Meghan Markle might no longer be in the UK, but Prince Harry Baseball-Cap’s “girl” is all over the Mail’s front page.
It is an “exclusive encounter” with Meghan Markle.
Scoop or what?
It’s only been a few days since Harry was complaining about the Press treating the celebrity Prince like a celebrity and abusing his lover. He is upset by “reporters and photographers trying to gain illegal entry to Meghan’s home”. Should we feel sympathy for Meghan? It’s “preposterous to claim that the publicity-hungry Ms Markle is a hapless victim,” said Sarah Vine in the Mail
No. She isn’t. She spoke with Piers Morgan in June “months before the world learned about her Royal relationship”.
Words about Harry in this front-page exclusive? None.
So if not Prince Harry, what did she talk about?
Meghan revealed some more obscure secrets about herself – such as the fact that she is a trained calligrapher who wrote the invitation cards and envelopes for pop singer Robin Thicke’s 2005 wedding.
Is that like the secret she revealed in 2014, when she told Fashion:
“I could either wait tables or use a skill I had that I could do on my own time,” she says. Markle’s calligraphy led to her addressing envelopes for Robin Thicke and Paula Patton’s wedding and writing Dolce & Gabbana’s holiday correspondence.
And the death threats? The Mail reports:
…she was bombarded with hate messages when her character in the US drama series Suits, Rachel Zane, cheated on her boyfriend in the show. She said: ‘People wanted to kill me! Not Rachel… ME. I never knew there were so many emojis with guns and knives. It was very unpleasant. Fortunately, Rachel got back on her pedestal and it stopped.’
“Prince Harry’s girlfriend Meghan Markle’s terrifying death threats,” screams the Daily Mirror. Butthose threats were nothing to do with her dating Prince Harry.
Elsewhere in today’s Mail, you can read:
The Mail exclusively revealed images of Meghan this week out in Kensington, near Harry’s home at Kensington Palace.
Time to once again revisit the pledge made by the Mail on 8 September 1997, eight days after the death of Princess Diana:
“The proprietor of the Daily Mail, Mail on Sunday and Evening Standard announced last night that his papers will not in future purchase pictures taken by paparazzi
“Viscount Rothermere, chairman of the Daily Mail and General Trust plc said: ‘I am, and always have been, an admirer of Diana, Princess of Wales, and nagged my editors to protect her so far as they could against her powerful enemies. In view of Earl Spencer’s strong words and my own sense of outrage, I have instructed my editors no ‘paparazzi’ pictures are to be purchased without my knowledge and consent.'”
Prince Harry is dating American actress Meghan Markle. And he’s unhappy with the media. The celebrity Royal doesn’t much like journalists behaving like, well, journalists. Kensington Palace say the Press have subjected Markle to a “wave of abuse and harassment”. It says “the past week has seen a line crossed”.
The BBC notes: “In recent days a number of newspapers have carried front page stories about the 35-year-old actress, best known for playing Rachel Zane in the TV drama Suits.”
Tsk! Those pesky tabloids, eh. Nothing like the BBC, which punctuates that news with a link to “Who is Meghan Markle?” The Times has more with “Everything you (secretly) wanted to know about Prince Harry’s ‘friend’”.
The Beeb’s bio tells us Megan has really good handwriting, was married and is now divorced, and is mixed race.
The Daily Telegraph wonders, “Could Harry marry a divorcee (when Margaret couldn’t)?”.
In the Times Hilary Rose reviews Markle’s acting role in Suits (something the Sun likens to porn – see picture below): “The show seems mainly to consist of pretty people saying inane things with the utmost gravity which, when you think about it, is pretty much what the royal family do.”
Yes, but with more guns.
The prince’s communications secretary warns (and is that very much like a celebrity to talk through ‘my people’):
“His girlfriend, Meghan Markle, has been subject to a wave of abuse and harassment. Some of this has been very public – the smear on the front page of a national newspaper; the racial undertones of comment pieces; and the outright sexism and racism of social media trolls and web article comments.
“Some of it has been hidden from the public – the nightly legal battles to keep defamatory stories out of papers; her mother having to struggle past photographers in order to get to her front door; the attempts of reporters and photographers to gain illegal entry to her home and the calls to police that followed; the substantial bribes offered by papers to her ex-boyfriend; the bombardment of nearly every friend, co-worker, and loved one in her life.”
The Guardian fingers the Sun:
Sun’s ‘smear’ about actor’s links to adult website prompts statement in which royal attacks reports’ ‘racial undertones’
Who she? She’s an actor, very beautiful, 35 years old. You might know her as Rachel Zane from the legal drama Suits.
