Politics
Wes Streeting: Chagos Islands deal is not good enough
Wes Streeting has said the government’s deal to hand sovereignty of the Chagos Islands to Mauritius is not good enough unless it wins the backing of the United States.
Streeting, who sat in the cabinet that signed off on the agreement, said he stood by the decision but acknowledged that the United States had withdrawn its support for the deal.
The defence secretary, speaking to Sky News on Wednesday morning, said: “I was a member of the cabinet that agreed the deal with the government of Mauritius, and I stand by the decision that was taken, I’m not going to try to absolve myself of it now.
“But at the same time, the principle we followed all the way through is that it needs to have the support of the Americans. So objectively, in the absence of support from the Americans, is this deal good enough? No. It needs to have the support of the Americans.”
He said talks would continue until all three governments were aligned. “We will work together to get to a point where both the governments of Mauritius and the UK, but also the Americans, can sign up to this – because Diego Garcia is extremely important to the Americans as well as to us and our collective security.
“So the objective here is to safeguard that base and its capability, not just now, but for the long term, because it’s that important to us.”
Under the deal, first agreed during Keir Starmer’s tenure as prime minister in 2025, Britain would cede sovereignty of the Chagos Islands to Mauritius while retaining control of the Diego Garcia military base – jointly run with the US – under a 99-year lease.
Since the deal was confirmed, ministers have consistently argued that the arrangement was designed to secure the base’s long-term future.
But the support of the United States, a crucial component of the arrangement, has proved difficult to secure. US president Donald Trump initially backed the agreement has now reversed course.
Trump was asked about the deal during his first face-to-face meeting with Andy Burnham on Tuesday. Speaking in the margins of the UN General Assembly, Trump described the deal as “terrible” and said the UK was “going to be looking” at it.
Streeting has now confirmed that the UK government will review the deal.
He told BBC Breakfast: “What President Trump said yesterday wasn’t new but I think it does provide absolute clarity that his position on this Chagos deal as currently drafted is not changing.
“So we have to do more work with our American allies, with President Trump and his administration, to get the deal to a place where he can support it.”
The comments come after Labour MP Dan Carden told Politics.co.uk that the Chagos deal was “disastrous”.
He said: “I’m still amazed that so few Labour MPs have had anything to say about it. I just say to any of them, go meet one of your constituents, try and explain the Chagos deal to them, and see how it goes down.
“For me, that’s what politics is – to see whether people understand what you’re doing and why you’re there.”
Carden, the former chair of the influential Blue Labour group, added: “We need to look at how we actually give the territories a stake in parliament and a stake in government.
“So I hope Andy is capable of doing that, and I have some hope that he will look at the disastrous Chagos deal and drop it, and look to do something different – because he’s got the ability and the capacity to do that.”
Not only do we not have a cure for dementia yet, but we don’t even have a single test that can diagnose it outright.
So, why does 2026’s huge World Alzheimer Report, co-authored by Alzheimer’s Disease International (ADI) and health writer Paul Gallagher, suggest that “Alzheimer’s disease is no longer universally described as untreatable” by researchers?
This “mood” among scientists, the paper added, is “infectious”.
Indeed, Professor Colin Masters, a neuroscientist whose research contributed to the amyloid hypothesis of dementia, told ADI: “Alzheimer’s disease is going gangbusters at the moment.
“The feeling of optimism has never been so strong. We’ve moved from a great nihilistic, pessimistic era five years ago towards an era of extreme optimism”.
Why do some researchers no longer see dementia as untreatable?
There’s not one single breakthrough that’s left the scientific community so encouraged. We still don’t have a cure for dementia, for instance.
But finding one “feels like a more palpable prospect than ever before”, the report reads, because of multiple changes in research, medication, and approaches.
1) New drugs have been shown to slow dementia
In just the past five years, multiple drugs, like lecanemab and donanemab, have been shown to slow dementia.
That is not a complete “cure”, but they “marked an important scientific milestone, providing the first evidence that therapies targeting amyloid pathology can slow clinical decline by about 30%”.
Amyloid plaques are sticky clusters of proteins in the brain that have long been linked to dementia development.
