Alexander Larman

As soon as news broke that copies of Charles Spencer’s memoir about the late Princess of Wales, Swan Song: Diana, My Sister, had been stolen from a truck in the Netherlands, it was inevitable that the contents of the revelatory and potentially scandalous book would soon make it into the public domain. And so it has proved, albeit through the time-honoured means of a serial deal in the Daily Mail. Yet although the first official excerpt will only be published later today, there is already a war of words brewing between Buckingham Palace and Spencer over a particularly shocking story from Swan Song.

As soon as it was announced, somewhat unexpectedly, that Harry and Meghan would be returning to Britain, with the primary intention of educating their children at expensive private schools there, commentators – including this one – speculated that it would be a three-ring circus and that their presence in the country would be eventful, if not wholly consequential. And so it has come to pass. A mere few weeks after they touched down once again in Blighty, the dynamic duo and their brood dominate the royal coverage, possibly to the chagrin of the so-called ‘working royals’. But H ‘n’ M have long been skilled at drawing on various purses without necessarily putting the hours in, and the latest row about their security is a fine example of this.

The death of the convicted sex offender, actor and writer Chris Langham of pancreatic cancer at the age of 77 brings to an unhappy end one of the most turbulent public careers of any English entertainer. Langham was jailed for ten months in 2007 after having been found guilty of downloading and possessing level five child pornography, and while his sentence was reduced to six months on appeal, the taint of his conviction clung to him for the remainder of his life.  While Langham continued to deny that he had accessed the material for anything other than research purposes – and to make sense of the child abuse that he claimed that he had suffered in his youth – the judgement of Detective Superintendent Paul Fotheringham of Kent Police proved to be the lasting one.

The death of the Norwegian monarch, King Harald, at the age of 89 might, initially, seem like a sad but ultimately inconsequential event as far as the British royal family are concerned. Still, at a time when there are only a few monarchies left in Europe, there is an informal fraternity of sorts between the kings and queens who still – some would say anachronistically – cling onto their thrones. And in the case of the Oxford-educated King Harald, there were many parallels, for good and bad, that King Charles, Prince William and the rest of the Windsors would do well to learn from. Given Norway’s rather smaller size than Britain, it is unsurprising that its monarchy has always been a more informal and less rulebound institution than ours.

It isn’t long now until the joyous day that Harry and Meghan once more make Britain their home, but several aspects of their return are still clouded in mystery. We have no idea, for instance, where they are going to be living – although the Cotswolds have been mooted. Once they arrive there, there is also the rather vexed question as to whether their no doubt hugely expensive security is going to be privately funded or the taxpayer’s burden. Two former home secretaries have gone public to argue that there should be at least some level of taxpayer-funded protection for the Sussexes. This may not be a wildly popular perspective but can at least be justified on humanitarian grounds.

It has been quite the week for Prince Harry. A couple of days ago, he announced that he would be moving his family back to Britain – not in years, or even months, but in a matter of a few weeks. That story can now be seen in the context of a costs order made against him and his litigants by Mr Justice Nicklin, after the failure of their court case against Associated Newspapers. Harry may have been attempting to seize the initiative and the headlines with his eye-catching announcement that he was once more returning to the country of his birth after his Montecito sojourn, but the price of his hubris has been revealed, and it is an exceptionally steep one.

A shade over three decades ago, Gary Barlow and Take That sang ‘Whatever I said, I didn’t mean it, I want you back for good’. ‘Back for Good’ has traditionally been taken to be a song about someone wanting their loved one back after a breakup. However, the Duke and Duchess of Sussex clearly listened to it on whatever easy listening channel they tune into in Montecito and decided that this is not simply Gary Barlow’s lovelorn lament but the earnest desire of the British people to have them return to us. Therefore, Meghan and Harry have announced that they will be returning to Britain. Not for a visit of a few days, as has happened in recent weeks, or even for a more protracted period.

King Charles is currently on his summer holiday in Balmoral. After the stresses and difficulties of the past few months – which have included a reconciliation not only with Prince Harry and his grandchildren but also with Meghan Markle – he is surely entitled to a few weeks of privacy and relaxation. Yet, against this backdrop, the monarch is still suffering from the undisclosed form of cancer that he was diagnosed with in early 2024. While the mood music has been broadly positive when it comes to treating the King's illness, there has been no announcement that he is in remission or if the cancer has been cured altogether. This suggests that this continues to be a strain both on himself and those around him.

I am a great believer that there should be no unbroachable topic in comedy, as long as the person broaching it does so in a funny enough fashion. This, however, does not mean that this person should always be entitled to do so. Had Jimmy Savile launched into a new stand-up career eulogising the joys of paedophilia and necrophilia, I am not sure that he would have been playing to enthusiastic audiences, no matter how good the jokes, and while Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor proved to be inadvertently hilarious while discussing everything from Pizza Express to sweating on Newsnight, I am not sure he would be cheered to the rafters at an open-mic night at his local Jongleurs.