I don’t. Never mind. She’s also … how can I put this?
As long as she’s not a divorced American. The royal family has had enough of them after that Wallis Simpson business. Actually, that’s exactly what she is. But I was thinking of something else.
Harry’s not going to be king, so maybe it will be OK as long as she behaves herself and offers up her body as a vessel for the royal bloodline. That’s the thing. Markle is dual-heritage. Her father is white and her mother is African American.
So? Look, most of the 20th century was a mistake and we want racial superiority back. We had a referendum about it, remember?
After the Guardian has looked down on the tabloids and smeared pro-Brexit voters as bigots (plus ca change), we hear more from Harry’s “cry from the heart” (BBC):
“He knows commentators will say this is ‘the price she has to pay’ and that ‘this is all part of the game’. He strongly disagrees. This is not a game – it is her life and his. He has asked for this statement to be issued in the hopes that those in the press who have been driving this story can pause and reflect before any further damage is done. He knows that it is unusual to issue a statement like this, but hopes that fair-minded people will understand why he has felt it necessary to speak publicly.”
The Guardian then fingers the Mail:
One comment piece in last weekend’s Mail on Sunday, by Rachel Johnson, said: “Genetically, she is blessed. If there is issue from her alleged union with Prince Harry, the Windsors will thicken their watery, thin blue blood and Spencer pale skin and ginger hair with some rich and exotic DNA.”
That’s racist? No. Of course it isn’t. Unless you think it nasty to mention Harry’s watery blood and accuse Johnson of gingerism?
The Guardian is in an absurd position. It wants to protect royal Harry from those awful tabloids, but has told its readers “Forelock-tugging is all the rage thanks to Harry and Kate” and that Princess Kate is trapped in a “cliched gilded cage”.
that;s the problem, isn’t it: Harry doesn’t behave like a Royal. He, Kate and Wills behave like celebrities. They don’t patronise; they endorse.
Harry and his PR team continue:
“Since he was young, Prince Harry has been very aware of the warmth that has been extended to him by members of the public. He feels lucky to have so many people supporting him and knows what a fortunate and privileged life he leads. He is also aware that there is significant curiosity about his private life.
“He has never been comfortable with this, but he has tried to develop a thick skin about the level of media interest that comes with it. He has rarely taken formal action on the very regular publication of fictional stories that are written about him and he has worked hard to develop a professional relationship with the media, focused on his work and the issues he cares about.
“But the past week has seen a line crossed.”
A red line? Or is it a ginger line that’s being crossed?
We all warm to horrified Prince George. In Canada for a Royal tour Prince George left Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau hanging in a failed high-five.
The colonial’s ‘Good afternoon five’
Of course, to the British the high-five is a symbol of failure. Trudeau should have simply bowed, or else kissed the prince’s ring finger (the Trudeau name suggests French roots). Prince George treated Trudeau’s foolishness with the disdain it warrants.
No Britisher enjoys nor wants the high five.
Prince George leaves Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau hanging in failed high-five pic.twitter.com/LTAUEzukhZ
The Queen, reportedly, has stepped into the EU Referendum debate. The Express leads with: “QUEEN ISSUE EU CHALLENGE. – Give me 3 good reasons to stay, she asks guests.”
How many guests preferred it when Her Majesty just held up her gloved robotic waving hand and asked “And what do you do?” Now she wants three reasons why the country should remain in the European Union. Gongs and pudding portions depend on guests giving a favourable answer.
The source for this story of regal parlour games is “Royal biographer” Robert Lacey, who says he believes the Queen is a Eurosceptic but not necessarily a Brexiteer.
The story is taken up with the gusto in the Sun, which leads with “Sorry Ma’am, we can’t think of ONE.”
Proof that the Queen asked her guests the question comes there none. The tabloids’ story is rooted in a story Lacey wrote for the Daily Beast. Below the headline “Why the Queen Should Oppose Brexit” he says the Queen “apparently” has been asking her dinner guests for three reasons for the country remain in the EU. He adds that “Buckingham Palace has rightly deplored the impropriety of disclosing Her Majesty’s private remarks.”
Compare and contrast the Daily Mail’s reporting on Becky Nicholson’s wedding to Leicester City and England footballer Jamie Vardy and Camilla Parker Bowles marriage to Prince Charles.
