Prince Charles
From Shy Di to international icon: how ballet lessons transformed Princess Diana
The choreographer Anne Allan not only indulged the princess’s love of dance in weekly one-to-one sessions but also became her longstanding confidante
How Prince Charles’s €1m bagman infiltrated the British establishment
The Queen rarely – if ever – accepts invitations to dinner at private houses, no matter how grand. But in…
World king vs future king
Boris and Charles have had slightly fractious dealings so far
Letters
Be prepared Sir: The advice of Jeremy Clarke’s Aunty Margaret that he ‘must “get right with the Lord” as a…
Letter from Transylvania
For the first time since the pandemic, Prince Charles has returned to Transylvania. When he visits the small village of…
Prince Charles is playing with fire
Charles is a prince on a perilous path. It’s a well-trodden one that is proving more problematic the closer he…
This isn’t the beginning of the Charles Regency
One of the cruellest and most accurate remarks made about Prince Charles is that he is less king-in-waiting and more…
The Prince Andrew conundrum
Prince Philip’s memorial service yesterday was an affecting occasion. The hymns, including Guide Me O Thou Great Redeemer and Britten’s…
Losing direction
James Ivory and Ismail Merchant formed the most successful cinematic partnership since Michael Powell and Eric Pressburger. Between the founding…
Good old bad old days
After a career spanning 50 years, 40 books and about a million parties, Anthony Holden has written a memoir. Based…
The paradoxical integrity of our dodgy honours system
We are told that the Prince of Wales had no idea at the time that his underlings were offering to sell…
Darkness visible
Translating the story of Jimmy Savile to stage or screen is a creative minefield, says Jonathan Maitland, who knows from first-hand experience
Marriage of inconvenience
‘We have to stop it now!’ says Princess Margaret (Helena Bonham Carter), smoking another cigarette, obviously. She’s talking about the…
Spit and no polish
Thank you, Spitting Image, for the nostalgia trip! Your new series on BritBox has rekindled with almost Proustian fidelity those…
Watch Paxo set a new PB for lip-curling: Paxman On The Queen’s Children reviewed
You might well expect a royal documentary on Channel 5 to be unashamedly gossipy. You might also expect it to…
The truth about Prince Charles
Gstaad At dinner the other night a friend wondered what came first, social climbing or name-dropping? It’s obviously a very…
Is Prince Charles so fond of Islam because he distrusts Jews?
It has long been my belief that whereas the quality of gentiles drawn to Judaism is very high (Marilyn Monroe,…
The old ways
I’m sitting across a café table from a young man with a sheaf of drawings that have an archive look…
Diana the diva
Twenty years in August since Diana died. The anniversary is sad for me on many levels — she was definitely…
Low life
On Sunday we were invited for lunch at Chez Bruno, an unbelievably posh restaurant in the south of France. At…
What we learned from the much-anticipated Clinton emails
‘Gefilte fish,’ emailed Hillary Clinton to a pair of aides in March 2010, ‘where are we on this?’ That was…
Will he was
In 2011, the Daily Mail carried a long story about how the Queen’s cousin Prince William of Gloucester, who died…
High life
Tempus sure fugit, and how. Twenty years ago, on Saturday 1 July 1995, monarchs from around the world descended on…
The Spectator’s notes
Two beautiful volumes in a cloth-bound case reach me. They are Speeches and Articles by HRH The Prince of Wales…
The Spectator’s Notes
Who benefits from Prince Charles’s handshake with Gerry Adams? Not the victims of IRA violence, including the 18 soldiers who…
