Chequers

Wednesday

Robert Hardman

Prince Harry’s holiday from hell

Has grace-and-favour accommodation now fallen from grace – and favour, too? In recent days, we have learned that both our head of state and our (likely) head of government are giving up the free homes that come with the job. The King has said he will not live at Buckingham Palace once major refurbishment works are completed next year. His heir has let it be known that he won’t live there either. The monarch is very happy living at Clarence House, just as his mother was when she became Queen in 1952. Back then, Winston Churchill formally advised the Sovereign that she had to move into the Palace. No modern prime minister would dream of telling the Sovereign where to sleep, least of all one who plans to follow his example. Andy Burnham has said that he will not live at No.

Thursday

Beatrice Scudeler

The shocking state of perinatal care in Britain

From our UK edition

We think of PTSD as something that happens to war veterans, but the Conservative politician Theo Clarke’s harrowing account of birth trauma proves otherwise. Her perspective is unique. When the former MP for Stafford was in the last weeks of her pregnancy, the government was in shambles. Boris Johnson was about to resign, to be succeeded by Liz Truss and Rishi Sunak in embarrassingly short order; and Queen Elizabeth was on her deathbed. It was a stressful time for an MP to have a baby. We are acutely aware of this in the first half of Breaking the Taboo, which is part political memoir and part exposé of the UK’s birth trauma crisis. Clarke wrote a letter calling for a vote of no confidence in Johnson from hospital.