Not all experts agree these drugs are as effective as hoped. But the arrival of these medications to multiple countries “was a huge moment because it showed you could change the course of the disease”, said Professor Cath Mummery, director of the UK’s Dementia Trials Network.
“They show consistent, significant change. So, for me, the breakthrough is that the amyloid hypothesis, which we’ve been chasing for decades, was confirmed at least in part… That’s the foundation. It’s the first brick, and there’s an awful lot to build on.”
2) Dementia research is booming
The paper notes that as of the time of writing, 158 potential dementia therapies were being trialled in 192 trials worldwide.
This is part of “an era of unprecedented activity,” the report stated. The number of possible medications under review right now is up 40% from the last decade.
In 2026 alone, we can expect results from eight Phase III trials that test drugs and other therapies on people.
3) Scientists are looking at new ways to diagnose dementia
As of yet, we haven’t found a one-and-done test that can unambiguously tell doctors whether someone has dementia.
And as the report argues, even the best treatments mean little if the majority of people living with dementia are never identified in the first place.
But at this year’s Alzheimer’s Association International Conference, announcements “centred on making Alzheimer’s diagnosis earlier and more accessible”, including through potential blood tests.
Additionally, “blood-based assays, advanced neuroimaging, and genetic profiling are also making it possible to identify Alzheimer’s pathology years before cognitive symptoms fully manifest,” the report continued.
Meanwhile, studies like the TRAILBLAZER-ALZ 3 research are working out whether very early intervention makes dementia treatment more effective.
4) We’re learning more about how to prevent dementia through lifestyle choices
The report also said research is expanding from primarily observational studies to participation in large interventional and prevention-focused clinical trials.
This comes after a standing commission from The Lancet which found that up to 45% of dementia risk could be down to “potentially modifiable” lifestyle factors.
One initiative, for instance, aims to give at-risk older people lifestyle interventions, like controlling their blood pressure and optimising their diets, to see whether this helps to slash dementia incidence.
5) Trials are trying out new uses for old, approved medications
More than a third of drugs currently “in the pipeline” for possible dementia-related applications are existing, repurposed medications.
One example is atomoxetine, an ADHD drug, which showed mixed results in a trial that sought to find out whether it could slow cognitive impairment.
If drugs like these are found effective, their current status as an approved medication could make clearing them for other conditions go a little faster.
6) Experts are learning to attack dementia from multiple angles at once
“As with diseases such as cancer, it is increasingly thought that the most effective approach to Alzheimer’s may involve multiple therapies working together against different aspects of the disease,” the report said.
So it’s a good thing the research community is looking at combined treatments, like pairing a tau vaccine with an anti-amyloid medication.
Overall, the paper said: “Dementia is being recast not as a gradual decline towards an inevitable loss of cognition, but as a continuum that might be interrupted or slowed, enabling many more years with a good quality of life.”
Reform UK has fallen to third place behind Labour and the Tories in a major blow for Nigel Farage.
A poll by the More in Common think-tank showed support for Reform has dropped to 22%, its joint-lowest in 18 months.
That puts the party a point behind the Conservatives, who are on 23%, and 3 points behind Labour on 26%.
The Lib Dems are on 11%, according to the poll, with the Greens on 8% and Restore Britain on 6%.
The findings pile more pressure on Farage to turn around Reform’s fortunes after a miserable few months for the party.
Parliament’s standards commissioner is still investigating Farage’s failure to declare a £5 million gift from crypto-billionaire Christopher Harborne shortly before he became an MP in 2024.
The Metropolitan Police have also launched an investigation into claims in a Channel 4 undercover sting that senior Reform officials tried to solicit an illegal donation from a foreign donor.
In a further blow for the Reform leader, the More in Common poll also showed how unpopular he is compared to Andy Burnham.
While the PM’s net approval rating is plus 10, Farage is on minus 27, equal with Green leader Zack Polanski.
Listen to Commons People, the podcast that makes politics easy. Every week, Kevin Schofield and Kate Nicholson unpack the week’s biggest stories to keep you informed. Join us for straightforward analysis of what’s going on at Westminster.
A poll can tell us a great deal about public opinion. It can also tell us a great deal about the person paying for it. When polling makes the news, the first question should not be what it says, but who commissioned it.
