Prince Harry and Meghan, Duchess of Sussex’s return to Britain could lead to a family reunion that will give King Charles and his advisers one of their biggest headaches.
While keeping the Duke and Duchess of Sussex apart from the Prince and Princess of Wales presents enough of a challenge, the picture that palace officials will be keenest to avoid will be of Harry with his disgraced uncle, Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor.
Harry, 41, used to get on well with Mountbatten-Windsor, who is 66. Both are war veterans once venerated as heroes. But in the past few years, Harry has voiced his contempt for his uncle and is expected to avoid him unless they have to be in the same place together.
“I think his relationship with Andrew is well known,” one source close to Harry said.
English is lit! Great Expectations rewritten by AI in Gen Z slang
‘I call myself Pip. It’s not a name with much rizz’
One of the great classics, written by Charles Dickens, has been modernised – but it’s not aimed at children studying the text in class.
- The Dickens classic has been fed into the AI model Claude Opus 4 to produce “Bare Expectations”.
- The shortened adaption uses the slang of teenagers today, using words like “ick” and “drip”.
- It was made by Tesco Mobile, in partnership with author Chloe Combi, to help parents better understand their children and keep them safe online.
- It was also read as an audio book by Allan Mustafa, from Kurupt FM.
Classic for the modern age
You’d think the best MC in the galaxy would know all the latest slang, and I do. If any kid tells you otherwise, they’re lying. Any words I don’t know are just not cool enough for me to care about!
Allan Mustafa, MC Grindah from Kurupt FM, told Retail Times.
A closer look at the detail
But 77 per cent of parents worry about their online safety. One in four parents felt unprepared when giving their child their first phone. More than half are confused by their child’s language at least once a week.
But campaigners say the best way to keep children safe online is by not giving them a smartphone in the first place.
Are Channel crossing numbers down?
The French authorities have become more “effective” at stopping migrants crossing in dangerous small boats across the Channel, the UK Government has said.
What do the figures tell us?
The figures compared to last year
5%
The increase in the number of small boats intercepted in the last three months compared with last year.
The Home Office said, citing French figures, that since April, 61 per cent of small boats have been intercepted.
The deal agreed by the UK and France in April.
This includes £161m in performance-based targets.
Channel crisis
In the past few weeks, three boats were stopped – two of which were at sea.
Numbers falling
Some 15,897 migrants have crossed the Channel, 43 per cent down on the same period last year.
Last month, a record 165 migrants reached the UK in a single boat.
“People smugglers should be in no doubt, we’re taking down their operations, seizing their equipment and breaking their business model for good,” said Home Secretary, Shabana Mahmood.
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British rapper Yung Filly to face retrial on rape charges in Australia
The rapper and YouTuber who appeared on Celebrity Bake Off will face a retrial after a jury could not reach a verdict during trial.
Yung Filly denied all charges
The Colombian-born rapper, whose real name is Andrés Felipe Valencia Barrientos, was charged with raping and assaulting a 20-year-old fan after his show in Perth 2024. He denied all 10 charges and a jury last month found him not guilty of three charges of rape.
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He was accused of raping a fan
Barrientos was accused of having consensual sex with her until he turned violent and didn’t stop when asked. His lawyer said the evidence was full of “inconsistencies, embellishments and outright lies”.
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A closer look at the detail
- Last month, a jury found him not guilty on three counts of rape.
- He was cleared of one assault charge and another of strangulation.
- But he was found guilty of two counts of assault.
- Jurors were unable to make a decision on three counts of sexual penetration without consent.
Could El Niño make next year even hotter?
The naturally occurring phenomenon known as El Niño, which can drive up global temperatures and is brewing in the Pacific, could be the strongest in living memory, the Met Office has warned.
What is El Niño?
It is a climate phenomenon which occurs in the Pacific Ocean every two to seven years.
Normally, trade winds blow east to west across the equator – during and El Niño period, these weaken or reverse.
This pushes up global temperatures as warmth is taken from the ocean into the atmosphere.
El Niño’s impact already been seen
It has already started to affect weather systems in other parts of the world, with below-average monsoons in India and suppressed hurricane activity in the Atlantic Ocean. In the UK, El Niño is usually felt later in winter.
A particularly strong El Niño coupled with global warming has left scientists worried that 2027 could be even warmer.
El Niño is strongest in living memory
We should be clear that this is an unprecedented event. I have never seen an El Niño signal this intense in our forecasts.
