This summer, as Archie and Lilibet pranced at Althorp and family was reunited, the Duke of Sussex and his uncle, Earl Spencer, were keeping secrets from each other.
Harry knew a book was being written, but he and the Earl didn’t discuss the content. He did not know that the Earl’s memoir would cut his father, the King, off at the knees.
Everything you need to know about the Russian elections
The pro-Putin ruling United Russia party retained its decisive majority in the national parliament, near-complete election results showed on Monday, while the anti-war Yabloko party appeared to have won a tiny foothold in one regional parliament.
The background
- Vladimir Putin had cast the three-day election to the State Duma – the first since Russia launched its full-scale war in Ukraine in February 2022 – as a test of support for the war.
- Elections for some regional parliaments and governors were held at the same time.
- In a tightly controlled political system, which critics say does not tolerate genuine dissent, few surprises were expected.
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A closer look at the results
With over 95 per cent of the vote counted, Ella Pamfilova, chair of the Central Electoral Commission, said United Russia had won a resounding victory with 57.83 per cent, up from the 49.8 per cent that it won in the last parliamentary election, in 2021.
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What else you need to know
- United Russia was set to control 355 seats or nearly 80 per cent of the 450-seat Duma, a total that includes results in individual constituencies.
- That would maintain its constitutional majority – enabling it to pass laws and initiate amendments to the constitution without support of other parties.
- Pamfilova said three other parties had made it into parliament – the Communists with 13.81 per cent, the ultra-nationalist LDPR with 8.98 per cent, and the New People party with 7.96 per cent.
read the i paper’s latest analysis
What Putin’s paranoia will lead him to do next
“Stalin knew how to run Russia and how to get respect. Vladimir Putin could learn something from him.”
The BBC has removed several sketches from That Mitchell and Webb Look on iPlayer after deciding some of the comedy show’s material “no longer works today”.
Controversial material removed
The sketch comedy show, starring comedians David Mitchell and Robert Webb, originally ran for four seasons between 2006 and 2010.
However, some material has been removed, including scenes featuring war re-enactors in Blackface, a joke about Jimmy Savile and a sketch about a contestant on a makeover show wearing a burka, reported.
What did the BBC say?
This is a 20-year-old sketch ; in consultation with the programme makers, we have included the ones still work today not the ones don’t.
bbc spokesperson
Flights disrupted across north of UK – what you need to know
Flights across the UK – particularly Scotland, Northern Ireland and the north of England – are facing disruption due to a “technical issue” with air traffic control.
Here is everything you need to know – including the airports affected.
What caused the problem?
Nats, which runs air traffic control, has said the issue at its Prestwick centre in Ayrshire is “now fixed”, and that it is working to “safely lift air traffic regulations as quickly as we can”. It said the glitch was a “connectivity issue with part of our systems network”.
Second failure in two weeks
This is the second failure at Nats in less than a fortnight.
But it said this most recent disruption has “nothing to do” with the software defect that led to the cancellation of 2,000 flights across the UK earlier this month.
EasyJet said this “once again calls into questions the resilience of Nats’ systems”.
Airports report disruption
Airports across the UK have reported varying degrees of disruption. They include:
- and – Arrivals and departures.
- – Issue causing some delays.
- – Experiencing “some delays”.
- – Urging passengers to contact their airline.
- – Experiencing some delays and cancellations similar to other airports.
- – Experiencing “some disruption” and “working closely” with Nats to resolve the issue.
- – Warns that there “will be disruption” to both arrivals and departures.
Cindy Crawford’s son Presley Gerber dies in rehab aged 27
Presley Gerber, the son of supermodel Cindy Crawford and Rande Gerber, has died at the age of 27.
The former model died on Sunday at a rehab facility, according to the Los Angeles county medical examiner. The cause of death has not been disclosed.
A closer look at the detail
Gerber, who was the eldest child of the celebrity couple, and brother of model Kaia Gerber, had spoken openly about his mental health and drug use in recent years.
His sister mentioned his “decade-long struggle with drug addiction” in the September 2026 issue of .
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Mental health struggles
Having struggled with mental health, depression and some other things that come along with that, I think that whether I help one person or a hundred people get out of that place that I was in at one point in my life, that’s all I need to do.
Speaking to podcast in 2023, Gerber hoped that sharing his story would help others suffering with mental health issues.
Life in the limelight
- Gerber had been a model like his mother and younger sister Kaia, making his runway debut for Italian label Moschino aged just 16.
- He went on to model for brands including Burberry, Dolce & Gabbana, and Bottega Veneta.
- Gerber posted a video about undergoing drug withdrawal treatment in the months before his death, though the cause of his death was not disclosed.
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Family asks for privacy
- Allie Jenkins, a representative for Crawford and her husband Rande Gerber, told : “The family is asking for privacy during this very difficult and painful time.”
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Badenoch pledges to bring back tax-free shopping for tourists
Kemi Badenoch has promised to revive a tax-free shopping scheme for tourists by reversing a post-Brexit rule change.
The decision to scrap the VAT refund scheme for international visitors in 2021 left the UK “less competitive” than many other European holiday destinations as the country left the EU, the Tories said.