Earlier this month we saw just how easily that rule bends. Three polls commissioned for Reform UK ran on the front pages of the Times and the Telegraph, and readers of neither paper were told who was behind them. The British Polling Council, which set the rule, says it was clearly broken.
We have since seen how the bending of the rules goes beyond one firm and one party. In one example in 2023 the Liberal Democrats had Savanta ask voters who was to blame for the state of the country, with six answers on offer: three Conservative prime ministers, the Conservative Party, the pandemic or the war in Ukraine. The results were briefed to the Observer although Savanta did not publish the tables confirming the client, the sample and the full wording until they were asked this month.
Nobody disputes the arithmetic. What was withheld, in each case, was vital information the reader needs to judge it.
Polling reaches the public with an authority other forms of communication – political or otherwise – lack. A poll is read as the voice of the public. That authority is why polling wins coverage and why the rules around it exist. A poll built to make a case, and published with its client hidden, puts an organisation’s – be it a political party, trade association, or business – argument in the public’s mouth.
The public deserves better because, at its best, polling can set the news agenda and inform public opinion in a timescale that few other forms of communication can. Its value is in its independence. Once that independence is compromised by hiding the workings behind it, it can become misleading.
Every such case teaches the public that something presented as a measure of their opinion can also be a vehicle for someone else’s argument. Once that distinction disappears, trust in the measurement goes along with it. The Reuters Institute’s 2026 Digital News Report puts trust in news in Britain at 30%, down five points in a year, while AI and industrial-scale disinformation have made it harder for the public to discern truth from fiction. A democracy runs on trust, and trust in Britain is already teetering under immense strain. It cannot afford to lose one of the few instruments that still earns it.
Polling belongs in the same conversation as lobbying, donations, and the revolving door between business and politics because while, when done ethically, each can positively contribute to society, they can also exert political influence while obscuring who is doing the influencing.
In July, the Ethics and Integrity Commission recommended a register of all lobbying activity, on the principle that influence should be visible to the people who will bear the brunt of its effects. Polling should be held to the same principle.
Transparency leaves every party free to make its case. A poll hiding its client is political advocacy with the workings concealed, and if polling is to keep the authority it has borrowed from the public, the public must be allowed to see who is doing the borrowing.
Less than a year on from the release of her most recent album The Life Of A Showgirl, Taylor Swift has teased that she has more new music on the way.
Earlier this week, the Swifties began suspecting that something could be afoot when it was noticed that the Grammy winner had managed to sneak zeros into her Instagram bio and in the lyrics to some of her more recent musical offerings on Apple Music.
Finally, on Tuesday evening, she revealed that this was all intentional, as she has a new single titled Patient Zero coming later this week.
“I’ve been impatiently waiting to tell you that my brand new single Patient Zero will be out on 25 September (!!!!!!!!!!!!),” she confirmed on Instagram.
Meanwhile, it’s been suggested that Patient Zero could be the lead single from an upcoming deluxe edition of – or companion piece to – The Life Of A Showgirl, with the subtitle “Encore”.
Remember last week when Taylor appeared in a skit at the Emmys, poking fun at all of the Easter eggs she’s prone to including in her week?
Well, it seems that even this itself was an Easter egg, as the nonsense words she uttered to camera – “Saccharide. Ares. From the vineyard. North or south” – appear to allude to the word “encore”.
It seems she’s been teasing this new work for longer than many of us realise, as her Opalite music video also included a shot containing the message “patient for the encore”, in an apparent nod to her upcoming single and the collection of songs it’s taken from.
The Life Of A Showgirl was released in October 2025, reuniting Taylor with her Red and 1989 collaborators.
While it’s fair to say that it was far from her best-reviewed work, it did perform well commercially, and featured not one but two UK number ones in the singles The Fate Of Ophelia and Opalite.
It’s also been pointed out that the nonsense words she said at the Emmys are an anagram for “my first record’s re-record is out Nov Ten ha ha ha”:
Credit: Adobe Stock
Twenty years after the Hunting Act came into force, Labour has an opportunity to complete one of its landmark animal welfare reforms and ensure that hunting with dogs finally ends for good
The Hunting Act is one of the landmark animal welfare measures of the last Labour government. Labour itself celebrated the achievement: at its 2006 conference, the party showed a film entitled “50 Reasons to be Proud of Labour”, which included the declaration, “We’ve banned fox hunting.”
