No 10 apologises to Queen over parties on eve of Prince Philip funeral

Boris Johnson’s spokesperson says ‘it’s deeply regrettable that this took place at a time of national mourning’

Downing Street was forced to issue an unprecedented public apology to the Queen on Friday over parties held in No 10 on the eve of her husband’s funeral, amid mounting fury from grassroots Tories.

Conservative MPs will hold crisis talks over the weekend about how to respond to allegations of a party culture in Westminster while the rest of the country was in lockdown.

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Renewed calls for PM to resign over parties on eve of Philip funeral

Queen followed Covid rules at husband’s funeral, sitting alone in face mask away from rest of family

Further allegations of Downing Street parties taking place on the eve of the Duke of Edinburgh’s socially distanced funeral have been met with widespread anger across the political spectrum, bookending a turbulent week for Boris Johnson, who is facing renewed calls to resign.

Prince Philip’s funeral took place in the private chapel at Windsor Castle on Saturday 17 April, the day after two leaving dos were reportedly held at No 10 at a time when such mixing was banned. The Queen, in mourning black, wearing a face mask and sitting alone to maintain social distancing, became one of the defining images of the national lockdown.

Covid restrictions had a substantial impact on the proceedings, with the guest list trimmed from 800 to 30.

The Queen attended the funeral wearing a face mask and socially distanced from the rest of her family, who were seated in their respective household bubbles, at the service in St George’s Chapel at Windsor Castle.

Those in the funeral procession were required to put on face masks before entering the chapel.

Bottles of hand sanitiser featured alongside the traditional dressing of floral arrangements and family wreaths.

Original plans for military processions through London or Windsor were scrapped, with the royal family asking the public not to gather at the castle or other royal residences.

The choir was also limited to four singers, while the few guests were banned from singing in line with Covid regulations.

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A treasured letter to Uncle Bob in Malta | Brief letters

Postal wonder | Corruption | Sacklers | Platinum pudding | Polar prayers

As a five-year-old in the 1950s, I wrote a letter with my Toytown writing set to my favourite uncle, who was in the navy. Before posting, I chose the shade of Noddy stamp to best complement the matching paper and envelope, then addressed it to “Uncle Bob, Malta” (Letters, 11 January). He received it, along with a hefty excess postage fee, but carried it with him in his wallet long afterwards as a cherished memory of home.
Andrea Clarkson
Barrow-in-Furness, Cumbria

• You report that “the British foreign secretary, Liz Truss, insists the UK has some of the toughest anti-corruption laws in the world” (MPs to re-examine UK response to dirty money from Russia, 10 January). But laws and acts of parliament are just pieces of paper until their implementation is monitored.
Marika Sherwood
Oare, Kent

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Platinum pudding for Queen’s jubilee to follow 1953’s coronation chicken

Fortnum & Mason’s judges include Mary Berry and event will form part of celebrations for 70-year reign

Fortnum & Mason is launching a competition to find a dish celebrating the Queen’s 70 years on the throne, marking the beginning of official jubilee festivities.

Much like Poulet Reine Elizabeth, more commonly known as coronation chicken, invented by Le Cordon Bleu London for the Queen’s coronation banquet in 1953, it is hoped the Platinum Pudding competition will serve as a long-lasting reminder of the 95 year-old monarch’s reign.

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Royals await anxiously the fallout from Prince Andrew’s disgrace

The Queen’s favourite child, under siege in the press as he awaits a critical court ruling, is not the first obnoxious royal. But he has damaged ‘the Firm’ – and it will have to change

Prince Andrew, the Duke of York, KG, GCVO, CD, ADC, turns 62 next month. It is long past the age at which a man is expected to stop being a cause of concern and embarrassment to his parents. And yet Andrew, who is said to be the Queen’s favourite child, has exposed his mother to the greatest threat to the royal family’s reputation in living memory.

As he awaits the decision of a New York judge, Lewis Kaplan, in the sex assault case brought by Virginia Giuffre, the prince finds himself in the deeply unedifying position of trying to evade court with a secret silencing deal struck by his late friend and convicted sex offender, Jeffrey Epstein.

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Hiding behind the loophole of a dead sex trafficker? Stay classy, Andrew | Marina Hyde

‘Potential defendants’ are sweating (if they can) over whether Virginia Giuffre’s settlement with Epstein will protect them

Where does Prince Andrew drive to in his brand new, £80,000 Range Rover – seemingly his only appearances these days in anything that could be considered the outside world? The duke is often pictured motoring broodingly out of his Royal Lodge home in Windsor at the wheel of this high-performance vehicle, perhaps making his in-car security detail listen to a podcast about putting, or a funny song about a whoopee cushion. (The precise contours of Andrew’s cultural life have always remained a tantalising mystery.) Some local visits to his mother at Windsor Castle have been chalked up, as well they might be. But we’ll come to the duke’s ominous financial reliance on the Queen in a minute.

