In London, 71.7 per cent of pupils passed, compared to 65.2 per cent in the North East and just 62.4 per cent in the West Midlands, the worst performing region – a gap that has widened to 9.3 percentage points from last year’s 8.7.

In London, 28.6 per cent of grades were at the top ones at seven and above, compared to just 17.7 per cent in the North East, a gap that in the last year has widened from 10.6 per cent to 10.9 per cent.

Why is this? Unless pupils in the regions are substantially thicker than in London, which we do not believe, there have to be profound social and educational reasons for this. Are our schools demonstrably worse? Do we not have a fair share of resources? Is the fact that so many more children are growing up in poverty hampering their live chances?

It is wrong that in 21st Century Britain, an accident of geography should have such an impact on educational outcomes, and we suspect that at the heart of these figures there are small pockets of deprivation where children are denied any opportunity.

This is not just a question for the North East: can the country as a whole afford so much talent to be overlooked? It is a waste of their live chances and the whole nation’s potential prosperity.

Levelling up, the Conservatives’ idea of bringing the regions up to the levels of the south east, has failed to address this problem, and last year, Bridget Phillipson, a Sunderland MP, was Education Secretary and made all the right noises about tackling it – and yet the gap has widened.

Will the new devolution agenda of the new Prime Minister and the new Education Secretary – the 11th in the last 12 years – bring fairness and equal opportunity to our next generation?

Whatever you call the great ‘freedom flight’ U-turn, the bombshell decision by Harry and Meghan to move back to Britain heralds another supremely tricky moment for the British monarchy.

And for all the honeyed words overnight about the King naturally welcoming the opportunity to see more of the Sussex family in a private and personal capacity, there is no doubt the news is being greeted by many in royal circles with an element of gritted teeth.

It’s one thing for the King to quietly patch up their relationship from the opposite side of the Atlantic. But it’s quite another to have the entire family suddenly pitch up with a loud ‘howdy Grandpa!’ in your own back yard – particularly when wider family relations are still so delicate.

Already the news – carefully leaked by Team Sussex to a small number of sympathetic journalists in the UK and abroad – has started a hundred different hares running, with a wave of online vitriol about His Majesty’s (supposed) role in enabling his younger son’s return, to the detriment of his heir.

He has been variously described as weak and manipulated but also, inexplicably, as working hand-in-glove with the Sussexes.

It has sparked distasteful speculation about King Charles‘s health and whether Harry has taken a decision to ‘shore up’ his position before it is too late. 

For the record, although gruelling at times, doctors have been delighted at the progress of his cancer treatment, which has been drastically scaled back and is currently being administered on a precautionary basis.

Sources have scoffed at renewed claims that the King’s right-hand man, Sir Clive Alderton, is leaving as private secretary to the King and Queen because of his opposition to any reunion – calling it ‘another mad conspiracy theory’.

Indeed, I can reveal that Sir Clive was actually integral to last month’s meeting between Harry and his father, despite being the victim of so much of the prince’s ire in recent years.

There has been a deafening silence from Kensington Palace over the news. Pictured: The Prince and Princess of Wales

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The news has sparked distasteful speculation about King Charles’s health and whether Harry has taken a decision to ‘shore up’ his position before it is too late

And yet it seems quite remarkable, does it not, that Harry brought his family to meet with his father for the first time in four years at Highgrove in early July and never thought even to mention that this plan was even on his radar?

But that, my sources insist, is the truth of it. Not once was the issue raised or discussed, they say. And the move has now been presented to the sovereign as a fait accompli.

It seems even stranger if what another source has told me is true: that Meghan privately visited two potential schools in the Cotswolds region for Archie and Lilibet during their visit here – and they had already earmarked a potential home belonging to a celebrity (for the record, I have not been able to independently verify either of these claims).

So while Harry has made no secret of his desire to spend more time in the UK moving forwards, it’s fair to say that this week’s news that a wholesale return to his country of birth will happen within days – a place which, not so long ago, he was arguing was too dangerous to bring his family to at all – has come as a huge shock to the wider royal household.

Reactions range from the amused (downright hilarity at the claim that Harry and Meghan have just proved their ‘half in/ half out’ model of monarchy can work… ‘surely their return is proof that it hasn’t!’), to the fearful.

Sources have scoffed at renewed claims that the King’s right-hand man, Sir Clive Alderton, is leaving as private secretary because of his opposition to any reunion

Buckingham Palace declined to comment on the Sussexes’ announcement, and there was an equally deafening silence from Kensington Palace.

Indeed, sources have long made clear the Waleses have no interest in engaging with anything Harry and Meghan do or say.

Meanwhile, there is a concern that back in the UK and in such close proximity to working members of the Royal Family, every move by the Sussexes will be dissected for the slightest hint of a return to official roles and provide a constant distraction to the real working royals’ public labours. 

For the avoidance of doubt, sources insist, the couple will not be undertaking any royal duties. The King, they say, is absolutely adamant on this.

