“Woke Royals”

So after a six-year sojourn in southern California, Harry and Meghan – partners in crime in what I dubbed ‘the Grabdication’ – are heading back to Blighty.

I don’t think we’ve missed them very much at all. Distance has not led to enchantment, and their tawdry antics have appeared less riveting as time goes by, from Meghan’s jam business to the reality TV shows to Harry’s charity scandals. As that very frank man from Spotify said of them: ‘“The Fucking Grifters” – that’s the podcast we should have launched with them.’

Prince Harry and his fellow claimants must pay millions to the Daily Mail after a judge today ruled their doomed hacking case was pursued in a way that was ‘unreasonable to a high degree’.

The Duke of Sussex, Baroness Lawrence, Sir Elton John and the four others have seven days to pay the first £9,544,355, the High Court ordered.

Mr Justice Nicklin granted a rare ‘indemnity order’ obliging the claimants to bear the brunt of the costs of their disastrous legal action. Such orders are usually only granted in cases where a judge believes there has been bad conduct.

The Duke and Duchess of Sussex are planning to move back to Britain, The Telegraph can reveal.

The family intends to relocate from the US later this month to a private, non-royal residence thought to be outside London.

Prince Archie, 7, and Princess Lilibet, 5, the couple’s children, are enrolled to start at a British school in September.

LA Bum’s Rush?

Canadian taxpayers spent more to protect Prince Harry over five years during his visits to Canada than any other internationally protected person over the same period, CBC News has learned.

According to a document obtained by CBC News under Canada’s access to information law, the RCMP spent at least $539,575 to provide security between 2014/15 and 2019/20 when Prince Harry travelled to Canada for events like the Invictus Games and to date his future wife, Meghan Markle.

They did nothing to merit special treatment.

Anti-monarchy protesters unfurled a banner of Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor and Jeffrey Epstein in the Buckingham Palace throne room on Monday.

Two activists from the campaign group Republic held up the huge banner which had ‘What did you know?’ emblazoned across the famous photo of Andrew and Epstein walking through Central Park together in 2010.

It is understood that the demonstrators had bought tickets to the public opening of the State Rooms at the palace before breaking off to set up their stunt.

Detectives investigating Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor are preparing to travel to the United States to quiz Virginia Giuffre’s family, her brother has revealed.

Thames Valley Police want to talk to relatives of Ms Giuffre, who died in April last year, about her allegations of sexual assault against the former prince.

Detectives are planning to visit her brother and sister-in-law, Sky and Amanda Roberts, in the coming weeks.

The £50million phone hacking case brought by Prince Harry, Doreen Lawrence and a raft of other high-profile figures against the publishers of the Daily Mail was today dismissed in full.

The Daily Mail publisher’s Editor-in-Chief hailed it as ‘a momentous victory’ after a High Court judge demolished Prince Harry and Baroness Doreen Lawrence’s phone hacking case.

Paul Dacre declared an ‘overwhelming vindication of our journalism’ after Mr Justice Nicklin exonerated the Mail and its journalists.

The Duke of Sussex has been told he can no longer stay at Buckingham Palace, throwing his forthcoming visit into chaos.

The development came on Monday morning, shortly after the Duke’s team had revealed that he had accepted an offer to stay at the royal residence.

Only minutes after that decision had been announced, and just hours before he was due to arrive in the UK, a palace source indicated that the invitation had been accepted too late.

I wonder if the rumours of money trouble are true?

THERE are moments in the life of a nation when a single paragraph says more than a thousand speeches.

Buried within this year’s Sovereign Grant Report is such a paragraph, as reported in TCW by Henry Getley.

For generations, the British Crown has been publicly understood as standing at the head of our constitutional settlement as Supreme Governor of the Church of England and Defender of the Faith. Today, however, the official description speaks instead of His Majesty as one who ‘protects the space for Faith within the multi-faith nation’.

AS A child, I was the sort of clever-clogs who examined his pennies before spending them on sweets. So I learned early on that Fid Def – or simply F D – imprinted around the head of the monarch on our coinage is Latin, short for Fidei Defensor (Defender of the Faith).

The title was conferred on the devoutly Catholic Henry VIII by Pope Leo X in 1521 in recognition of the king’s book A Defence of the Seven Sacraments, a counter-blast to the Protestant Reformation being preached by Martin Luther. Henry of course went on to blot his prayer book by declaring himself head of the Church in England. England became a Protestant nation, but subsequent monarchs were still called Defender of the Faith. Now, however, King Charles III seems to be watering down that 500-year-old legacy.

He defends Islam near as I can tell, certainly not his own people.

I used to parrot the popular line that while the British royal family consisted largely of lazy, selfish mediocrities, the late Queen herself deserved respect because at least she was a model of duty and discipline.

For hundreds of years, one of the central battlegrounds of British politics has been the role, powers and prerogatives of the Crown. From the Barons’ Wars to the Reformation and the Civil War, we have had a centuries-long argument over what the monarch is for, what they can and can’t do, and where they fit with the rest of the constitution. Various compromises and fudges have emerged in line with the changing social and political environment.

The Duke of Sussex fears his children will not meet King Charles in the coming days after their UK visit was “pulled out from under their feet at the 11th hour”.

Prince Harry and Meghan were planning their first trip to Britain as a family in four years for events related to the Invictus Games, due to be held in Birmingham in July.

The duke was said to have been excited for Prince Archie, seven, and Princess Lilibet, five, to be reunited with King Charles during the visit early next month.

However, the family trip now appears uncertain after the government declined his request for police protection outside royal residences.

Boo hoo.

Buckingham Palace was made aware of emails allegedly showing that Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor shared confidential information with a business contact six years ago, according to court documents.

A tranche of emails during the former prince’s time as a British trade envoy was sent to the Royal Household in 2020.