Category Archives: Monarchy

Crown gives go ahead to rival ‘net zero carbon’ North Sea schemes

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Exclusive: crown estates accused of greed in selling rights to ‘incompatible’ carbon capture and windfarm projects

A clash between two multibillion pound “net zero carbon” schemes is brewing in the North Sea after the Queen’s property manager granted development rights for one patch of seabed to two different projects at the same time.

The crown estate will earn millions of pounds after agreeing to lease an area off the Yorkshire coast to the latest phase of the giant Hornsea offshore windfarm, as well as to a scheme led by BP which plans to begin storing carbon dioxide under the seabed. This has prompted concern that the giant wind turbines could interfere with seabed sensors for the carbon storage project.

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The Queen spent night in hospital after cancelling Northern Ireland visit

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Buckingham Palace says Elizabeth II is now back in Windsor after doctors advised a few days’ rest

The Queen spent Wednesday night in hospital after cancelling a visit to Northern Ireland, Buckingham Palace has said.

The 95-year-old had been due to take part in a two-day trip, but doctors told her that she should rest for a couple of days at Windsor Castle.

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Barbados elects first president as it prepares to drop Queen as head of state

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Caribbean nation elects governor general to new role prior to former British colony becoming a republic

Barbados has elected its first president with just weeks to go until the Caribbean island becomes a republic and ceases to recognise Queen Elizabeth as its head of state.

The island’s governor general, Dame Sandra Mason, was elected almost unanimously by the former British colony’s parliament on Wednesday, with only one member declining to vote.

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Queen cancels Northern Ireland trip and is told to rest

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Buckingham Palace says monarch has ‘reluctantly accepted medical advice to rest for next few days’

The Queen has cancelled a planned two-day visit to Northern Ireland after advice from her doctors that she should “rest for the next few days”.

Buckingham Palace said in a statement: “The Queen has reluctantly accepted medical advice to rest for the next few days.

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‘You are as old as you feel’: Queen declines Oldie of the Year award

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Monarch ‘politely but firmly’ turns down title because she ‘does not believe she meets relevant criteria’

The Queen has received many accolades over her 95 years, but one she is refusing to accept is the Oldie of the Year award, believing she does not meet the criteria and explaining that “you are as old as you feel”.

She “politely but firmly” declined the award, which is given annually to celebrate the achievements of members of the older generations who have made a special contribution to public life, although she sent organisers her “warmest best wishes”.

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Prince William criticises space race and tourism’s new frontier

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Duke of Cambridge says world’s greatest minds need to focus on trying to fix the Earth instead

The Duke of Cambridge has criticised the space race and space tourism, saying the world’s greatest minds need to focus on trying to fix the Earth instead.

Prince William’s comments, in an interview with Newscast on BBC Sounds, will be aired the day after William Shatner made history by becoming the oldest person in space.

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Dutch royals can marry person of same gender without giving up throne, says PM

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The prime minister was responding to book arguing old laws would prevent same-sex marriage for a monarch or their heirs

A Dutch monarch can marry a person of whatever gender they choose without forfeiting their right to the throne, prime minister Mark Rutte has said.

Rutte was responding to questions from parliament that arose from a recent book, Amalia, Duty Calls, which argued that old laws would appear to exclude the possibility of a same-sex couple on the throne, despite same-sex marriage being legal in the Netherlands since 2001.

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Prince Andrew allowed to review settlement between Virginia Giuffre and Jeffrey Epstein

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A court in New York has granted the royal’s lawyers permission to see the confidential agreeement between his accuser and the late financier

Prince Andrew will have a chance to review a 2009 settlement agreement that he hopes will shield him from a civil lawsuit accusing him of sexually abusing a woman two decades ago, when she was underage.

In an order made in New York on Wednesday, US district judge Loretta Preska granted permission for Andrew’s lawyers to receive a copy of the confidential agreement between the late financier Jeffrey Epstein and Virginia Giuffre.

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Diana: The Musical review – a right royal debacle so bad you’ll hyperventilate

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This filmed version of the Broadway show, with its accidental comedy and cringeworthy lines, is a guilty-pleasures singalong in waiting

And … so … it’s … springtime for glamour and victimhood, winter for Windsors and Charles. Netflix have now given us the filmed version of the entirely gobsmacking and jawdropping Broadway show Diana: The Musical, shot at the Longacre theatre on West 48th Street last summer with no audience while the show itself was on pause due to the Covid pandemic. And while you’re waiting for Pablo Larraín’s movie Spencer, starring Kristen Stewart as Diana, this will have to do. Although there is a danger it will cause you to hyperventilate.

Not since the Cats movie have I literally shouted from my seat: “What? What? WHAT?” Only by having Diana ride on stage on the back of a Jellicle cat could this be more bizarre. If it was deliberate satire it would be genius, but it’s not. It’s a saucer-eyed retelling of the life of Diana, Princess of Wales, with bobbing chorus lines of footmen and flunkies who with a costume change morph into step-in-time phalanxes of snarling tabloid hacks, while Diana solemnly warbles downstage about her loneliness and determination in a pool of follow spotlight.

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Prince Andrew accepts he has been served in US sexual assault lawsuit

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Issue of whether royal had been notified about the case had previously been contested

The Duke of York has received court papers relating to a sexual assault lawsuit, US officials have confirmed.

The complainant, Virginia Giuffre, is seeking damages after alleging Prince Andrew sexually assaulted her, a claim he vehemently denies.

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Prince Charles ‘cash-for-honours’ scandal grows with fresh allegations

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Prince reportedly ‘met at least nine times’ with William Bortrick, the alleged fixer at heart of the claims

Clarence House is facing fresh questions over further revelations in the royal “cash for honours” scandal involving middlemen who reportedly took cuts for setting up meetings between wealthy donors and the Prince of Wales.