His only interest is protecting and prioritising what’s right for the monarchy and, particularly, what is right for his relationship with the Prince of Wales, says a friend.

The Waleses are working royals and future monarchs. Harry and Meghan are not. And William’s feelings must and will be respected, I am told.

Needless to say, the Prince of Wales – currently holidaying with his family with the King at Balmoral – has no desire whatsoever to reconcile will his brother, as it stands. And few can blame him.

Other family members have long memories when it comes to Harry’s behaviour, particularly the disrespect they feel he showed to the late Queen and her husband, Prince Philip, in their latter years. And they may well be reluctant to play happy families again.

There are others in royal circles with personal experience of dealing with the Sussexes who say they just can’t shake the feeling ‘there is more to this than we know’. ‘There always is with them,’ one sighed.

There is also concern among some over the couple setting up some sort of ‘rival court’ to Buckingham and Kensington Palaces. 

Since quitting royal duties, Harry, in particular, has become increasingly strident in his public announcements, even attacking US President Donald Trump just days before the monarch’s high-profile State Visit to the US earlier this year.

It is one thing for him to do this from the other side of the Atlantic when he has an arm’s-length relationship with his father, but quite another to take such pot shots from the bosom of the family again, with the potential for damaging diplomatic fall-out.

Yet the Palace believes people will understand that while Charles is a king and a sovereign, he is also a father and a grandfather, and it is possible for him to clearly delineate between the two.

A friend insists: ‘The King welcomes the opportunity to see more of his family but beyond that, his stance could not be more clear [when it comes to their public roles]. Nothing has changed.’

The difficulty, however, is that many fear – and would firmly object to – their closer proximity to the monarchy being used either as a backdoor entry by the Sussexes to public life, or as a way of burnishing their commercial credentials.

It is a tightrope the King and senior officials have no choice now but to tread.

BALTIMORE (AP) — Gerrit Cole pitched six sharp innings, Luis García Jr. and Spencer Jones homered and the New York Yankees completed a three-game sweep in Baltimore with a 6-1 victory over the Orioles on Thursday night.

Cole (7-6) allowed four hits and a walk with eight strikeouts. A fifth-inning homer by Dylan Beavers produced the lone Baltimore run. The Yankees pulled within four games of AL East-leading Tampa Bay.

Ryan Yarbrough relieved Cole and pitched three perfect innings for his third save.

The Orioles have dropped four in a row after briefly taking sole possession of the lead in the race for the final American League wild card. Kyle Bradish (7-12) allowed three earned runs and eight hits in 5 2/3 innings, and Baltimore also permitted a pair of unearned runs in the third.

With men on first and third and nobody out that inning, second baseman Jackson Holliday fielded a tough grounder and threw to second, but shortstop Gunnar Henderson dropped the ball for an error and everyone was safe.

With a run already in, Bradish induced a double play, but Ben Rice followed with an RBI single and then Heliot Ramos brought in a run with a double that made it 3-0.

Beavers’ drive to right made it 3-1, but García and Jones answered with solo shots to chase Bradish in the sixth. Jazz Chisholm Jr. tripled in a run in the eighth.

There was no controversy about this New York win, a night after Pete Alonso’s deep fly ball against the Yankees was ruled foul with the game tied. Alonso did single twice Thursday to extend his hitting streak to a career-high 12 games.

Cole (1,015) moved one strikeout ahead of Roger Clemens for 12th place on the Yankees’ career list.

Up next

The Yankees return home to face Toronto on Friday night. Cam Schlittler (10-6) takes the mound for New York.

Baltimore hosts Tampa Bay, with Trevor Rogers (8-8) starting for the Orioles.

___

AP MLB: https://apnews.com/mlb

Bosses say there are ‘encourgaing signs of recovery’ on the land but insist the ‘risk of wildfires has not yet passed’

The area around Dovestone reservoir has been reopened to visitors after this summer’s devastating wildfires.

A huge fire broke out near the Saddleworth beauty spot on July 11 with crews also battling a blaze at Swineshaw, near Glossop, which ignited several days later.

At the same time crews in Derbyshire battled another moorland blaze, close to the village of Tintwistle, which forced the closure of the A628 Woodhead Pass.

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At their height, the area covered by both fires was said to be equivalent to 1,250 football pitches.

After the Dovestone blaze erupted, all car parks and footpaths were shut, with visitors ordered to stay away as Greater Manchester Fire and Rescue Service (GMFRS) declared a major incident with dozens of firefighters spending several weeks battling the blazes in tinder-dry conditions.

The major incident was stood down on August 3 with crews remaining at the scene for several days afterwards, whilst last week they also tackled another blaze near Holmfirth Road in Saddleworth, which was extinguished the following day.

Today (Thursday, August 20), the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB), which manages the Dovestone nature reserve with landowner, United Utilities, said that it was now safe for visitors to return. And they said there were ‘encouraging signs of recovery’ on the landscape, which offer ‘hope for the future.’