Twenty years on, hunting has not disappeared. Foxes are still chased by packs of hounds; deer are still pursued to exhaustion; animals are still torn apart at the end of a chase. Trail hunting emerged after the act as a purported alternative in which hounds follow a pre-laid animal-based scent. Chief Superintendent Matt Longman, national lead on fox hunting crime, has described trail hunting as a “smokescreen for illegal fox hunting” and illegal hunting as “prolific”. Other exemptions and weaknesses in the law provide big loopholes and make enforcement difficult.
That is why banning trail hunting, while essential, cannot be the end of the job. The law also needs to address reckless or so-called accidental hunting, remove exploitable exemptions, strengthen responsibility for those organising hunts and controlling hounds, and provide penalties that deter offending.
There is a democratic mandate for action. Labour’s 2024 manifesto committed to banning trail hunting, a commitment subsequently reiterated in the government’s Animal Welfare Strategy. The government has now consulted on how to deliver it.
It is also popular. Polling found 62 per cent of people in England and Wales believe trail hunting should be illegal. In rural areas, 58 per cent support and only 28 per cent oppose a ban, challenging the familiar suggestion that this is a town-versus-country divide. For Labour politicians wondering how this plays beyond Westminster, there is another striking figure. Polling found that 76 per cent of the public backed strengthening hunting laws,3 suggesting the policy would pass the so-called ‘Makerfield test’.
For a charity that has campaigned against hunting for over a century, this is not about party politics. We work across political parties and want every government to protect animals from being chased and killed for sport. But Labour’s history on this issue is significant. In September 2004, 318 Labour MPs voted for the Hunting Bill with only three against; and, when resistance in the Lords threatened its passage, the Parliament Acts were ultimately used to secure it.
Now Labour has an opportunity to complete that work. Twenty years of experience have shown where the Hunting Act can be exploited, and its 2024 manifesto recognised unfinished business. The consultation has created a route towards reform; the next step must be legislation that deals with the weaknesses comprehensively.
There is good reason not to wait. Parliamentary time is finite and legislative programmes become more crowded as a parliament progresses. Strengthening the act still needs a legislative vehicle and enough time to complete its passage. Delay carries a real risk that an overwhelmingly popular manifesto commitment simply runs out of parliamentary road.
The consultation response hoped for this autumn must be followed by strong, comprehensive legislation at the earliest opportunity: legislation that bans trail hunting, closes the loopholes that enable hunting to continue and gives police and prosecutors a law they can enforce effectively.
Labour once proudly said it had banned hunting. The opportunity now is to finish the job.
Piers Morgan has claimed he will continue legal action against Earl Charles Spencer over what the divisive broadcaster previously described as “bullshit” claims written about him in Princess Diana’s brother’s new book.
Earlier this week, the former Good Morning Britain anchor called out some “complete lies” that had been written about him in Swan Song, a new memoir by Earl Spencer about his famous late sister.
This most notably included claiming that Piers was editor of The Mirror when the tabloid published illegally-obtained photos of Diana working out at a gym when, in fact, he didn’t become its editor until two years after this incident.
“Earl Spencer, you’ll be hearing – and your publishers [will be hearing] – from my lawyers, because I would like the complete lie that you’ve published about me and those photographs to be removed from your book,” he said on his YouTube channel Piers Morgan Uncensored.
Toby Shepheard/ITV/Shutterstock
A day later, Earl Spencer issued a public apology to Piers for what was referred to as an “incorrect assumption”.
In a statement, his rep told HuffPost UK: “As an historian, accuracy is important to Earl Spencer. He therefore wishes to clarify that his assumption was incorrect. Earl Spencer apologises to Mr Morgan for this error.”
However, Piers has maintained that this has not deterred him from pursuing legal action.
“Earl Spencer has apologised to me for his defamatory lies published in his new book, Swan Song, published today,” he said on X.
“But I am pursuing legal action against him and his publisher Penguin to have the lies removed, and damages paid to the King’s Trust.”
