Prince Charles
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…
A scrapbook of sketches: James Ivory’s memoir is slipshod and inconsequential
James Ivory and Ismail Merchant formed the most successful cinematic partnership since Michael Powell and Eric Pressburger. Between the founding…
Anthony Holden is nostalgic for journalism’s 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…
Is the life of Jimmy Savile a suitable subject for drama?
Translating the story of Jimmy Savile to stage or screen is a creative minefield, says Jonathan Maitland, who knows from first-hand experience
Did any of this actually happen? The Crown, season four, reviewed
‘We have to stop it now!’ says Princess Margaret (Helena Bonham Carter), smoking another cigarette, obviously. She’s talking about the…
Has Spitting Image ever been funny?
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…
The members of White’s fall into two categories: shits and bores
On Sunday we were invited for lunch at Chez Bruno, an unbelievably posh restaurant in the south of France. At…
The real lesson of the Hillary Clinton emails: most secrets are boring
‘Gefilte fish,’ emailed Hillary Clinton to a pair of aides in March 2010, ‘where are we on this?’ That was…
How many royal cliches can you fit into a single Channel 4 documentary?
In 2011, the Daily Mail carried a long story about how the Queen’s cousin Prince William of Gloucester, who died…
My big embarrassing Greek royal wedding
Tempus sure fugit, and how. Twenty years ago, on Saturday 1 July 1995, monarchs from around the world descended on…
Charles Moore’s notes: A warning from Prince Charles’s lost speech
Two beautiful volumes in a cloth-bound case reach me. They are Speeches and Articles by HRH The Prince of Wales…
Charles Moore’s Notes: Who benefits from Prince Charles shaking Gerry Adams’s hand?
Who benefits from Prince Charles’s handshake with Gerry Adams? Not the victims of IRA violence, including the 18 soldiers who…
A Finnish man was fined £83,000 for speeding because his annual income is £10.1 million
I have rather a poor record for speeding over the years. I have been caught by cameras quite often, sometimes…
The Heckler: why does John Eliot Gardiner have to be so rude?
Sir John Eliot Gardiner is talented almost beyond measure. His Monteverdi Choir, English Baroque Soloists and stupidly named Orchestre Révolutionnaire…
‘About time too!’: Joan Collins curtseys to Prince Charles
The day of my investiture at Buckingham Palace dawned bringing freezing rain and fierce winds, which lashed at the windows…
Max Hastings’s diary: The joys of middle age, and Prince Charles’s strange letters
I am living in rustic seclusion while writing a book. Our only cultural outing of the week was to Newbury…
The trouble with Kids Company
It’s a favourite charity of David Cameron and many celebrities. But does it do what it claims to do?
Spectator letters: Oxfam’s Ebola appeal; what Cumberbatch should have said; and why Prince Charles is right and wrong
In defence of Oxfam Sir: Mary Wakefield rightly praises Médecins sans Frontières but makes many misinformed claims about Oxfam and…