In a post on their Dovestone Facebook page, they said: “RSPB Dove Stone is reopening today, and we’re delighted to welcome visitors back. Our car park is once again available.

“This summer, we witnessed devastating wildfires that affected large areas of Dove Stone and neighbouring land.

“The scale of the fires was immense, with smoke plumes visible from space. Throughout this challenging period, our team worked side by side with the Fire and Rescue Service and other partners to help tackle the fires and bring them under control.

“We’re pleased to announce that, in agreement with the Fire and Rescue Service, it is now safe to reopen Dove Stone to visitors.

“While the impact of the wildfires has been heartbreaking, there are already encouraging signs of recovery. Fresh green shoots are emerging, wildlife is beginning to return, and areas of rewetted peatland across the reserve have survived the fire, offering hope for the future.”

They added: “Although the reserve has reopened, the risk of wildfires has not yet passed. If you notice smoke, fire, or anything suspicious during your visit, please call 999 immediately.

“The site is also under a Public Spaces Protection Order (PSPO) to help prevent new fires, so please do treat Dove Stone and other people with respect, and help us reduce the risk of fire by taking litter home.

“Thank you for your patience, support, and understanding during this difficult time. We would love to welcome you back to Dove Stone and continue sharing and protecting the incredible wildlife and landscapes of Greater Manchester together.”

TUSCALOOSA, Ala. (AP) — An Alabama jury on Thursday awarded $9.25 million in damages after finding that The New York Times defamed a college basketball player by incorrectly reporting that he was at the scene of a fatal shooting in Tuscaloosa.

Kai Spears, who played for the University of Alabama men’s team, sued the Times in 2023 after it published a report, citing a person familiar with the investigation, that indicated he was a passenger in a car involved in the shooting. The Times reported that the person had spoken “on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive matters.”

Days later, the Times acknowledged its error in an editor’s note and corrected the story.

The eight-person jury delivered its verdict after a nine-day trial in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Alabama. Matt Glover, an attorney for Spears, said he was pleased with the decision and believes “this verdict will improve journalism throughout the country.”

The Times was reviewing its legal options after losing in court, spokesperson Charlie Stadtlander said.

“We’re disappointed the jury found The Times liable for an honest mistake,” Stadtlander said in a statement Thursday. “We thank the jury for its service, but believe the verdict and award of damages are contrary to law and not supported by the evidence.”

Three other basketball players from the school were present at the January 2023 shooting, which killed a 23-year-old mother. In the lawsuit, Spears claimed the inaccurate reporting had caused him emotional distress and forever linked him with a murder.

A Times article reporting on the verdict Thursday said the newspaper “had not lost a defamation lawsuit brought in the United States over one of its articles in more than 50 years.”

It was a tale made for Hollywood: a young family escaping oppression and bigotry, crossing the ocean to ‘find freedom’ and a new beginning.

‘I fled my home country with my wife and my son, fearing for our lives,’ Prince Harry told his friend, ITV journalist Tom Bradby, in early 2023.

No matter that – with an £11 million mansion in Montecito, an astonishing story to sell about racist royals freezing out a suicidal American princess and media giants brandishing mind-blowing cheques as they fought for the right to tell it – the Sussexes hardly constituted the traditional rags-to-riches American Dream.

Sadly for them, however, Hollywood soon woke up to the fact that the couple had only one story to tell and negligible talent in finding a new string to their bow. 

In fact, it’s hard not to conclude that if things had worked out better for them in the Golden State, they surely wouldn’t be having to swallow their pride by returning to the country that they say ruined their lives.

It once all looked so promising. The US media, so instinctively sympathetic to the Sussexes, lapped up their sob story – at first. 

Their explosive chat show interview with Oprah Winfrey, in March 2021, as was surely intended, laid down a marker of what they were willing to say – stunning suggestions of racism in the Royal Family and the failure to support a suicidal Meghan – if they were approached with lucrative TV and publishing deals.

They weren’t long in coming, with a $100million five-year deal with Netflix, followed by a reported $20million multi-year deal with Spotify to produce and host podcasts.

In 2023, the pair were savaged in an episode of the acclaimed animated sitcom South Park titled ‘The Worldwide Privacy Tour’

Within months of the death of Queen Elizabeth in September 2022, the Sussexes let rip with more damaging claims about their time in The Firm with Harry & Meghan, a six-part Netflix documentary – in which they provided a predictably one-sided account of their split from the Royal Family – and Harry’s ghost-written memoir, Spare, which detailed his troubled relationship with them.

Though it was a bestseller (1.43million copies worldwide on its first day), many critics were unimpressed, scenting that the Sussexes were running out of things to say beyond settling scores with the Royal Family.

They were right. Subsequent programmes to justify that eye-watering figure from Netflix were relentlessly worthy, mind-numbingly dull or, too often, both.

