“Woke Royals”

It is tempting to imagine Prince Andrew and his ex-wife Sarah Ferguson enduring a mutually resentful existence in Royal Lodge. Like an aristocratic version of Roald Dahl’s The Twits, perhaps. Or, to be vulgar, one might call them The Twats instead. The less-than-grand old Duke of York has now spent several years beset by stories linking him to disgraced paedophile financier Jeffrey Epstein, and there seems to be no way back for him in any kind of public role. Yet, at the beginning of the week, he might have thought the tide had turned for a couple of days. For once, it was Fergie who was bearing the brunt of deeply unflattering headlines when it emerged that, after publicly denouncing Epstein as a sex offender in 2011, she had sent him a grovelling email describing him as a ‘steadfast, generous and supreme friend’.

On a damp Wednesday morning in Cardiff, at a poignant event marking World Suicide Prevention Day, the Prince of Wales spoke his mind. What we need to “get back to in society”, he said, is “people really seeing each other and reaching each other”. For Prince William and Prince Harry, estranged for three years, there was no hope last week that Harry’s four-day visit would involve either brother reaching out.

But reconciliation between father and son has moved the dial. How far, nobody knows but Harry and the King. There has been no post-match analysis from either camp about their 50-minute tea at Clarence House on Wednesday afternoon and, unlike after previous meetings, no words from Harry about the state of the relationship, other than to tell the media at an Invictus reception that his father was “great”.

In an office at a federal courthouse in downtown Tallahassee, the capital city of Florida, Ghislaine Maxwell tasted something resembling freedom last month.

Outside of prison for the first time since being convicted of child sex trafficking crimes, she sat before Todd Blanche, President Trump’s deputy attorney-general, for two interviews on July 24 and 25. The first lasted six hours, the second half as long.

Britain’s King Charles III is receiving praise for his “momentous” commitment to diversity after both a Ramadan meal and an “LGBT+ History Month” lecture were held at Windsor Castle this year—although not, of course, at the same time. The House of Windsor has become a microcosm of the United Kingdom, slowly being squeezed between the pincers of LGBT sexual revolutionaries and an exploding Muslim population (Muhammad recently became the most popular name in England for the first time).

Environmentalism is the ultimate ‘luxury belief’.

It’s not becoming to boast, but I was an extremely early sceptic when it comes to matters ecological. In 1990, I wrote a short play – starring Lesley Manville, who has since risen to stellar heights – for the Royal Court in London. It made a frankly biased, unreasonable, anti-green argument which I have had no reason whatsoever to regret ever since. If anything, I feel even more strongly that environmentalism – which has now ‘grown’ to include those adolescent maniacs who chuck muck over masterpieces – is the ‘luxury belief’ to top them all.

Two thirds of Britons support stripping Prince Andrew of his remaining royal titles, new research has shown.

According to YouGov polling, 67 per cent of the population would back a move by the Royal Family to remove any remaining vestiges of his former position.

The most well known title held by the late Queen’s second son is the Duke of York, a title given to him on his wedding day to Sarah Ferguson in 1986.

When Andrew Lownie submitted his manuscript for his incendiary book about Prince Andrew and Sarah Ferguson, he was braced for heavy legal redactions. But in the end there were far fewer deletions than feared. “I was surprised by what the lawyers let through,” he tells me.

The result of this leniency is among the most lurid, marmalade-dropping, outlandish books published about a senior royal. Entitled: The Rise and Fall of the House of York makes Prince Harry’s Spare look positively restrained.

Andrew and Harry are destroying the Monarchy.

Prince Harry has been hit with a wave of criticism in the Channel 5 documentary Prince Harry: My Terrible Year, with royal experts savaging both his behaviour and his struggling media ventures. Royal biographer Ingrid Seward accused Harry of crossing the line when it came to Princess Kate, telling viewers: “He rubbished Kate for money he didn’t even need – that will not be easily forgiven.” The remark referred to claims Harry has made in recent years, which some insiders say have worsened family tensions.

Jeffrey Epstein sold Prince Andrew’s “most intimate secrets” to foreign intelligence agencies around the world, a new book has claimed.

Compromising material on the Duke of York is alleged to have been passed to Israel’s Mossad, the Saudi Arabian authorities and the Libyan intelligence services under Colonel Gaddafi.

Details of the claims are made in a new book on the prince, by author Andrew Lownie, which describes how the royal was easy prey for a “rattlesnake” like Epstein.

On the morning of Tuesday, February 9, 1999, a small group gathered at an airport for private planes just outside New York, ready to catch a Gulfstream jet to the US Virgin Islands. One of the three waiting passengers was the glamorous British socialite Ghislaine Maxwell, daughter of the late media baron Robert Maxwell.

Her personal assistant Emmy Taylor waited with her. The third and final member of the group was Prince Andrew.

Andrew and Ghislaine were good friends – and over the years had been occasional lovers – and through her, the prince had come into the ambit of her boyfriend Jeffrey Epstein

Netflix has announced it will not renew its $100 million deal with the insufferable Prince Harry and Meghan Markle, aka, The HarryMeg.

A quick rundown of the planet healing itself…

Among those attending the 40th anniversary bash for the Oxford Centre for Islamic Studies, one guest stood out – King Charles III.

The presence of the UK’s sovereign at an Islamic studies institute was hardly a surprise, however. And not just because he is the centre’s patron. Charles, it is fair to say, is an unabashed Islamophile. He may have claimed some three decades ago that, as king, he intended to be the defender of faith – rather than the defender of the faith as his official role has it – but there is definitely one faith that he prefers above all others. And it’s not that of the Church of England.

Meghan Markle and Prince Harry’s hopes of a new Netflix deal are ‘dead’ after their two most recent shows flopped, it was claimed today.

The Duchess of Sussex has ‘had everything going for her’ but the viewing figures for With Love, Meghan have still been ‘dismal’, an insider at the streamer reportedly said.

Meghan’s lifestyle show failed to break into Netflix’s top 300 programmes for the first half of 2025 and was even thrashed by multiple seasons of Suits.

The Duke of York is off the hook.

After more than five years of him living under suspicion, fearing that knock at the door, the FBI has drawn a line under its investigation into Jeffrey Epstein’s network of friends and associates.

It will release no more files nor pursue any “third parties”.

But there should be no popping of champagne corks at Royal Lodge, the Duke’s Windsor home.