Alison Boschoff and Andy Dolan write on the Becky-Jamie alliance:
The most brazen WAG of all: Three children by three dads. A fling with Peter Andre. No wonder England football hero Jamie Vardy’s parents won’t be at his wedding…
For Vardy’s mother Lisa and stepfather Phil — who has raised him since he was a baby — will not be there because they do not approve of their son’s choice of wife, a glossy, risque brunette named Becky Nicholson…
So, what’s the problem? Well, perhaps it has something to do with the fact that Becky, who will be gliding down the aisle in a £5,000 traditional white dress, is anything but a blushing bride. For she has not only been married once before as a teenager, but has also gone on to have two children by twoother men….
As is perhaps customary when a high-profile footballer makes it official with a WAG, Hello! magazine will be in attendance, with its sizeable chequebook and security retinue…
Since Jamie’s rise to fame she has kept her colourful mouth shut, except when there is a cheque in it for her.
In this week’s tawdry Hello! mag – “Prince Harry is a great guy!”
Now enjoy “Charles and Camilla: Married at last“. Charles, who may recalls was cheating on his wife, Princess Diana, with married mum-of-two Camilla. Charles once expressed a desire to be Camilla’s tampon. Cheating Charles, heir apparent and with it a defender of the faith and good morals, had a civil ceremony with Cheating Camilla, and then scored a televised Anglican blessing by the Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, at St George’s Chapel, Windsor Castle. Charles’s parents did not attend the marriage ceremony.
Charles and Camilla were in the ancient surroundings of St George’s Chapel, Windsor Castle, for the service, conducted by the Archbishop of Canterbury in front of more than 700 guests. Earlier they had married in more humble surroundings in the Windsor Register Office, with just 28 guests but without the Queen or the Duke of Edinburgh.
The Duchess of Cornwall changed into a porcelain blue silk dress with hand painted ikat design, hand embroidered with gold thread work, for the blessing of her marriage this afternoon.
The designers’ starting point was the Duchess’s comment that she liked the style of the velvet dress they had designed for her to wear for the gala night at the Royal Opera House…
At the reception, the Duchess wore a court shoe with a soft point toe and a 5.5cm heel in pale grey shot silk…
She carried a small, simple elegant floral bouquet bound with silk from her dress. Auricular flowers in dusty shades of greys and creams with touches of gold had been mixed with clusters of Lily of the Valley both for the scent and the sentiment…
The flowers were cut from English plants later to be grown in the gardens at Highgrove. A sprig of myrtle, representing happy marriage, was sent from a well wisher in Cornwall for the bouquet.
And what colour dress did chaste Camilla wear to that civil wedding to the down-at-heel Prince?
Good job Camilla’s not like that Becky. But if she wants to get the “brassy” look, the Mail is here to help her. Below photos of Becky in her undies – “Blushing bride: Rebekah appeared in a downmarket newspaper modelling ‘wedding lingerie’ (pictured)” – the Mail offers readers the chances to “GET THE LOOK” and “Say ‘I do’ like Becky in bridal lingerie”:
It’s not about money, readers. No. It’s about class…
Prince George is so “advanced for his age” he “started speaking long before other toddlers”, reports Hello! magazine. The magazine now has a play-date supplement, featuring actress Sophie Winkleman, Mrs Lord Frederick Windsor, who was impressed by George’s intelligence when he played with her young daughter, Maud.
“He is a very clever, articulate little boy,” says Sophie, “and was speaking long before other toddlers his age.”
So clever is Prince George that he has:
Lined up a job to be King
Been tipped as a future Commander-in-Chief of the Royal Canadian Navy
Is sure to be awarded an honorary membership to the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists
Has grown men bowing
In other news, toddlers are advised not to talk to George until he has spoken to them.
Today’s woman being pulled to pieces by Sarah Vine is Kate Middleton, aka the Duchess of Cambridge, who had the temerity to go shopping with non-bouncy hair, “eyes puffy and lined”, and looking “shattered”.
So bitchy and cruel is the Daily Mail’s front-page article that the only sensible deduction is that agent Vine is in the pay of the Royal Family, her job to make the newspapers look invasive and ugly, thus enabling heavily-styled man-with-the-common-touch Prince William to pontificate on press freedom without anyone thinking him a bit of a knob.
Vine’s schtick is to rip her target to pieces before reassembling them, in much the same way a torturer or abusive partner might do. She hopes her attack is the “wake-up call she [Kate] needs to finally do what everyone is probably begging her to do: slow down, stop being such a perfectionist and have a well-deserved rest. It is Christmas, after all.”
Pictures of Princess Charlotte occupy the front pages of the Mail, Telegraph, Mirror and Express.
The Mirror says the child’s hair is “light brown – somewhere between the colour of Kate’s darks locks and William’s blond ones”.
The Mail says the photos taken by “proud Kate” show a child with a “sweep of dark hair and sparkling eyes”, making her “most definitely her mother’s daughter”.