They included Live To Lead, a series of interviews with liberal-minded ‘thought leaders’ such as Greta Thunberg and Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

Polo, a five-part series about Harry’s favourite sport, earned an embarrassing critics’ score of 25 per cent on Rotten Tomatoes.

This summer, the couple’s first jointly produced documentary about America’s Girl Scouts, Cookie Queens, fared so badly on its opening weekend in US cinemas that it was beaten by a compilation of silly cat videos.

The Sussexes’ output for Spotify was even more unimpressive, leading to the company ending the deal – officially by mutual agreement – early in June 2023 after they’d made just 12 episodes of their only show, Archetypes, in which the Duchess interviewed friends and celebrities including Serena Williams and Mariah Carey. 

Bill Simmons, a Spotify executive, branded the Sussexes ‘f***ing grifters’ on his own podcast.

The Duke and Duchess of Sussex in their Netflix documentary Harry & Meghan in 2022

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The couple’s first jointly produced documentary about America’s Girl Scouts, Cookie Queens, fared badly on its opening weekend in US cinemas 

The media deal with Spotify in 2023 ended after one season of Meghan’s podcast Archetypes

But the show which perhaps had the biggest impact on the couple’s image is one they didn’t produce.

In February 2023, they were savaged in the acclaimed animated sitcom South Park. The episode, titled The Worldwide Privacy Tour, mocked the couple’s plea for privacy and introduced Meghan as a ‘sorority girl, actress, influencer, victim’ – a devastating blow to their carefully curated image. 

It was time for change. Insiders said Meghan had always seen herself following in the footsteps of the original domestic goddess Martha Stewart. 

So, in March 2024, she unveiled American Riviera Orchard. 

The brand’s unveiling was widely ridiculed as Meghan sent numbered jars of jam to famous friends – with no official launch to follow.

The following February, the brand’s name was changed to As Ever. Products eventually hit the shops and some sold out (although nobody seems to know how many were on sale in the first place), but she was no Martha.

Any doubts on that score were settled by an accompanying TV series for Netflix called With Love, Meghan in which she shared her recipes for ‘single-skillet spaghetti’, crudites adorned with daisies and the perfect ‘fluffy’ scrambled eggs made with a ‘splash’ of sparkling water. 

If they weren’t making programmes and podcasts, at least Harry and Meghan could be doing good works for charity.

With Love, Meghan premiered on Netflix in January 2025

Jams, teas and tins of flower sprinkles are among products sold by As Ever

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But here was another record of under-achievement. 

In early 2022, it was revealed that the Sussexes’ US charity, the Archewell Foundation, had told the IRS – America’s taxation body – that in its first year of existence in 2020, it had raised ‘less than $50,000’ – £36,681. 

While its donations did improve, the couple’s philanthropic pretensions were further undermined by revelations that, while speaking at climate change conventions, they were travelling in private jets.

The Sussexes weren’t just failing to make money; they were also failing to keep Americans on their side. 

In January 2023, a poll for Newsweek revealed that in the month Spare came out Harry’s popularity plunged 45 points among the US public, with Meghan suffering a 36-point fall.

This slide was all too apparent in the US media, initially so smitten with the theme of a mixed-race American refusing to be crushed by British racism and snobbery but over time losing faith (and interest) in a rich and entitled couple’s endless victimhood.

In 2022, New York magazine’s The Cut website interviewed Meghan and mocked the ‘marshmallowy’ splendour of their lives, writing that the Duchess talked like she had a tacky reality TV producer ‘directing what she says’.

In 2023, even the usually supportive New York Times described Harry’s battles with his critics in Spare as ‘tiresome’. 

By the end of that year, the Hollywood Reporter included the Sussexes in its list of Hollywood’s ‘biggest losers’, criticising their Netflix series and Harry’s memoir as ‘whiny’ and describing the couple’s brand as a ‘sanctimonious bubble just begging to be popped‘.

Vanity Fair delivered the coup de grace in its January 2025 edition. Seven years after running an adoring piece about how Meghan – ahead of her marriage to Harry – was a breath of fresh air, the magazine royally trounced the Sussexes in a long investigation headlined ‘American Hustle’.

Its many criticisms ranged from the couple having antagonised their Montecito neighbours with all the attention they brought to the area, to a representative of the Duchess allegedly discussing the potential for a ‘post-divorce’ book deal in the event she splits up from her husband, though this was strongly disputed.

According to the magazine’s sources, some of Meghan’s underlings in her podcast venture found her so difficult that they ended up leaving early or even needing therapy.

The Duchess, who has vehemently denied bullying staff, ‘would be warm and effusive at the beginning,’ said the magazine, but ‘When something went poorly, often due to Meghan and Harry’s own demands, Meghan would become cold and withholding toward the person she perceived to be responsible.’

One might have assumed from their celebrity-packed 2018 wedding at Windsor Castle, that the Sussexes had plenty of A-list friends to make their California exile bearable.

Yet although guests at the nuptials included Oprah Winfrey, Serena Williams, James Corden, David and Victoria Beckham, and George and Amal Clooney, it soon became clear that many of them barely knew the couple.