HuffPost UK contacted Penguin earlier this week for comment, but did not receive a response.
“The mere fact he has so speedily issued an apology should say it all,” Piers added during an interview on Radio 4 on Tuesday evening, before telling Earl Spencer directly: “You’re a self proclaimed historian – remove it immediately. And if that means you have to pulp your book, well, that’s on you.”
Prior to this, Swan Song made headlines in the lead-up to its publication, most notably over one passage in which Earl Spencer alleged that King Charles told him in the wake of Diana’s death that “we’ll forget her soon enough” – prompting a rare response from the Palace.
“While we do not comment on books as a matter of principle, His Majesty is mindful that the pain of fraternal grief can cloud reason, affect judgment and colour memory in ways others do not recognise, even many years after such a loss,” a royal spokesperson said.
Doubling down during a subsequent interview with ABC’s Maggie Rulli, Earl Spencer quipped that it’s “not every day you’re gaslit by a king”.
“I was really upset with that because I thought it was very, not only condescending, but not straight,” he noted.
Donald Trump stepped up his war on the media on Tuesday night with a new attack on the reporters who cover him.
Over the weekend, Trump banned CNN, MS NOW and Politico from the White House and had the journalists’ press credentials deactivated. Then, just before midnight on Tuesday, he posted on Truth Social:
“All of the SLEAZEBAGS, like Third Rate ‘Reporter,’ Kaitlan Collins, of Fake News CNN, a truly unhappy person, said they weren’t going to be covering me. Then why were they ranting and raving like Lunatics, in the Press Area, at the United Nations? Why was she there?”
Although no network or news organisation said it wouldn’t cover Trump, TV pool coverage was suspended in protest of the ban. That means no video of certain events, but not a lack of coverage of the president. As for Collins, she was at the United Nations to cover the General Assembly in New York City.
Trump continued to attack her.
“She’s got a ‘TRUMP’ addiction, and so does CNN and MSDNC. They’re all sick, treasonous, and demented!”
For good measure, he also blasted the judge who is overseeing the federal lawsuit the news outlets filed against him in an attempt to overturn the ban.
“The ‘good news’ is that they have a great, for them, and totally disloyal Judge,” Trump wrote, referring to U.S. District Judge Timothy Kelly, whom Trump appointed in 2017 but who ruled against him in another media case.
Minutes later, Trump posted a strange video of a man putting on a dress and makeup so he could pretend to be a “fake news” reporter for CNN.
On Tuesday night, Trump’s Justice Department also tried to justify his media ban in a legal filing. Read more about that here.
Andy Burnham has slammed Vladimir Putin’s “repulsive and insidious” attempts to sow division in the UK through the spread of misinformation online.
The prime minister has ordered security chiefs to set up a new unit to tackle the problem, which he said included trying to influence the 2019 general election.
A new National Centre for Information Defence will tackle online lies and deepfakes damaging British interests, the PM told the United Nations General Assembly in New York.
Burnham said the UK and its allies had been subjected to an “industrial-scale assault” by hostile states, including Russia.
“Russian agencies have used every means at their disposal to spread lies and disinformation and prey on people’s fear,” he said.
“They’ve used bots and fake websites. Falsified newspaper articles. Forged the branding of 28 British organisations – including universities and the BBC. They’ve amplified far-right narratives.
“And we have evidence that they tried to interfere with the 2019 general election.
“We also know that they have tried to stoke tensions and unrest in the wake of horrific events. The idea that anyone would try to use such things to their advantage is just repulsive – but it is what they do.”
The PM said the Kremlin spends around £1.3 billion a year on “manipulating information”.
And he said the rise of artificial intelligence means the problem is only set to get worse unless it is tackled urgently.
“We’re talking about an insidious campaign that reaches into people’s homes and twists what they feel about their own country and community – creating a narrative of decline, stoking division and sowing despair,” he said.
“On top of that, we have seen cyber-attacks on our companies and institutions. And we know that AI will multiply the threat.”
Young people not in education, employment or training (NEETs) are “much more vulnerable” to Russia’s campaign of online misinformation and it was now time to fight back, Burnham said.
He said: “We have tiptoed around this for too long.