Were The Artist Formerly Known as Airmiles to take an aimless intra-Berkshire spin this morning, he would be able to listen to news reports concerning the newly unsealed settlement his accuser reached with Jeffrey Epstein in 2009. Virginia Giuffre signed a $500,000 deal with Epstein, and Andrew’s lawyers believe her agreement not to sue anyone who could be described as a “potential defendant” could get HRH off the hook of having to face, in civil court, her claims that he sexually assaulted her on three occasions when she was a minor. (He denies everything, vehemently.)

Marina Hyde is a Guardian columnist

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Armed intruder arrested at Windsor Castle as Queen celebrates Christmas

Police say suspect was carrying an offensive weapon and royal family have been informed

An armed man was arrested after attempting to break into Windsor Castle where the Queen was celebrating Christmas with her family.

Police said the intruder was carrying an offensive weapon but did not break into any buildings on Saturday morning.

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Queen expected to strike personal tone in Christmas Day message

Photograph of TV address released by palace shows Queen sitting next to a portrait of her and Prince Philip

The Queen’s Christmas Day message is expected to be a particularly personal one this year, her first since the death of the Duke of Edinburgh.

A photograph released by Buckingham Palace ahead of her televised address shows the Queen sitting behind a desk in the White Drawing Room at Windsor Castle, accompanied by a single, framed picture of the couple taken in 2007 at Broadlands country house, Hampshire, to mark their diamond wedding anniversary.

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Praise for Prince Charles after ‘historic’ slavery condemnation

Equality campaigners say remarks made as Barbados became a republic are ‘start of a grown-up conversation’

The Prince of Wales’s acknowledgment of the “appalling atrocity of slavery” that “forever stains our history” as Barbados became a republic was brave, historic, and the start of a “grown-up conversation led by a future king”, equality campaigners have said.

Uttering words his mother, the Queen, would be constitutionally constrained from saying, Prince Charles’s speech, at the ceremony to replace the monarch as head of state in the island nation, did not demur from reflecting on the “darkest days of our past” as he looked to a bright future for Barbadians.

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Queen congratulates Barbados as it becomes a republic

Monarch sends message marking ‘momentous’ day and wishing Barbadians peace and prosperity

As Barbados removes the Queen as its head of state and becomes a republic, the monarch has sent her congratulations on the nation’s “momentous” day.

Prince Charles arrived on the Caribbean island on Sunday to join the inauguration ceremony of the president-elect, Sandra Mason, who replaces the Queen as head of state overnight as Barbados sheds the vestiges of a colonial system stretching back 400 years.

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Nelson, BLM and new voices: why Barbados is ditching the Queen

Michael Safi reports from the ground as island nation prepares to declare itself a republic

The first time, he stumbled on it by accident, after following a dirt track through fields of sugar cane that came to a clearing. There was a sign, Hakeem Ward remembers, beneath which someone had left an offering.

“The sign said it was a slave burial ground,” he says. “We went and Googled it, and then I realised it was actually one of the biggest slave burial grounds in the western hemisphere.”

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‘Ecological vandalism’: embattled Queen Elizabeth tribute gets go-ahead

Northumberland landmark, named Ascendant, is intended as tribute for Queen’s platinum jubilee year

For supporters, the 55m turbine-blade-like sculpture jutting out of an isolated Northumberland hilltop will attract tourists and be a fitting tribute to Queen and Commonwealth.

For opponents it will be “ecological vandalism” that spoils the landscape and is an artwork which would not look out of place in Communist-era eastern Europe.

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Resting Queen goes for a drive around Windsor estate

Monarch seen alone in green Jaguar that she usually uses to take her dogs to go for a walk

The Queen, who is following medical advice to take it easy for two weeks, donned a headscarf and sunglasses as she got behind the wheel to drive herself around her estate at Windsor on Monday.

Forced to cancel her appearance at Cop26 in Glasgow after a recent overnight stay in hospital for tests, she was seen alone in the green Jaguar estate that she usually uses to take her dogs to go for a walk.

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The Queen advised to rest for two weeks, says Buckingham Palace

Monarch can undertake ‘light, desk-based duties’ and aims to attend Remembrance Sunday service

Doctors have advised the Queen to rest for at least another two weeks and not to undertake any official visits, Buckingham Palace has said.

It means the 95-year-old will not attend the Royal British Legion’s Festival of Remembrance at the Royal Albert Hall on the eve of Remembrance Sunday, though she hopes to be at the Cenotaph for the Remembrance Day service itself.

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

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

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

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

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

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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Queen ‘irritated’ by world leaders talking not doing on climate crisis

Overheard comment suggests anger at possible no-shows at Cop26 by leaders of countries with worst CO2 emissions

The Queen has criticised world leaders’ inaction on addressing the climate crisis, admitting she is “irritated” by individuals who “talk but don’t do”.

She made the remarks, which were picked up on a livestream, at the opening of the Welsh parliament in Cardiff on Thursday.

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