According to sources, some – including the Clooneys, the Beckhams, plus Barack and Michelle Obama – distanced themselves from the Sussexes in embarrassment over their relentless attacks on the Royal Family.

Meghan and Harry did make the guest list of reality TV star Kris Jenner’s glitzy James Bond-themed 70th birthday party last November but even this ended in unhelpful headlines after Kim Kardashian (Jenner’s daughter) revealed that she had been asked to remove photos of the couple from her Instagram page.

So the Sussexes are heading back to a country where – to borrow the lyrics of The Mamas & The Papas’ hit song California Dreamin’ – all the leaves will be brown and the sky grey.

Will they also soon succumb to wistful memories of the sunny days they’ve left behind?

And so, after all the drama and recriminations, the brickbats hurled and grievances aired; after all the glossy deals that have come – and gone – a remarkable royal U-turn hovers on the brink of completion.

Reverse Megxit, a manoeuvre once thought to be as likely as pigs taking flight, would appear to be just a couple of short weeks from completion.

Six years after they packed their bags, turning their backs on royal life in pursuit of the American dream (and freedom to reap the American dollar away from the confines of the Royal fold), Prince Harry, his wife Meghan and their children Archie, seven, and Lilibet, five, are, apparently, ready to return to Britain.

They are expected to arrive in the UK to begin their new life within a fortnight, ahead of the start of the school term, which typically spans the first two weeks of September.

That such a move was on the cards was exclusively revealed by this newspaper last month, in the wake of the family’s flying – but seemingly very successful – visit to meet with the King and Queen for tea at Highgrove. It was coupled with a visit to Harry’s Spencer roots at Althorp, the stately home in Northamptonshire where his mother Princess Diana grew up and was buried.

‘What is absolutely crucial is that Harry never fell out of love with Britain – he fell out of love with the circumstances he found himself living in, and those are very different things,’ Harry’s friend Alex Rayner, who went with him on a charity trek to the North Pole in 2012, and remains in regular contact with him, told the Daily Mail.

Others speak of ‘an increasing and significant shift in sentiment, a feeling the American dream might not be all it was cracked up to be’.

And it’s not a one-sided sentiment either: ‘This is coming from Meghan as well as from him. I hear that Meghan is all for rekindling with and reconnecting with Harry’s English side. She is fully behind it,’ a friend said.

‘Harry has never stopped being British or feeling British.’ 

Lilibet walking behind her brother and father as the family visited Althorp amid rumours the Sussexes visited Princess Diana’s grave during their visit to Britain this summer

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Not that the move back should be seen as a whim, however. Although the pace of the shift took everyone by surprise (the King, we are told, only learned of his youngest son’s plans on Sunday), everyone insists it’s a serious – and permanent – move.

‘It’s a significant return and I think a forever return if I’m being brutally honest,’ the friend added.

That’s quite an about-turn. And that July visit to the UK was, it is understood, pivotal to decisions being made – and to schools being visited – although plans were actually being made as long ago as May.

The family enjoyed their time, however brief, with the King and Queen at Highgrove and are understood to have loved being with the family of Harry’s mother, Diana, Princess of Wales.

The children, for whom the UK must feel a distant place that Daddy talks about, may not have caught up with their uncle William (a sibling froideur yet to be addressed), nor with their cousins Princes George and Louis and Princess Charlotte, but they did apparently meet their aunts, uncles and cousins on their father’s mother’s side.

The visit to Europe also included time – documented by Meghan on Instagram – in Portugal where, in 2023, they were reported to have paid £6.3million for a holiday home in a fashionable corner of the country, known as the Iberian Hamptons, where Harry’s cousin Princess Eugenie also lives.

Indeed, we are told that so advanced are the couple’s plans they have been looking at property ‘at quite a serious level’ and have been looking at schools for the children since before they broke up for the summer holidays.

As a source close to the prince tells us: ‘They started to talk seriously about it at the beginning of the year and come May started to look at schools.’

Prince Harry, of course, like his brother Prince William, began his own prep school experience as a boarder at Berkshire prep school Ludgrove, aged eight, later proceeding to Eton.

The Duke and Duchess of Sussex at the ESPY Awards in California on July 11, 2024

Meghan Markle and Prince Harry visiting a QuestScope Youth Centre in a refugee camp for displaced Syrians in Jordan

It is, however, unlikely that Archie, just a baby when his parents moved to California in March 2020, will be boarding anywhere any time soon.

The little boy, who speaks with an American accent and is sixth in line to the throne, will be, we are told, a ‘day boy’ at a mixed preparatory school and Lili, as she is affectionately known, will enter pre-prep at the same school.

As our source says: ‘This is a natural moment as Archie will start prep school in year one.

‘Harry knows from his time at Ludgrove that you want to start at the same time as everyone else; there is bonding and camaraderie.