“Over the last decade we have given too much ground to those who want to run a negative, corrosive narrative about life in Britain, which bears no resemblance to reality. Well, no more.
“We are going to face the new decade in a different way – with our eyes wide open.
“We are going to be much prouder in standing up for our values and the rule of law.”
Listen to Commons People, the podcast that makes politics easy. Every week, Kevin Schofield and Kate Nicholson unpack the week’s biggest stories to keep you informed. Join us for straightforward analysis of what’s going on at Westminster.
We’ve been relatively spoiled for sunshine in the UK this year – perhaps a little too spoiled, given the ongoing drought covering most of England and Wales.
But if you’re looking to keep the sunny vibes going well into autumn (particularly the half-term break), there’s one Mediterranean island in particular that’s been named the best for October sun.
Travel experts at Solmar Villas ranked 105 holiday destinations on how reliably they deliver great weather between September and November, alongside affordability of flight prices.
They then compiled a list of the best autumn sun destinations in Europe for Brits hoping to head abroad.
ÐлекÑей Ðблов via Getty Images
The best destinations for October sun in Europe
Cyprus was the overwhelming winner, with Ayia Napa, a lively coastal resort town known for its beach-side nightlife, ranking as the overall best destination for Autumn sun, followed by Limassol, Larnaca and Paphos (all cities in Cyprus).
Coming in at number five was Athens Rivera in Greece, followed by Lanzarote (Spain), Fuerteventura (Spain), Rhodes and Kos (both in Greece) and Malta.
Each destination was scored on four measures: average daily sunshine hours, average rainy days per month, average daytime high temperature, and flight cost for September to November.
Cyprus tends to experience consistent temperatures sitting between 24C and 29C in October, with little rainfall. According to Skyscanner, flights can be as little as £31 one-way.
Travel experts highlighted Limassol as the perfect spot for those who love a combination of city and coast, while Larnaca is a peaceful port-city, and Paphos is great for history buffs, with plenty of World Heritage sites to visit.
Sharon Bradbury, travel expert and managing director at Solmar Villas, said: “Whilst we can’t predict the weather, this data is as close as we can get to determining the best spots for the perfect autumn sun holiday.
“Whilst Cyprus seems to be a clear winner, other locations on the list are also fantastic choices based on your personal preferences.”
She added that if the prospect of rain is a dealbreaker for your family, the Canary Islands should be your top choice, “with the least rainy days predicted this autumn season”.
If a bargain break is important to you, Spain has some of the cheapest flights available from September to November, she added. Costa Blanca and Costa del Sol have one-way flight tickets from as little as £16 and £17 respectively.
I’ve had a few feuds in my time – like any fascinating woman – but one of the funniest was when I fell out with my comrade, Julie Bindel. We were both women of working-class origin propelled to the giddy heights of media notoriety, and I had always felt that we vied to see who could remain truest to our proletarian roots. Then, with one stroke, conclusively, I had won – because I backed Diana after the ‘Three of us in this marriage’ interview with Martin Bashir, while Bindel backed Camilla. We laugh about it now, but at the time, at my instigation, we didn’t talk for five years.
Now, nearly 30 years after Diana’s death, her brother, Charles Spencer, the 9th Earl Spencer, has revived hostilities with the royal family and King Charles for their treatment of her in his new book, Swan Song: Diana, My Sister. And the urge for side-taking is as strong as ever.
Alongside several other shocking claims, Spencer says that soon after Diana’s death, he received a call from Charles, in which he sounded ‘giddily elated – like a lottery winner’. And later, during a row ahead of Diana’s funeral, Spencer says that Charles told him, ‘Rest assured, we’ll forget her soon enough’.
‘So he could marry that woman!’, spat a splendid Welsh lady recently on a radio call-in – and just like that, the carefully rehabilitated image of Queen Camilla, from a woman who never worked a day in her life to defender of battered women and promoter of reading, disintegrated.
My own enmity towards the woman Charles had so enthusiastically been doing for decades had never quite left. And so with the current brouhaha, I’m right back there, wishing I could have been one of that bold brigade allegedly pelting Mrs Parker Bowles with bread rolls in the car park of Chippenham Sainsbury’s back in the 1990s.
