platitudes for wads of cash. Among the pearls of wisdom dished out by Harry in his appearance on a virtual panel
Prince Andrew isn’t known for his shy and retiring nature. That much has been clear, at least, from the saga of the Duke of York’s increasingly compromised public standing. And when a New York judge announced earlier this month that Virginia Roberts’s civil case against Prince Andrew could proceed, he was faced with two options: offer an out-of-court
Since he was defeated by Boris Johnson in the 2019 Conservative leadership contest, Jeremy Hunt has had a quieter life as a backbench MP. He has campaigned for the release of Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe from custody in Iran and has been an effective and interventionist chairman of the Health Select Committee, often calling out his own
Shortly after his abdication in 1936, the now-Duke of Windsor wrote a series of letters while in European exile, in which he complained vociferously about numerous perceived privations that he faced. Chief amongst these was the provision for their security. The British government saw this as now being the Duke and Duchess of Windsor’s responsibility,
If any single image epitomised the sacrifices that millions made during the pandemic, it was that of the Queen, masked, black-clad and entirely alone, in a pew at Windsor Castle on 17 April 2021, at Prince Philip’s socially distanced funeral. For those who regard Her Majesty as the exemplar of the public servant, who has
The final judgement, when it came, was phrased with admirable economy. This evening’s statement from Buckingham Palace said simply that: With The Queen’s approval and agreement, The Duke of York’s military affiliations and Royal patronages have been returned to The Queen. The Duke of York will continue not to undertake any public duties and is
As the Harry and Meghan carnival rumbles on, the Queen has found an unexpected source of support: Donald Trump. During an interview with Nigel Farage, Trump said of Meghan: ‘I’m not a fan of hers. I wasn’t from day one…she is trying do things that I think are very inappropriate.’ Meanwhile, he painted the Duke of Sussex
Selling books through Amazon is now part and parcel of a working author’s life. It would be a brave writer who decided to refuse to allow their work to be sold through earth’s biggest retailer. But that is exactly what Dave Eggers has done with his new book, The Every, which he has decreed can
As Harvey Weinstein was to film, so Robert ‘R.’ Kelly has been to the music industry. An energetic and profligate figure who enjoyed enormous commercial and artistic success in his heyday, Kelly’s downfall, with his convictions on nine charges of sex trafficking and racketeering, is now total. It looks likely he will be given a
For those disappointed by the humorless and deeply earnest treatment of the contemporary campus experience in the 2020 TV adaptation of Sally Rooney’s Normal People, the new Netflix series The Chair will be a welcome tonic. Over its punchy six half-hour episodes, the show, co-created by the actress Amanda Peet and produced by her husband
There are few aesthetic and literary pleasures that compare to browsing in a second-hand bookshop. While it is more or less a given what books will be found in a new bookshop, one of the chief joys of going second hand is that it’s entirely unpredictable what you’ll emerge with. Sometimes, the browser will leave
Last year, the apparently definitive biography of Harry and Meghan, Finding Freedom by Omid Scobie and Carolyn Durand, was published, and immediately became a bestseller, despite Harry and Meghan only having reached the tender ages of 36 and 39. It seemed inevitable that as soon as the biography had hit the shelves, it would be