‘Archie is really, really keen on sport and will play rugby and cricket which will be new to him. Harry has been throwing a rugby ball with him in the garden in Montecito; it’s a pretty strange concept if you have grown up with the NFL!’

The location of the chosen school has not yet been revealed, but it is understood that it is not in London. It is highly likely to be somewhere in the Cotswolds, a location long favoured by the couple.

If it were in the frame, there would be a significance in that particular location on multiple fronts.

Before their wedding, Harry and Meghan signed a two-year lease on a £2.5million Grade II-listed farmhouse on the 4,000 acre Great Tew Estate, also home to the Beckhams’ country house and location of trendy private members’ retreat Soho Farmhouse, where many of Meghan’s UK-based friends hang out.

Secondly – while far removed from Kensington, where Harry and Meghan once lived in ‘cosy’ Nottingham Cottage, Harry’s two-bedroom bachelor pad in the grounds of Kensington Palace and from Frogmore, the Grade II-listed home on the Windsor estate, on which they splashed £2.4million on renovation and lived in for less than a year – this well-heeled territory is within easy reach of Althorp, where his uncle, Earl Spencer resides.

Could it even be that Althorp serves as a staging post for the family?

Perhaps.

Call it hedging their bets or merely an abundance of caution, it does appear they will keep their Montecito mansion, although the local luxury property market was abuzz with speculation yesterday. What broker wouldn’t want that sale?

In the UK, we are told that, ‘initially, they are staying with someone’. But ‘they are looking to buy at a quite serious level which is a big commitment to putting down roots,’ says our source.

So much has unfolded since their bombshell announcement in 2020 that launched what became known as Megxit.

Since their bombshell exit from the UK, famously dubbed ‘Megxit’, there have been grievances aired and wounds opened after the couple’s interview with Oprah

Prince Harry’s memoir and the couple’s Netflix documentary are said to have strained relationships with the Duke and his family

Prince William and Princess Catherine (pictured on September 10, 2022) with are said to feel deeply betrayed by the revelations made in Spare

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There have been grievances aired and wounds opened after Oprah (the interview) and Spare (the memoir) and Harry & Meghan on Netflix (the documentary). Relationships between Harry and his own family became strained, to say the least, indeed Harry and his brother are not thought to have spoken for years.

The Prince and Princess of Wales are said to feel deeply betrayed by the revelations made in Spare and in various interviews.

There has been precious little opportunity for rapprochement.

Harry, meanwhile, has pursued a legal challenge over the decision to remove his taxpayer-funded police protection, arguing that his family’s security arrangements require reassessment.

Until July’s visit, Meghan (who swept in privately with the children for tea with the in-laws after yet another kerfuffle over security arrangements), had not visited the UK since the Queen’s funeral, in September 2022.

The children, meanwhile, had not been here since the Platinum Jubilee, three months earlier, during which visit Lili celebrated her first birthday and met her paternal grandfather for the first time.

Friends say the Sussexes plan to visit the US regularly, where they have endeavoured to build commercial portfolios free from the shackles from life as working royals.

Harry currently earns money from business coaching company BetterUp and sustainable travel firm Travalyst and is also trying to expand the couple’s production company Archewell.

He is reportedly keen to spend more time supporting charities including WellChild, Scotty’s Little Soldiers and, of course, the Invictus community he founded with the first Invictus Games in 2014.

Meghan, meanwhile, runs her own lifestyle business, As Ever. The former Suits star recently appeared as a guest judge on MasterChef Australia, having hosted her own cooking and lifestyle show on Netflix and dipped her toe back into the world of acting for the first time in nearly a decade, with an upcoming cameo in the film Close Personal Friends, which also stars Lily Collins and Brie Larson.

How this all stacks up with a return to the UK remains unclear.

It was, of course, the late Queen who said Harry and Meghan could not maintain a ‘half-in, half-out’ approach to royal duties while also pursuing commercial opportunities.

Coincidental or not, there is certainly some business acumen in the timing of the Sussexes return.

‘Good to see Harry and Meghan achieve six full tax years of non-UK residency to manage the ‘temporary non-resident’ rules for capital gains tax,’ said accountant Nimesh Shah, CEO

of accountancy firm Blick Rothenberg on X. ‘They have clearly had some good tax advice and the timing of their move back to the UK is immaculate.’

The HMRC rules mean that if you leave the UK and come back within five years, you’re still liable for capital gains tax, but if you stay out of country for more than five years, you are not.

The tax benefits, it should be noted, would be even greater had Harry been a non-UK resident for ten consecutive tax years.

Whether Harry and Meghan are thinking about tax or business opportunities, as far as the Royal Household goes, there is said to be no interest in creating a ‘half-in, half-out’ arrangement for the duke and duchess.

The couple’s businesses will still be based in the US and the move is about something more personal. ‘Meghan has long been aware that Harry wants to ground the kids in the UK and give them the values of that particular education, to be a good loser, a humble winner and so on,’ the friend said.