Some confusion about the hair, then.
The Mail can’t make its mind up about anything – the headline to Rebecca English’s story on Kate’s mini-me tells us Charlotte’s a mini-him
The Mail than further contradicts itself by saying Charlotte’s “twinkling blue eyes are inherited from her father.” Maybe she has one of Wills’ eyes and one of Kate’s?
Make that three eyes, because the Mirror says “six-month-old Charlotte seems to have inherited her late gran Princess Diana’s big blue eyes”.
The Mail notes how she sits “unaided in a shabby-chic-look armchair” at the family’s 10-bedroom Anmer Hall pile. She is “gazing almost wistfully at something in the distance…perhaps her nanny, Maria Borrallo”, or perhaps at grandpa Charles whose talking to a pot plant and looking at her for traces of his own features.
The Express concludes that the child looks a “Lotte like her mum”. It assures all paparazzi that Charlotte is a “natural for the camera”. Phew!
The Mirror makes it a multimedia event, somehow noticing from two photos that Charlotte is “shrieking with delight”.
And on its goes. But what’s also bizarre about this story is the number of brand’s checked. Kate uses a Canon EOS 5D Mark II (Express) camera. Charlotte wears a dress by Liberty (Express) and ribbed baby pink tights by Amaia Kids (Mail). She looks at a Jelly Cat Fuddleworth Puppy (Mirror).
Is everything sponsored? Let’s hope so. It’s high time the Creosote Royals paid for themselves,
Kensington Palace says photographers must stop harrassing Prince George and Princess Charlotte. Look out for lots of stories demanding Kate and Wills have their privacy, all illustrated with stick drawings of the Family.
Kensington Palace communications secretary Jason Knauf tells us:
“It is of course upsetting that such tactics – reminiscent as they are of past surveillance by groups intent on doing more than capturing images – are being deployed to profit from the image of a two-year-old boy.
“In a heightened security environment such tactics are a risk to all involved.
“The worry is that it will not always be possible to quickly distinguish between someone taking photos and someone intending to do more immediate harm.”
It’s a terrorism issue? The paps want shooting? Maybe instead of shooting a lovely creature in cold blood, Prince George right of passage could involve spearing a photographer in the face?
The video and stills of young future Queen Elizabeth (she’d have been around 6 or 7), her younger sister Margaret, future Edward VIII Edward and the Queen Mother giving the Nazi salute have been described as gutter journalism.
So? What’s wrong with gutter journalism?
Well, a “royal source” thinks everything is:
“We are looking at this on two fronts. One issue we are examining is the whole question of copyright. The second question is whether any criminality has been involved.”
First up, Hitler’s salute was open to anyone who hates Jews, gypsies, homosexuals, communists and was prepared to wear leather shorts in public. Only footballer Gareth Bale has tried to copyright a gesture. And Edward is dead, so any war crimes tribunal is not going to bother prosecuting him. Of course, if you can suggest to the Yard that he molested kinder and encouraging his innocent young nieces to give the Nazi salute is tantamount to child abuse, then we can dig up the Nazi fan and stick his knitting needles in his eyes.
Both the palace and The Sun believe the man behind the camera was probably the girls’ father, the future George VI. If so, the palace believes copyright to the film belongs to the Queen as his heir.
So. Not a hacked Hitler heil-phone.
And will the Queen sue the Sun?
The Sun insisted the film had been obtained in a “legitimate fashion”. It is believed to have been in the newspaper’s hands for weeks while lawyers and film experts confirmed its authenticity and legal status.
Did the British Film Institute (BFI) leak the film?
The BFI said no one had access to the royal film collection without the express permission of the royal family. “It’s not for anyone’s eyes,” said a spokeswoman. It too has begun an inquiry.
And then we get this:
One possibility, however, is that the footage was kept at the Paris home of the Duchess of Windsor, the American divorcee who became the Queen’s aunt by marriage after Edward abdicated. After she died in 1986 the contents were bought by Mohamed al-Fayed, the former owner of Harrods, who later auctioned them in 3,200 lots.
Al-Fayed? Why does the Sunday Times, sister organ to the Sun, introduce Al Fayed as it wonders aloud where-oh-where the footage came from?
Fayed, who lost his son, Dodi, in the Paris car crash in 1997 that also killed Diana, Princess of Wales, leased the villa after the duchess died.
That’s the same Al-Fayed who accused Prince Phillip of being a Nazis (which he isn’t):
The Sun’s photo of Her Majesty the Queen giving Nazi salute in 1933 is a scoop. “Their Royal Heilnesses,” puns the Sun.