Prince Charles “met at least nine times” with William Bortrick, the alleged fixer at the heart of the claims, who is said to have received thousands of pounds to secure an honour for a Saudi billionaire and brokered a personal thank-you letter from Charles to a Russian donor, the Sunday Times reported.

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Prince Philip’s will to remain secret for 90 years, high court rules

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Ruling on Duke of Edinburgh's will made to protect ‘dignity’ of Queen and her constitutional role

The Duke of Edinburgh’s will is to remain secret to protect the “dignity” of the Queen because of her constitutional role, the high court has ruled. Philip – the nation’s longest-serving consort – died aged 99 on 9 April, just two months before he would have turned 100.

After the death of a senior member of the royal family, it has been convention for over a century that an application to seal their will is made to the president of the family division of the high court. This means the wills of senior members of the royal family are not open to public inspection in the way a will would ordinarily be.

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Queen supports Black Lives Matter, says senior royal representative

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Sir Ken Olisa, first black Lord-Lieutenant for London, reveals he has talked about racism with royal household

The Queen and the royal family are supporters of the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement, one of the monarch’s representatives has said.

Sir Ken Olisa, the first black Lord-Lieutenant for London, revealed to Channel 4 that he had discussed the topic of racism with members of the royal household in the wake of George Floyd’s murder in the US.

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Charles has ‘no knowledge’ of alleged offer of honours, says

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Clarence House says Prince of Wales supports investigation after he and trusted aide reported to police

The Prince of Wales has “no knowledge” of the alleged honours and citizenship controversy, Clarence House has said, after Charles and his most trusted aide were reported to the police over the claims.

At least two complaints have been made to the Metropolitan police over allegations that a wealthy Saudi businessman was offered help to secure an honour and British citizenship after donating to Charles’s charities.

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Prince Charles’s former aide steps down as charity boss amid conduct inquiry

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Michael Fawcett, who was CEO of Prince’s Foundation, faces claims about honour for a Saudi businessman

A former aide to the Prince of Wales has stepped down temporarily from his role as a charity boss while an investigation into allegations about his conduct takes place.

Michael Fawcett, a former assistant valet to Charles, has stepped down as chief executive of the Prince’s Foundation amid claims about an honour relating to Saudi businessman Mahfouz Marei Mubarak bin Mahfouz.

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Spencer review – Princess Diana’s disastrous marriage makes a magnificent farce

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Kristen Stewart’s entirely compelling Di has no escape from the dress-up game of monarchy in Pablo Larraín’s unreverential movie

Sandringham, Christmas 1991. Bare trees, frosted fields, dead pheasants on the drive. Inside the grand house the dining table has been laid in readiness, but one of the principal guests – arguably the main course – is running late and lost. She grinds her car to a halt, tosses her perfect hair in frustration. “Where the fuck am I?” asks Diana, Princess of Wales.

And so begins this extraordinary film, which bills itself as “a fable from a true tragedy” and spotlights three days in the dissolution of Charles and Di’s marriage. Working off a sharp script by Steven Knight, Chilean director Pablo Larraín spins the headlines and scandals into a full-blown Gothic nightmare, an opulent ice palace of a movie with shades of Rebecca at the edges and a pleasing bat-squeak of absurdity in its portrayal of the royals. Larraín’s approach to the material is rich and intoxicating and altogether magnificent. I won’t call it majestic. That would do this implicitly republican film a disservice.

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Security operation for Queen’s death includes social media blackouts

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Secret documents reveal scale of funeral strategy and government anxieties over resources

The UK government’s vast security operation to manage the immediate aftermath of the death of the Queen include official social media blackouts and a ban on retweets.

These plans, codenamed Operation London Bridge, which were first revealed in a Guardian Long Read in 2017 and have now been seen in full by Politico, detail the scale of the arrangements for the funeral and government anxieties about whether the UK has the resources to execute them.

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Prince Andrew’s reputation damaged for ever by Giuffre claims, experts say

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Lawyers say Duke of York has lost in court of public opinion and is unlikely to engage with civil case in US

The Duke of York faces an “uphill struggle” to combat the impact of the sex offences allegations made against him and has already lost in the court of public opinion, leaving his reputation “highly tarnished” and a return to royal duties impossible, experts have said.

Following a damaging two weeks in which Andrew’s accuser Virginia Roberts Giuffre lodged a civil lawsuit in New York alleging he had sex with her when she was 17, and a source claimed he was a “person of interest” in the Jeffrey Epstein investigation, the duke is now caught “between a rock and a hard place,” said one expert.

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Slice of history: icing from Charles and Diana wedding cake sells for £1,850

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Gerry Layton, a royal supporter from Leeds, bought the cake topping and marzipan base for his collection of memorabilia

An ardent royalist has bought the topping from a slice of Prince Charles and Princess Diana’s wedding cake for £1,850 ($2,565) at auction, more than 40 years after the couple married.

The large piece of cake icing and marzipan base features a detailed, sugared design of the royal coat of arms in gold, red, blue and silver. It was given to Moya Smith, a member of the Queen Mother’s staff, who preserved it with cling film and dated it 29 July 1981.

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Meghan launches work initiative for women on 40th birthday

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40x40 project encourages people to donate 40 minutes of their time to help women return to workplace

The Duchess of Sussex has used her 40th birthday to launch an initiative to help women back into work after the huge job losses caused by the Covid pandemic.

The project, which was launched with a comedy film featuring a juggling Prince Harry, is called 40x40 and is focused on encouraging people around the world to donate 40 minutes of their time to help women return to the workplace.

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