There are other reasons too, he adds.

The Duke of Duchess of Sussex at a photo call where they marked their engagement on November 27, 2017

‘His father’s significant cancer also impacted on the decision; he realised the values of time and family.’

Quite how much discussion there has been between Harry and his family about the move remains uncertain.

As our source close to the Sussexes says: ‘I know that it [the move] was discussed when he came to the UK to see Diana’s grave; that visit was also about going to see schools. ‘What Harry didn’t say was that it was definitely this September, but at that point they were eyeing a move back.’

‘This is not about royal life at all; it’s about family and the children being educated in the UK.

‘Harry wants to ground his children in this country and to give them a strong understanding of where he grew up.

‘It’s not about him trying to recreate what they had in 2020, it’s about establishing their private family life.’

On the matter of family life, readers might recall that Harry has sometimes been less than complimentary about his stepmother, Queen Camilla.

She was reportedly hurt after he used Spare to describe her as ‘dangerous’ and a ‘villain’ who ‘left bodies in the streets’.

Note, then, what our source says now about his children’s step-grandmother: ‘He has a good relationship with his father – as a grandfather he is a softie, and Camilla is honestly a sweetheart.

‘Harry has been FaceTiming them since day dot with Archie and Lilibet.’

They also downplay the rift between Harry and William: ‘There is no real bad blood with his brother, and there are communications but a distance has grown between the families on either side of the Atlantic.’

As for Meghan, back in 2022, in an interview with US writer Allison P. Davis, she spoke a little about her journey and the ‘new chapter’ she was embarking on.

She made a handful of remarks about son Archie, one of them being about her fears over him attending school in the UK. She said she’d never be able to do school pick-up and drop-off without it being a royal photo call with a press pen of 40 people snapping pictures.

‘Sorry, I have a problem with that. That doesn’t make me obsessed with privacy. That makes me a strong and good parent protecting my child,’ she said.

Her fears, however, must have been allayed.

How the next new chapter unfolds remains to be seen.

The Duchess of Sussex has denied that she wanted to be a US Senator amid claims she met with California‘s governor in the hopes of being appointed to Kamala Harris‘s Senate seat.

The claims about Meghan’s alleged political ambitions, which she was said to have been pursuing shortly before the 2020 election, emerged in a story by The New York Post. It follows reports that the duchess and her husband Prince Harry are set to return to the UK after six years in the US.

Newsom’s office previously confirmed in a memorandum that the Democrat sat down with Harry and Meghan in an ‘introductory meeting’ on October 19, 2020. Exactly what was said at the meeting is not known.

Sources claimed that prior to Biden’s victory over Donald Trump, Markle wanted a meeting to be portrayed as a ‘welcome-to-California’ sit-down for the royals. 

However, they claim she was also seeking the US Senate seat that Harris was set to leave to become Biden’s vice president. 

The seat was eventually given to California’s Secretary of State Alex Padilla, who then won election to a full, six-year term in 2022.   

A source with Markle told the Post that the Duchess did not want to take Harris’ seat.

The Daily Mail has reached out to a spokesman for the Duchess of Sussex and to Governor Newsom for comment. 

Newsom’s office confirmed in a memorandum that the Democrat governor sat down with Harry and Meghan in an ‘introductory meeting’ on October 19, 2020. Exactly what was said at the meeting is not known

The Post report also alleges that the couple asked to meet Joe Biden in the Oval Office in 2021 but were shut down by White House staff. 

Biden sources claim that it was rejected on the grounds that it would have caused issues with the UK’s prime minister and the rest of the royal family. 

Both President and First Lady Jill Biden ‘didn’t want to get into a family squabble’ given their affection for Queen Elizabeth II. 

They also allegedly asked if they could fly back to the United States alongside the Bidens on Air Force One following the queen’s funeral and the source claimed they were promptly rebuffed. 

The royal couple hired consultants who had worked for both President Barack Obama and Biden, including ex-Press Secretary and current MS Now host Jen Psaki, the outlet said. 

Prince Harry‘s current chief of staff, Miranda Barbot, herself a former Obama staffer, was used as a conduit between the royals and the White House, the report stated. 

A Biden source told the Post that the pair had worn out their welcome with the Bidens, and that this was evidenced by neither of them continuing to attend Harry’s Invictus Games after 2021.

News that Harry and Meghan plan to return to Britain for an extended period and enroll Archie, seven, and Lilibet, five, in an English school suggests the couple have accepted that their American adventure has not delivered the glittering commercial empire once envisaged.

It has also been claimed that the couple asked to meet Joe Biden in the Oval Office in 2021 but were shut down by White House staff

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A Biden source told the Post that the pair had worn out their welcome with the Bidens, and that this was evidenced by neither of them continuing to attend Harry’s Invictus Games after 2021 

A lucrative Spotify deal is long gone and their original Netflix contract has ended. The duchess’s series With Love, Meghan lasted two seasons. 