Queen Elizabeth 2 was just seven years of age when her Nazi-loving anti-Semitic uncle, the future King George VI, encouraged her to give the stiff-armed salute at Balmoral.
The Queen,’s younger sister, Princess Margaret, is equally blameless as she too salutes the Nazis.
But what of heir mother Queen Elizabeth?
The Telegraph, says “sources close to the Queen” described the photos as “misleading and dishonest”:
The Royal Household was particularly angry at the newspaper’s decision to print the 82-year-old images, which have never been seen before, just three weeks after the Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh visited the site of the former Nazi concentration camp at Bergen-Belsen in Germany.
It takes a special kind of fool to believe the Queen in some way approves of the murder of 6 million Jews. Her Majesty has been a friend to Jews throughout her reign. Jews sings the national anthem with gusto at synagogue services. The Queen is just about the best thing ever to happen to the Royal Family. Three cheers for her!
Others, what we call ‘the sane, might wonder at the world in which Elizabeth was raised. In 1933, her mother would have been 32 or 33 years of age. In 1933, Germany had already begin to ostracise and criminalise Jews.
What was the dear old Queen Mum thinking?
The Buckingham Palace spokesman has reacted:
“It is disappointing that a film, shot eight decades ago and apparently from HM’s personal family archive, has been obtained and exploited in this manner.”
Why? We’re not disappointed. It is a terrific story. The only pity is that it took so long to surface.
The Telegraph makes a suggestion:
In a leading article, the Sun accepts that Hitler, newly installed as Germany’s Chancellor, was “a faintly comic character” at the time, but argues that the involvement of the future Edward VIII, a known Nazi sympathiser, makes the film historically significant.
It does. Even without him it would be newsworthy. Edward’s presences makes it sinister.
Edward, who feared a communist revolution following the murder of Russia’s royal family, courted Hitler when he met him three years after the film was shot.
Not only him. The Sun says the aristocracy feared the communists. Well, some of them did. People involved in the Anglo-German Fellowship, which in 1939 welcomed Gertrud Scholtz-Klink – Hitler’s “perfect Nazi woman” – to teach them the ways of Nazism did.
The Anglo-German Fellowship, of which Prunella Stack’s husband Lord David Douglas-Hamilton and brother-in-law Douglas Douglas-Hamiton MP were both members, was an upper-class and it would be fair to say a predominately right-wing organisation. In fact many of the fellowship were almost unashamedly pro-Nazi and anti-semite.
In 1931 Miss Pamela Bowes-Lyon – cousin of the Duchess of York and future Queen Consort to King George VI and Queen Mother – married Lord Malcolm Douglas-Hamilton in Beaulieu, Hampshire.
You can read all about how close Britain came to being ruled of fascists on Flashbak.
A royal source is quoted:
“Most people will see these pictures in their proper context and time. This is a family playing and momentarily referencing a gesture many would have seen from contemporary news reels. If you watch the film it is people laughing and joking around and playing, and it was one of the things of the day. No one at that time had any sense how it would evolve. To imply anything else is misleading and dishonest. The Queen is around six years of age at the time and entirely innocent of attaching any meaning to these gestures.”
It was unclear on Friday night how The Sun had obtained the footage, which it argued was part of a “hidden” archive of material relating to the Royal family which it said should now be released.
Over in the Sun, we learn more:
…the pictures must be seen in the context of 1933.
Elizabeth and Margaret are kids. Families of all kinds larked around apeing the stiff-armed antics of the faintly comic character with the Charlie Chaplin moustache who won power in Germany.
No one knew then what Adolf Hitler was capable of. Or that, deep in Bavaria, he was already opening his first concentration camp at Dachau.
What gives The Sun’s extraordinary images such historical significance, and the reason we believe the public has a right finally to see them, is the involvement of the Queen’s uncle Edward.
The man who briefly became our King was already a fan of Hitler — and remained so as late as 1970, long after the Holocaust’s horrors were laid bare…
Edward and a clique of anti-Semitic aristocrats were terrified of a communist revolution stripping them of power and privilege with deadly force, as it had in Russia. Fascism seemed like an answer.
But even the Sun has its limits:
His desire to appease Germany stands now in stark contrast to the courage and patriotism of the Queen Mum once Luftwaffe bombs fell. She was so inspiring to Londoners in the Blitz even the Fuhrer considered her a thorn in his side.
The Sun produces a feature entitled “Queen of the Blitz Silly salute, but a rock in country’s bleak year”.
If there was one woman determined not to let Hitler win it was the Queen Mother.
There were far more people than one woman who wanted to smash the German war machine.
