“Woke Royals”

The Duke of Sussex has launched a veiled attack on Donald Trump and Elon Musk, criticising the “sickness in leadership” in politics and tech.

Prince Harry made an unannounced appearance at the Upfront Summit in Los Angeles on Thursday evening when he warned that “basic morals and empathy” have been “abandoned in favour of power and control”.

His speech at the annual event hosting more than 1,000 investors, entrepreneurs and leaders in tech, came just hours after Sir Keir Starmer met Mr Trump at the White House, delivering a handwritten invitation from the King.

Having spent the last four years researching a biography of the Duke of York, I have always maintained that the real issue surrounding him is financial and not sexual. Extensive column inches have been devoted to his association with Jeffrey Epstein and the claims of Virginia Giuffre. But far less attention is paid to how the duke has been able to finance his extravagant lifestyle.

This has become an even more pressing question with the debate on whether he can afford to stay in Royal Lodge and recent revelations about his business activities. Yet getting anywhere close to the bottom of Prince Andrew’s finances, as I have been trying to do for some time, is a fraught and fiendishly complex business.

It’s more than two years since the death of Queen Elizabeth II at her beloved Balmoral Castle, and, in May, it will be two years on from the coronation of her first son, Charles. The period of mourning that engulfed the House of Windsor has passed. The honeymoon period for the new monarch has come to an end.

Entirely possible Charles will be replaced by a Caliph.

The recent fires in California have had many tragic effects. Many have lost their homes, possessions and livelihoods, and it has been a stark reminder that even the wealthy and privileged are not immune from a truly awful, life-changing event. Regrettably, however, the disaster has attracted a small but vocal number of people who ostensibly have offered their time and resources to provide much-needed assistance – but in reality seem more interested in creating #content to share on their social media.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Meghan, Duchess of Sussex (@meghan)

The Duke of York was viewed by the Chinese state as a “valuable communication channel”, according to newly released court papers.

They indicate MI5 questioned Prince Andrew’s most senior aide about their “clandestine” relationship with an alleged Chinese spy.

Andrew, 64, first met the suspected agent, Yang Tengbo, in 2013 at a reception during the Shanghai Grand Prix, hosted by Sir Ron Dennis, the former head of McLaren. Yang, 50, became a confidant of the duke and helped to launch his Dragons’ Den-style Pitch@Palace business initiative in China.

Meghan Markle is reportedly “in a bad place” following the release of a damning Vanity Fair exposé last week.

The scathing piece, published Jan. 17, delves into the Duke and Duchess of Sussex’s struggling business ventures, painting a tragic picture of their attempts at maintaining relevance after quitting royal life in 2020.

Numerous former colleagues and associates spoke to the publication for the article, many of whom have slammed the “Suits” alum’s character.

The Sussexes’ lack of self-awareness is at the root of their long list of failures. But how did the couple get it so wrong?

“The thing you’re escaping is the reason you’re compelling.” The killer line comes a third of the way through Vanity Fair’s 8,000-word Meghan and Harry annihilation. It’s the only line that matters, when all is said and done – and five years on, we must be nearing that moment.

The quote is attributed only to a “former Spotify employee”. Someone who was, presumably, working at the streaming platform when the couple first moved to LA in 2020 to enjoy the anonymity they would have basked in, had there been time in between all the frenzied deal-making, the celebrity shmoozing and the self-promotion.

If you want to know how far the Sussexes’ star has fallen in America, consider this. The other day, Harry and Meghan visited Pasadena in LA to offer hugs and sympathy to survivors of the wildfires. Surely even the couple’s sternest critics, you might have assumed, would give them credit for that.

Far from it. “Meghan Markle and Harry are no better than ambulance chasers,” fumed the Hollywood film-maker Justine Bateman, in a social media post that has been enthusiastically shared by thousands of other users. “What a repulsive ‘photo op’ they achieved. They are ‘touring the damage’? Are they politicians now? They don’t live [in Pasadena]; they are tourists. Disaster tourists.”