Sources close to Harry briefed at the weekend that his family reunion with King Charles last month left the duke feeling ‘buoyed,’ ‘very happy’ and ‘really energized.’

Crucially, they added: ‘He wants to spend more time in the UK with his family.’

He will now get his wish. The family are expected to establish themselves in a private, non-royal residence and could remain in Britain while Archie and Lilibet complete their education.

But there will be no return to life as working royals.

The King, who is understood to have been informed of Harry’s plans only on Sunday, is said to welcome the opportunity to spend more time privately with his younger son and grandchildren.

But Buckingham Palace’s position on Harry and Meghan’s official status is understood to be unchanged.

There will be ‘no alteration’ to their roles as private individuals and non-working members of the Royal Family, in keeping with the arrangements established after their sensational departure in 2020.

Drivers making their way between Scotland and England can be forgiven for doing a double-take when they spot one particular road sign close to the border.

The sign carries the instruction “Drive on the left”, accompanied by a blue arrow directing motorists towards the correct side of the road, despite the entire Great British mainland driving on the left.

So anyone travelling south from Scotland into Northumberland, or north across the border, does not suddenly need to swap sides of the carriageway.

The ‘drive on the left’ sign at the Northumberland/Scotland border (Image: GOOGLE)

The unusual-looking reminder can appear as though motorists are being warned about a dramatic change in the rules of the road when, in reality, nothing changes at all.

But there is a perfectly sensible and simple explanation.

The signs are designed with international visitors in mind, particularly tourists who may be more accustomed to driving on the right-hand side of the road.

The sign at the border gives the instruction not only in English but also in German, Italian, French and Spanish, making its intended audience fairly clear.

And official advice from Traffic Scotland similarly stresses that “overseas visitors should remember to keep left when setting off or rejoining a road after stopping for fuel, a rest or sightseeing.”

The sign is one of the best-known routes between the North East and Scotland: the A68 at Carter Bar, high in the Cheviot Hills.

The road crosses the England–Scotland border before continuing north towards Jedburgh, while Carter Bar itself has become a popular stopping point thanks to its sweeping views and prominent border markers.

Motorists are greeted by a large “Welcome to Scotland – Fàilte gu Alba” sign when heading north, while the border viewpoint has long provided a photo opportunity for travellers.

Against that backdrop, the “drive on the left” instruction can look particularly amusing.

For British motorists, the message amounts to something close to: keep doing what you were already doing.

For visitors stepping back into a hire car after stopping at the border, however, the reminder could be considerably more useful.

Road users are advised to expect potential traffic delays in the seaside town for the duration of the fair.

Ireland’s oldest fair returns to Ballycastle for another year of trading, bargaining and a programme packed with entertainment this wekend.

The Ould Lammas Fair will be held from the 22nd – 25th of August, when the town is transformed by hundreds of stalls lining the streets, as far as the eye can see.

Road users are advised to expect potential traffic delays in the seaside town for the duration of the fair. The Ould Lammas Fair will begin on Saturday morning from 11am, with a firework display also scheduled to take place at the seafront from 9.30pm that evening.

The PSNI has advised that road users can expect potential delays in the town before, during and after the display.

A spokesperson said: “On Sunday, road closures will be in place from 7pm until 11.59pm to facilitate a concert in the Diamond. These closures include Ann Street to Rathlin Road, Castle Street to Leyland Road, Market Street to Moyle Road, and Fairhill Street to Mill Street.

“On Monday and Tuesday, road closures will be in place from 8am until 11pm each day. During this time, Quay Road from its junction with Mary Street, Ann Street, The Diamond, and Castle Street to its junction with Leyland Road will all be closed. A number of adjoining roads will also be impacted, with access mainly for local residents only.”

Where necessary, signed local diversion routes will be in operation throughout the duration of the fair, with officers on the ground to assist with the large volume of visitors expected.

The spokesperson continued: “Please follow any diversions that are in place for your safety and the safety of others.

“Parking on all four days will also be very limited, and we would ask those attending to be mindful of residents living in the area, ensuring they have full access into and out of their homes.

“Any vehicles found blocking the route or residential/commercial access, will be towed where necessary. Visitors are strongly encouraged to use public transport and the park-and-ride service available. Limited Blue Badge parking is available at Market Street, the Harbour Car Park and North Street on a first come, first served basis.

“The park-and-ride facility will operate on all days of the Fair from the McQuillan GAC on Whitepark Road, at a cost of £10 per vehicle.

“All buses are fully wheelchair accessible and the service will operate from Saturday to Tuesday, approximately every 20 minutes.

“The drop off point for Saturday and Sunday is the Rathlin Road/Atlantic Avenue junction, while Monday and Tuesday’s drop off point is Leyland Road/Ramaon Road junction. We hope all those visiting the fair have an enjoyable and safe time.”

The full programme of events is available via the Visit Causeway Coast and Glens website at https://www.visitcausewaycoastandglens.com/whats-on/ould-lammas-fair

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