It was Elizabeth who persuaded her husband King George VI that they should remain in Buckingham Palace as the Luftwaffe bombed the capital night after night in 1940.
The stories are hymned. The tales of the bad Royals bits less so.
…there is the tragic saga of the Queen Mother’s nieces, Nerissa and Katherine Bowes Lyon, both born mentally deficient and unable to speak.
They were confined in the Royal Earlswood Mental Hospital at Redhill, Surrey, in 1941, where they remained for the rest of their lives.
Although the Queen Mother knew the statement in Burke’s Peerage that both women were dead (published after false information had been supplied by their mother) was untrue, she never visited either of them, and apparently saw no contradiction in her patronage of Mencap, which campaigns against families placing their mentally challenged relations in state care.
…not long before the announcement of the engagement of the Duke of York to Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon at the beginning of 1923 the papers had carried reports that she was, in fact, to marry his brother, the Prince of Wales (the future Edward VIII). Hence the suggestion, half a century later, by Diana Mosley [née Mitford] that Elizabeth’s enduring antipathy to Wallis was fuelled by jealousy. In a letter to her sister, the Duchess of Devonshire, written soon after the death of the Duke of Windsor in 1972, Diana (Wallis’s friend and future biographer) observed: ‘the theory of their contemporaries that Cake [the Mitford sisters’ nickname for Elizabeth, derived from her sweet tooth and healthy appetite] was rather in love with him (as a girl) & took second best, may account for much.’
Released by Buckingham Palace ahead of the publication this week of the first official biography of the Queen Mother, the letter is her personal account of the events of 13 September 1940 to her “darling” mother-in-law, Queen Mary.
In it she records how she was “battling” to remove an errant eyelash from the King’s eye, when they heard the “unmistakable whirr-whirr of a German plane” and then the “scream of a bomb”.
“It all happened so quickly that we had only time to look foolishly at each other when the scream hurtled past us and exploded with a tremendous crash in the quadrangle,” she wrote.
While her “knees trembled a little bit”, she was “so pleased with the behaviour of our servants”, some of whom were injured as one bomb crashed through a glass roof and another pulverised the palace chapel.
Hours later, after lunching in their air-raid shelter, she and the King were visiting West Ham in London’s East End. She wrote: “I felt as if I was walking in a dead city… all the houses evacuated, and yet through the broken windows one saw all the poor little possessions, photographs, beds, just as they were left.”
Oh, you want the juicy bits, the stuff about the Royal racists, philanderers and scumbags. Well, the Royal want those bits kept secret:
The rest of the Royal archive from that period, of similarly immense interest to historians and the public, is still hidden.
The Sun has a photo of Her Majesty the Queen giving a Nazi salute in 1933.
The Sun reports on a video of larks in Balmoral:
Egging on her sister Princess Margaret, three, is their uncle Prince Edward, Prince of Wales. He was a sympathiser towards Hitler’s Nazi Germany and became King Edward VIII.
Also in in the short video is the Queen Mother. She gives the Nazi salute.
Elizabeth, age 7, gives a stiff-armed salute. her younger sister Margaret kind of waves.
In 1933, Hitler told Germans to boycott Jewish-owned shops. Jews were forced from job at newspapers and in the Civil Service. The Queen Mother was 32 or 33 years old.
Eddie was a Hitler fan and an anti-Semite. The Sun adds:
While there is clearly no suggestion that the Queen or Queen Mother were ever Nazi sympathisers, Edward’s links with Hitler and fascism are very well documented.
No. Of course none of the British aristocracy other than Edward were Nazi supporting anti-Semites.
Not really. There were loads of them.
You can read the story of how close the United Kingdom cam to be run by Nazi toffs on Flashbak.
What do we think of Mario Testino’s photos of Kate and William in his Princess Charlotte’s christening portrait? Get a load of those big smiles. It’s typical celebrity stuff.
After all, they have plenty to smile about – the free houses, the free money, the free adulation, the fact there’s no chance of their kids ever having to worry about student loans, tax credits or the minimum wage.
But like his bosses at the Guardian, then.
All smiles all the way. But Testino, the world’s most horrible flatterer of wealth and status, makes every smile look phoney. He makes reality itself seem a glib and cynical charade.
Her Majesty The Queen’s footmen have no time for tourists.
This video is a warning to all jihadis and other enemies of the British state: dress in check, beige and carry a large camera and you are toast.
Anorak humbly invites the Queen’s Guard to travel by Tube. Backpackers, you have been warned – especialy those of you with Canadian maple leaf flags stitched onto your massive canvas shells. Sure, you’re not American, but you gave us Justin Bieber and that’s more than enough.