I know this is childish. I know that my own private life barely bears inspection. I know there are some schools of thought that might advise that only she who is without sin should cast the first bap. But emotions can often be stronger than logic – and if, like me, you’re a republican, any ammunition that makes the ruling house look bad is going to be agreeable. So I very much believe Charles Spencer – for soppy reasons, because I was sweet on Diana, but for solid ones, too.
The solidest is my absolute and objective loathing of King Charles, who I believe to be a selfish, self-pitying narcissist; the opposite of his mother, who had her own misgivings about him becoming king. I recall many years ago reading the story of him allegedly saying to Spencer at the funeral of the latter’s father how ‘lucky’ he was to ‘inherit young’ (and being perplexed that it had mysteriously gone missing whenever I attempted to Google it, until the new book put it back in the news). I was also struck by how easy it was to imagine him saying it, so keen was he to get his hands on the sceptre and orb.
Charles has quietened down now, but as Heir Apparent, he really was a gob on a stick, with his constant speechifying about the wonders of everything from homeopathy to Islam and the notorious ‘black spider memos’ he bombarded politicians with. From badger culls (in favour) to supermarkets (against), there was nothing this none-too-bright man did not consider himself an expert on – how unlike the hands-off impartiality of our own late queen. Labour MP Paul Flynn called him ‘the lobbyist supreme in the land’, forever ‘putting forward a whole variety of views – including many bad science views and others that should have no more weight than the man down the pub’.
Despite his image of himself as a firebrand intellectual, his love of luxury was remarked on even by other members of a family not known for humble living. He had at one point four valets. The queen reportedly believed that ‘the amount of kit and servants he takes around is grotesque’. In 2002, his 85-strong court prompted several MPs to ask how he could justify such a large number of people waiting on him.
Since he became king, his ego has been mollified somewhat. He doubtless appears ‘nicer’ than the man who would sneer ‘Diana the Martyr’ at his young wife when she visited hospital patients. But that’s because he finally got to where he wanted – the top of the Ruritanian heap, with all the subjects who used to bow and scrape to his mother now giving fealty to him. Beneath it, he’s still the same ignorant big-head who wrote of Israel in a 1986 letter to Laurens van der Post after a tour of his beloved Gulf, that while there is ‘Much admire [in] some aspects of Islam… the influx of foreign Jews, especially from Poland, has helped to cause great problems… Surely some US president has to have the courage to stand up and take on the Jewish lobby?’
‘Oh, but Charles Spencer’s been married four times!’, squeal the seat-sniffing prudes. So? He probably didn’t marry any of them without loving them because the one he loved had been around the block a few times – let’s not forget that the king’s weakness in not marrying Camilla when they were young started the whole tragic mess. Whatever Spencer got up to with a gaggle of international glamour girls, I doubt that he wooed a dreamy teenage virgin into marriage while keeping his mistress on speed-dial. In the light of what Windsor inflicted on a trusting girl barely out of school, four marriages seem small beer.
Do I like the fact that there seems to be an alliance of kinds between Earl Spencer and the ghastly Sussexes? Not particularly – but I don’t have to like everything about a person to believe that they’re telling the truth, as I am not six years old. Recollections may vary, but a man who can become unhinged about a faulty pen, or who can complain in the manner of Adrian Mole (‘We can never be on time… there’s always something… this is boring’) about a minor delay while sitting in his coronation coach outside Westminster Abbey, is definitely capable of saying very strange things when only one person is listening.
The truth remains that he was wildly envious of his young wife’s popularity, and his flunkies played up to his sense of injustice. So much so that his friend, the Tory MP Nicholas Soames, announced after the 1995 Bashir interview, in which Diana talked about her husband’s adultery, that she was ‘in the advanced stages of paranoia’ and suffering from ‘mental illness’. One of the things that endears Prince William to people is his obvious pride in his wife’s popularity. But no one would be surprised if the king were envious of his Diana-faced elder son and the higher ratings he consistently gets in public polls.
To sum up, in this ruck of the Chucks, my money’s on Charles Spencer, because I am a grown-up who doesn’t believe that multiple marriages make your memory unreliable. And if anyone wants to disagree with me, and suck up to the preposterous pretender on the throne, that’s them off the Christmas card list for the next five years.
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