Royal family

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

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

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

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

Rare Lili Other than the new royal baby, is there anyone in the world formally called Lilibet? — There are 141 Lilibets in the US. None have been born since 1999 — when 8 were born, according to the US Social Security Administration. — Lilibet Foster, born in the US Virgin Islands in 1965, is a documentary-maker whose film Speaking in Strings, about the violinist Nadja Salerno-Sonnenberg, was nominated in the 72nd Academy Awards. — In answer to a freedom of information request in 2017, the Office for National Statistics refused to provide a full breakdown of the first names of people living in Britain. But it does publish a

Stockholm The House of Sussex may have flopped in Britain, but elsewhere it does seem to be inspiring others. Here in Stockholm a trendy podcast Värvet (The Task), known for host Kristoffer Triumf’s in-depth interviews with media and entertainment figures, had a surprise guest recently: Carl XVI Gustaf, King of Sweden. He was not so gauche as to attack the constitution or to drop any Prince Harry-style bombs, but his presence on a podcast was seen as the latest part of a royal awokening. Even in exile, Harry has created an interesting challenge for the world’s monarchies. They can be regarded as old-fashioned — normally aligned with the state religion

The tone of his delivery was subdued, which belied the severity with which the future king, Prince William, battered an institution that has historically striven to please and not provoke his family. There was not one bit of comfort for the BBC in the 315 words uttered by William. This was the most damning criticism a senior royal has ever unleashed on the national broadcaster. Once lauded for its Diana scoop, the BBC will now forever be haunted by the accusation that its failures contributed significantly to the ‘fear, paranoia and isolation’ that Diana experienced in the final years of her life. This was the most damning criticism a senior

Home The government made noises about having to delay the lifting of coronavirus restrictions on 21 June in some parts on account of the Indian variant, which appeared more transmissible. ‘The race between our vaccine programme and the virus may be about to become a great deal tighter,’ Boris Johnson, the Prime Minister, said on television. The gap between first and second coronavirus vaccinations would be cut from 12 weeks to eight for over-fifties and the clinically vulnerable. The army was sent to help with testing in Bolton and Blackburn. By the beginning of the week, 37 per cent of the adult population had received both doses of coronavirus vaccination;

Some time around 2006 my then flatmate, a filmmaker, had a good idea: why not make a programme of reverse anthropology? Instead of going to the jungle with some square-jawed presenter to marvel at the natives, he decided to bring the natives here, to England, to see what they made of us. The islanders who arrived one drizzly day were from Tanna, in the South Pacific, and their particular interest in coming here was to meet god, aka HRH Prince Philip. Before they arrived, I felt a certain amount of patronising anxiety. They believed that Prince Philip had emerged from a volcano on Tanna. Would I be able to keep

Fourteen prime ministers; 18 general elections; seven changes of government. Even in a stable country like Britain it is remarkable how much political water has flowed under the bridge in the 69 years since the late Duke of Edinburgh became consort to Elizabeth II. Britain has gone from a country of outside lavatories to one of conspicuous wealth, from an independent nation to a member of the EU and back again, from an empire to a champion of global trade. Some see the past seven decades as a period of national decline, yet the quality of life has improved hugely. In 1952, life expectancy at birth for Britons was 69;

The reason why Greeks and Romans would have found it difficult to eulogise the Duke of Edinburgh was that he did not hold the supreme office: his wife did. This disturbance to the ‘natural’ order of things made the Duke an anomaly. Had he not been, handbooks on the topic would have extolled him as follows. His parents would be noble, of a splendid race and ancestry, and his place of birth a distinguished one. Omens would attend his birth. His education would feature the finest teachers, associates and friends, imbuing him with traditional values, a mind apt for learning, and attention to physical fitness. Then came his moral and

At the tender age of 36, Prince Harry has got his first job since leaving the royal family. Congratulations to him. As most teenagers will know it is both a liberating and formative experience. Paper boy, shopfloor dogsbody, chief impact officer – the roles can be unglamorous, but they’re almost always worth it. Harry’s big post-Megxit break into the world of work is everything we could have expected. He will be working as something called a ‘chief impact officer’ at a Silicon Valley firm called BetterUp, which offers professional-development and mental-health coaching to businesses and their employees. Going by BetterUp’s website, it seems to peddle therapeutic burble to firms with

Meghan’s adroitness Sir: Tanya Gold suggests that people criticise Meghan Markle because she is mixed race and a woman, and states it is because she has dared to attack the royal family (‘In defence of Meghan’, 13 March). I think that misses the point. For a great number of people, her narrative simply does not ring true. Over the past few decades, thousands of media articles have accused the royal household of being claustrophobic, pedantic and antiquated. But unlike the young and naive Diana, Meghan was a thirtysomething TV star with agents and PR people when she met Prince Harry. It’s hard to believe she didn’t know what she was

The institution waited two days before responding to the Oprah interview with a statement that acknowledged the allegations around race were concerning, but it omitted any condemnation of racism. In just twelve seconds this morning, Prince William tackled the central charge head on.  The brothers are riven, in their trenches and communicating via chat show hosts and off the record briefings to newspapers TV doorstepping — shouting a question at someone without prior agreement while armed with a camera and microphone — can be a fruitless task. Doing it when the target is a royal is a soulless endeavour. This morning, at a school in east London, fortune favoured the