With FA Cup finalists Arsenal and Aston Villa only receiving paltry 25,000 ticket allocations for a game being staged in a 90,000-capacity stadium, fans of both teams have faced something of a mad dash for seats.
Having run out of luck trying to source a ticket for him and his friend Leo via conventional means, plucky Arsenal fan Charlie Pearce was so desperate to get to Wembley that he decided to step out of the queue and go straight to the top.
Rather than wasting precious time and money scouring tout sites, Charlie turned to the one person he thought could help him with his predicament – Queen Elizabeth II.
Sadly, as his reply from Buckingham Palace duly states, it would appear that HRH hasn’t got any tickets going spare…
The Washington Post reports that suspected IRA member Prince Charles is to meet Sinn Féin president Gerry Adams to promote “reconciliation and healing”.
What?!
Charles continues to deny being a member of the IRA, Hot Gossip and The Sex Pistols.
The story of Prince Andrew and Virginia Roberts, the woman who claims to have shagged ‘Randy Andy’ when working as a 17-year-old “sex slave” is dead. The Prince will not stand in the dock and defend his name. British police will not see the Queen’s son as part of their Operation Fairbank investigation into historial sex abuse at institutions across the UK.
Roberts alleges her employer Jeffrey Epstein, a convicted peadophile (and billionaire genius), forced her to have sex with his friend Prince Andrew on three occassions. He denies it.
Now in the US, Florida District Judge Kenneth Marra says her “lurid” claims are “unncecesary” and “immaterial” “at this juncture” to the civil case women have brought against the US Government for a secret plea deal with Epstein that saw him serve minimal jail time for sex ofences with a minor.
Roberts had been trying to add her name to the lititgation.
Judge Marra has refused her request to join the claim. So. Allegations against Andrew should be erased from all court records – not that he was ever named in them.
If Roberts isn’t in on the case then her claims againt Airmiles Andy are irrelevant to it.
This story is covered deep inside the tabloids. What once was front-page news is now an after-thought:
Daily Mirror Page 4: “Andrew ‘sex slave’ claims are removed from court records”
Daily Star Page 9: “Prince Andrew In Clear in Sex Rap”
“However he [Judge Marra] made no comment on the accuracy of Ms Roberts’s allegations. She may still appear as a witness when the long-running case is finally heard”
The Sun Page 4: “Andrew in Sex Claim Victory”
Daily Mail Page 10: “Andrew sex slave claims thrown out by US judge”
Only the Daily Express leads with his story. It says the Judge “gave a huge boost to the Duke of York in his effrost to clear his name”.
Clear his name from what? Nothing happened? Unless, Roberts seeks to write a book and make further claims againt the Prince and he opts to contest them in a court of law…
Prince Harry Baseball Cap will be leaving the Army in June. Kensington Palace says the prince is at a “crossroads” and leaving the Army had been a “really tough decision”.
Harry will spend the summer working alongside conservation groups in Africa before “actively considering other longer term employment opportunities”.
A straw poll of the Anroak office reveals that 98% of us believe Harry should consider a life of being stinking rich and indulged.
One per cent say he should look to break as many Guinness World Records as he can.
The remainder think he should live in a tent with Prince Edward.
Prince Charles wants to kick his younger brother Prince Andrew out of the Royal Family, says the website Celebrity Dirty Laundry. Andrew, once billed as ‘Air Miles Andy’ and ‘Randy Andy’ is now “alleged teen sex slave offender Andy”. He’s accused of shagging Victoria Roberts, who claims she was a 17 -year-old sex slave when she rubbed Andrew’s body at one of billionaire paedo /billionaire playboy / billionaire genius Jeffrey Epstein’s homes.
The story is rooted in sources talking to the Daily Mail. Katie Nicholl begins with a question:
What IS the problem with the Princes? Charles won’t give Andrew a vote of confidence, a party invite – or a place on the balcony
Is Andrew stood looking up at Charles’ Juliette balcony, one the would-be human tampon shares with his tame begonia and the woman who was once his mistress?
Nicholl then begins:
The clinking of cutlery and popping of corks could be heard from the other end of the corridor. Behind the partly closed gilt doors of the grand dining room at Buckingham Palace, the Prince of Wales was holding court with his wife, the Duchess of Cornwall. The celebration to mark his 66th birthday was in full swing, with the couple’s closest friends charging their crystal glasses to toast the Prince.
Eat yer liver out, Barbra Cartland.
At the other end of the Palace, Prince Andrew was in his private residence sharing a low-key supper with a friend or two of his own. Sources close to the Duke of York’s circle say he had not been invited to the party and did not want to spend the evening alone.