Professor Adam Scaife, head of
long-range forecasting, the Met Office
Risk of most intense El Niño in 1,000 years
- El Niño is declared when the sea temperature in the tropical eastern Pacific rises 0.5°C above the long-term average.
- But currently it’s over 2°C and could reach 3°C later this year.
- Some have suggested it could go above 4°C – meaning it would be the strongest El Nino in the last 500-1,000 years.
Next year could be hottest ever
The precise effect El Niño has on global weather can be unpredictable. But Met Office climate scientist Dr Nick Dunstone told the BBC average global temperatures could rise next year. This would make 2027 the hottest year on record, after 2024.
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Buckingham Palace will likely want to avoid a repeat of the Duchess of Kent’s funeral in September last year, when Mountbatten-Windsor was photographed talking to a decidedly uncomfortable William in front of the cameras.
“I think they’d have Andrew arriving in a car by a side entrance in future,” said royal commentator Richard Fitzwilliams.
For the moment at least, it is difficult to imagine such a reunion happening.
Mountbatten-Windsor – who was arrested earlier this year on suspicion of misconduct in public office in relation to his connections with the late convicted paedophile Jeffrey Epstein – has been left in effective internal exile. The former prince, who was released following his arrest and strongly denies any wrongdoing, has not joined the family up at Balmoral this summer amid reports that he did not feel welcome and turned down the invitation.
This year’s trip to the Scottish Highlands, coinciding with news of the couple’s imminent return, has been dubbed the Sussex summit.
But these family gatherings may well have some extra guests in the future. If the King’s reconciliation with his younger son and daughter-in-law goes well, there could be occasions where Harry, Meghan and Mountbatten-Windsor will be invited: Christmas at Sandringham perhaps, Easter at Windsor, or in any event a relative’s funeral.
Another headache for palace officials could be if Harry and Meghan decide to support trafficking and abuse victims when they return to the UK, which could lead to further scrutiny of Mountbatten-Windsor and his friendship with Epstein.
The couple have previously visited a charity for sexual assault victims. Meghan has worn jeans made by former human trafficking victims, and the couple have campaigned on behalf of young women subjected to online sexual abuse.
‘Sex crimes weren’t on the list’
In his memoir , Harry compared his and Meghan’s treatment to that of Mountbatten-Windsor before he was stripped of all his titles and royal privileges. “He was embroiled in a shameful scandal, accused of the sexual assault of a young woman, and no one had so much as suggested that he lose his security,” he complained. “Whatever grievances people had against us, sex crimes weren’t on the list.
Earlier this year, magazine, a US outlet close to the Sussexes, reported that Harry had always been “frustrated” by comparisons to his uncle. “It was never fair to lump them together,” an insider told the magazine. “Harry served his country, did the job well and never engaged in misconduct – yet lost security and housing, while Andrew was protected for years.”
To add insult to injury, he and Meghan were reportedly exasperated when the King asked them to vacate Frogmore Cottage, their home in Windsor, after he acceded to the throne. The house was then reportedly offered to Mountbatten-Windsor, as the King was trying to force him out of his then home, Royal Lodge.
One former senior royal aide thought it unlikely that the Sussexes would be seen in public with Mountbatten-Windsor but admitted it was possible that they could be invited to attend family gatherings or events such as funerals or weddings.
“I think they’d want to distance both of them from the rest of the family and try to avoid any photographs of them together,” the source said, adding that it would be a test of the Royal Household’s long experience and expertise in choreography.
As things stand, it is extremely unlikely that either the Sussexes or Mountbatten-Windsor would be invited to state occasions such as Trooping the Colour or Remembrance Sunday at the Cenotaph. Under current practice, those sorts of official events tend to be restricted to taxpayer-funded working members of the Royal Family.
“The problem now is that at every single royal event there will be headlines about whether Harry and Meghan are going to be invited. I think they are really looking at Easter and Christmas but you can see it now if they do go or if they don’t: ‘Harry and Meghan left to spend Christmas alone’.”
Phil Dampier, author of Royally Suited: Harry and Meghan in Their Own Words, and a former royal correspondent, thought the chances of Harry and Mountbatten-Windsor bumping into each other by chance were remote.
“The only events that I can imagine they would be seen together at would be Easter, Christmas, or a funeral or wedding. So at that point it really would be an extraordinary picture to get of the two black sheep of the Royal Family in the same frame.
“They used to be on quite good terms but now they are on totally different paths.”