“Woke Royals”

One of America’s most popular TV comedy programmes was asking the question that had captured the nation.

It was not about the Super Tuesday primary contests ahead of the US elections, or the State of the Union address, which elicited an exaggerated yawn from the presenter. Instead, The Daily Show’s Ronny Chieng turned to look straight into the camera to ask: “Where is Kate Middleton? Where are you, Kate?”

King Charles won’t drag us out of the doldrums

In 1946, lorries and diggers rumbled into the grounds of Wentworth Woodhouse, then one of England’s grandest mansions. Its manicured lawns, gardens, and parkland stood on a coal seam that neared the surface, and the Labour Party’s Minister for Fuel and Power, Manny Shinwell, wanted to mine it. His aim was to address a national fuel crisis — and also, as historian Catherine Bailey shows, to strike a blow against the hereditary privilege Shinwell believed the mansion’s owner, the Earl Fitzwilliam, to represent.

The first scheduled engagement for the Princess of Wales following her surgery has been announced by the Ministry of Defence — but confusion mounted when Kensington Palace declined to confirm whether Catherine would be well enough to attend the event on June 8.

A Ministry of Defence website started selling tickets for Catherine’s review of troops ahead of this year’s Trooping the Colour.

My conspiracy theory: Things are much more grim for Charles and Kate.

Donald Trump has warned that Prince Harry will be “on his own” if he is re-elected as president and criticised the Duke of Sussex for his “unforgivable” betrayal of the late Queen.

The former president said that Joe Biden’s administration had been “too gracious” to the Duke of Sussex since he moved to America with his wife, Meghan Markle, in 2020.

The Prince of Wales has called for an end to the fighting in Gaza and the release of Israeli hostages as he warned that “too many have been killed” in the conflict.

The Prince, 41, who will meet aid workers involved in the humanitarian effort, attracted criticism for his comments that will be considered a significant intervention in the conflict.

Nigel Farage claimed he should “stick to the Baftas” rather than intervene in the Middle East crisis.

A statement from The Prince of Wales pic.twitter.com/LV2jMx75DC

— The Prince and Princess of Wales (@KensingtonRoyal) February 20, 2024

Not a good look William.

h/t Sweetpea

Meghan Markle, the Duchess of Narcissism, has had her podcast demoted from Spotify to some company in Minnesota.

Oh, how the blighty have fallen.

King Charles has been diagnosed with a form of cancer, says Buckingham Palace.

It is not prostate cancer, but was discovered during his recent treatment for an enlarged prostate.

The type of cancer has not been revealed, but according to a palace statement the King began “regular treatments” on Monday.

Buckingham Palace says the King “remains wholly positive about his treatment and looks forward to returning to full public duty as soon as possible”.

The late Queen thought that the Duchess of Sussex’s wedding dress was “too white” for a divorcee, a new book claims.

Ingrid Seward, the former editor-in-chief of Majesty magazine, said that Elizabeth II never voiced her opinion about the duchess to anyone except her closest confidantes, including Lady Elizabeth Anson, her cousin.

The Duke of Sussex has withdrawn his libel case against the Mail on Sunday and now faces an estimated legal bill of more than £750,000.

Prince’s Harry’s lawyers informed the court at 10am on Friday that he was “discontinuing” his case.

The development came just hours before he was due to hand over relevant documents to the High Court.

Buckingham Palace has quietly made provision to prevent both the Duke of York and Duke of Sussex from acting as substitutes for the King.

Prince Andrew stepped down from royal duties in November 2019, while Prince Harry quit his royal role in 2020 to move to the United States.

Both remain counsellors of state — members of the royal family who can officially carry out duties if the sovereign is unwell or abroad. However, the King discreetly made provision to sideline them in an act instigated shortly after he ascended the throne.

This is rumoured to being a prelude to ostracism if required for Andy and Harry.

Until the birth of the Duke and Duchess of Sussex’s daughter, it was a name associated with only one woman in the world.

For decades “Lilibet” had been the late Queen’s cherished nickname – used only by those closest to the former monarch.

Yet the rekindled row over Harry and Meghan christening their daughter “Lilibet” in 2021 lays bare the significance of a moniker first ascribed to Princess Elizabeth when she was a toddler and couldn’t pronounce her own name.

Elizabeth was said to be infuriated by claim she had approved use of her private childhood nickname

Queen Elizabeth was angered by the Duke and Duchess of Sussex’s claim that she had approved of them using her private childhood nickname for their daughter, according to a new book.

A member of staff said the late monarch was “as angry as I’d ever seen her” after Harry and Meghan said they would not have used the name Lilibet, who was born in June 2021, if she had not been “supportive”.

Prince Andrew’s biggest regret over his poorly received Newsnight interview was that he held back from denouncing the photograph of him with Virginia Giuffre as a fake, The Times understands.

The Duke of York believed that the image had been digitally manipulated and that he had persuaded the Queen of his case.

However, he was instructed by Buckingham Palace not to make an explicit accusation of fakery because his suspicions could not be confirmed conclusively.

Can I have a Legend of Aviation award please? I deserve it for the time I flew Aeroflot and lived to tell the tale. Then there was the time I flew from Denmark to Amsterdam, taking off from a snowbound runway in a twin-propped plane which looked like something out of Biggles; that was pretty hairy, too. But alas, I guess there wasn’t enough room on the list of this year’s honours, to be presented in a Beverley Hills ceremony compered by John Travolta. Prince Harry made the cut, along with Buzz Aldrin, but it seems I’ll have to wait until next year.