Most sane people would rather drink their own urine than listen to Prince Charles hold court or share a simple supper with Andrew. As we wander around Buck House looking for a McDonald’s franchise, Nicholl harps on about how Charles is disapproving of the allegation that Andrew had sex with “a minor” – although, we must state, a minor under Florida not UK law and that Andy denies any wrongdoing – “the shutters have come down” on “Andrew’s darkest hours”.
A source then arrives from the 1950s to explain:
‘The froideur is worse than ever,’ the friend said. ‘Charles considers the whole sex scandal degrading, damaging and very embarrassing. He thinks that his brother has made some very bad decisions but he has said nothing to Andrew, he simply hasn’t communicated with him at all. There’s been a very icy silence.’
Another adds:
‘I was told never to mention Andrew’s name in the Prince of Wales’s company,’ the source revealed.
Readers are then treated to lines that should cause no end of eye rolling and giggles:
Charles considers the whole sex scandal degrading, damaging and very embarrassing… Andrew has been relying heavily on the support of his immediate family. His ex-wife Sarah Ferguson was the first to rush to his defence, saying on American television that Andrew is a ‘humongously good man’.
If there was ever the moment for two men to unite over a humongous laugh, that must be it.
A spokesman for Clarence House last night said that suggestions of such a break down in the brothers’ relationship were “categorically untrue”.
However, a friend of a prominent royal family member said that Charles has not written to Andrew for months.
They share a home and write letters to one another? Do they eschew stamps and just draw a cartoon of ‘mum’ in the top corner before popping the missives into a flunkey’s letter box mouth or between their buttocks? And whatever happened to shouting?
Over in the Telegraph we get news that Roberts was no sex slave.
Former friends of the woman who has claimed that she slept with Prince Andrew have disputed her claims that she was a sex slave.
Associates of Virginia Roberts said that she ‘never looked like she was being held captive’ and that she lived the high life earning thousands of dollars.
They said that she was ‘head b****’ of a group of 10 girls who worked for billionaire paedophile Jeffrey Epstein at his mansion and that she would ‘brag’ about her earnings.
That’s former friends for you, or not friends at all, as we call them.
The ‘former friend’ is Philip Guderyon, who “used to hook up with Roberts and drive her to and from Epstein’s mansion in Palm Beach, Fla.” Says the man with a story to sell, sorry, tell in the New York Daily News:
“She’d have like nine or 10 girls she used to bring to him… She never looked like she was being held captive. She and the other girls would walk out of there smiling, with their little bathing suits on, like they had just come from the beach. She’d have like four grand. And then I’d take them all to the mall and they’d get their nails done.”
Crystal Figueroa, whose brother dated Roberts in the early 2000s, adds:
“She’d say to me, ‘Do you know any girls who are kind of slutty? She would always brag about all the money she had. I don’t think anybody was forcing her to do anything.”
What you think doesn’t matter. The law on consent is that below it you cannot agree to sex. As her brief chimes:
“To say that our client acquiesced in this abuse, or that the abuse was OK because she was paid for it — leaves out the fact that this is why we have laws in the United States to protect minor children who are groomed and sexually trafficked by adults,” lawyer Sigrid McCawley said.
Groomed. Tafficked. The language of child abuse is being used to explain Virginia Roberts’ life with Epstein.
In 1998, the 15-year-old Roberts was living in a substance abuse treatment facility in Lake Worth called Growing Together — according to Guderyon, who was there at the same time. That summer Roberts was recruited to provide massages for Epstein. She eventually moved in with Figueroa’s family in Royal Palm Beach.
“She was a very nice girl,” said Figueroa’s mother, Mara. “We didn’t have any problems with her.”
And neither did Epstein and his pals before she started to talk to the lawyers, allegedly…
Those fine folk at Mainline Menswear are offering you the chance to win a years supply of adidas Originals trainers. In non-marketing speak that’s 12 pairs. (You can preview them here.)
Here’a short video the magic shoes moving on their own…
Kate Middleton news now. And the Daily Mail leads with the story of Kate’s roots. No, not her humble ‘doors-to-manual’ air hostess mum, tattooed unclear and Jewish grandpa, rather her hair roots, which are greying.
Kate Middleton is 33. And she’s got a spot of grey, or tipex in her thatch.
Overlooking the chance for 50 Shades of Grey pun – the Mail’s David Wilkes tells the full story on Page 7:
He tells us that young royal are “not immune to the ageing process”.
This is no shock to Mail readers who were told lat years that women start to grey at…33.
So. There you have it. Kate Middleton is human. The rest of them might be lizards, but not our Kate…
