As with any major negotiation, the devil is in the detail. And the more that we study the new template for 21st century reluctant royalty, the more issues that arise – from heraldry to trademarks and some very odd new titles. The Queen has certainly kept to her side of …
Read More »Why I’m planning NOT to use my new passport… and you should think about it too, says JOHN HUMPHRYS
A new passport has just arrived in the post. I remember my first one, more than half a century ago, almost as clearly as I remember the arrival of my first child — with one big difference. The baby demanded responsibility. The passport promised freedom. For a scruffy kid who’d …
Read More »ROBERT HARDMAN: How Princess Diana proved you can’t serve the Queen and trade on the royal name
No one, in seven decades of exemplary leadership, has ever accused the Queen of exaggeration. She trades in understatement. When she says of the departure of the Duke and Duchess of Sussex that ‘these are complex matters’, she is talking of profound challenges which she understands better than anyone else. …
Read More »CRAIG BROWN: Grace Kelly found the royal role tough too
Grace Kelly was a huge Hollywood star when she decided to marry Prince Rainier in 1956 The difference in the world-views of the Markles and the Windsors was always evident in the language they employed. After her engagement to Prince Harry, Meghan told Vanity Fair magazine: ‘I was born in …
Read More »RICHARD LITTLEJOHN: Her Majesty deserves better than this
Talk about history repeating itself. It’s 28 years since Lady Di broke up with Prince Charles and announced she intended to carry on being an independent member of the Royal Family. I can remember writing at the time that it was a bit like Bianca Jagger, after getting divorced from …
Read More »Who the hardest working royal REALLY is
While most people might have spent Boxing Day walking off their Christmas lunch or snoozing through a film, Tim O’Donovan was settling down to do some serious arithmetic, as he always does at this time of year. And there can be no margin of error when your annual sums make …
Read More »CRAIG BROWN: To servants, there’s just one Prince of Oafs
Recalling the two younger Princes, the Prince of Wales’s housekeeper Wendy Berry found Edward ‘utterly charming and polite’, but Andrew (pictured) boorish and rude, writes CRAIG BROWN On November 28, 2001, Gyles Brandreth attended a reception at Buckingham Palace for bigwigs in the media. The Queen was telling a small …
Read More »EDEN CONFIDENTIAL: Earl of Yarmouth may sue his own family after he is thrown off estate
Kelsey Wells has laid bare the disdain which has greeted her since she wed William Seymour, Earl of Yarmouth — and which now threatens to lead to the courts The Duchess of Sussex has spoken of her struggle to adapt to life as a Royal. But it can be just as …
Read More »ANGELA LEVIN: How DID our Royal Family come to this?
Which of us would have imagined gathering round our television sets on a Saturday evening to watch the Queen’s second son squirming and dissembling as he’s grilled about his friendship with a convicted paedophile? We thought Princess Diana’s tearful interview about the state of her marriage to Prince Charles was …
Read More »Labour’s plan to nationalise BT and provide free broadband, risking the pension pots of millions?
John McDonnell (pictured) took to the radio yesterday sounding for all the world like a friendly uncle Anyone who imagines nationalising a chunk of BT will lead to a golden age of telecommunications clearly can’t remember the Sixties or Seventies. When I was a little girl, my grandparents were one …
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