Business chiefs hail ‘pro-growth’ policy change
Badenoch said the policy was letting down businesses.
Business chiefs, including the bosses of Fortnum & Mason and Paul Smith, hailed the policy change as “pro-growth” and “pro-jobs”.
Losing out to ‘rival cities’
We have iconic retailers, inventive designers and brilliant manufacturers, but they are being let down by a tax policy that is chasing their customers away. Holidaymakers are choosing rival cities in other countries for the simple reason that it saves them money.
Kemi badenoch, lEADER OF THE CONSERVATIVE PARTY
A closer look at the detail
- Spending by visitors remains 8 per cent lower than before the pandemic – despite numbers returning to pre-Covid levels, according to 2024 estimates from tourism agency VisitBritain.
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Treasury: ‘UK visitors can claim VAT’
Almost every European country offers tax-free shopping for tourists, except the UK – although the minimum spend varies.
A Treasury spokesperson said “visitors can still claim VAT relief where the items purchased are shipped directly to their home country as exports” and that it is working to “welcome 50 million international visitors a year to the UK by 2030”.
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All the latest Earl Spencer revelations as royal row continues
A war of words has broken out after Earl Spencer made a series of damning claims about the King in a new memoir about his sister, Diana, Princess of Wales.
Swan Song: Diana, My Sister is due to be published on Tuesday. Here are some key claims made in excerpts from the book released so far.
‘We’ll forget her soon enough’
Spencer claims he and Charles argued over arrangements for his sister’s funeral in 1997 and the King told him: “Rest assured, we’ll forget her soon enough”.
Spencer has also said he believes the relationship between the press and the Duke and Duchess of Sussex “echoes” the way the media treated his sister.
Other key claims made
- Spencer has written of how Charles’s phone call following the car crash in 1997 “sounded strangely matter-of-fact”.
- “[Charles] sounded giddily elated – like a lottery winner, I remember thinking at the time,” Spencer writes.
- In another extract, Spencer told of his memories of the funeral, and his concern for Harry, after he observed a “lack of obvious care”.
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While we do not comment on books as a matter of principle, His Majesty is mindful that the pain of fraternal grief can cloud reason, affect judgment and colour memory in ways others do not recognise, even many years after such a loss.
Buckingham Palace spokesman
King accused of gaslighting
Spencer has accused the King of gaslighting him and called his response a “rather poor imitation of the ‘recollections may vary’ quote” – the late Queen’s response to the Duke and Duchess of Sussex’s allegations in their Oprah Winfrey interview, The Mail on Sunday reports.
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The move was only decided and confirmed after their July visit and was not discussed during their stay. But while the Earl did not engineer the move, he will surely be thrilled by it. Because I understand that one of the big motivations behind the Sussex return was to be closer to Diana’s side of the family.
It answers the question which has been rife since the Duke and Duchess touched down in Birmingham in September. Everyone wants to know: what brought Harry home when he felt things in Britain were so bad they’d been driven out? The draw must have been something fundamental.
One key reason, I’m told, was their children, who – with their transatlantic blend of ginger locks and peppy American accents – Harry didn’t want to miss out on a great British education.
The couple have also decided a return is a strong career move. Despite some reports to the contrary, I know that acting is not off the table for Meghan. She may even choose to launch her lifestyle brand As Ever in the UK. Although it could be tricky: As Ever jam is going to struggle in the Cotswolds where everyone makes their own already.
Harry, on the other hand, is getting stuck in with his work on the Invictus Games, and was visibly thrilled to be at the Invictus Spirit Awards last week.
Some suggested their move was to rebuild relations with the King, who is still being treated for cancer. But over tea at Highgrove this summer, Harry did not discuss their potential return.
And the real cynics – my highly social American sources – have big opinions about how the Duke and Duchess simply couldn’t keep up in California’s Montecito, a richer than super-rich enclave. One tells me insurance on her friend’s house costs more than $200,000 (£150,000) a year. Just the insurance. And that, when you add in high-ranking nannies and cleaners, healthcare and lavish hosting (essential for relevance), the Sussexes were not on a par with greats such as Oprah.
Yet, even despite the potentially mammoth bill awaiting Harry and his co-defendants from their unsuccessful action against Associated Newspapers, I understand he has substantial investments, and inheritances from Diana, the Queen Mother and Queen Elizabeth II. He certainly isn’t desperate for money. As Ever is doing “quite well” in America, according to insiders, and Meghan has been celebrating that success over glasses of her own wine among friends in Montecito. While huge Netflix and Spotify deals and the royalties from the Prince’s memoir have helped.
But the key to the Sussex relocation lies in Harry’s blood ties. And not those he shares with the King.
Harry’s close connection to the Spencer family
A few miles north of the Cotswolds border sits Althorp, Earl Spencer’s family seat, where his sister, Diana, Princess of Wales, is buried at the centre of its lake.
Other close family on that side are Diana’s sisters Lady Sarah McCorquodale (plus her children Emily, George and Celia), and Lady Jane Fellowes (plus her children Laura, Eleanor and Alexander). Both were included front and centre at Harry’s wedding, where Jane delivered the reading from the Song of Solomon, and at Archie’s christening. Harry travelled back to Britain for the funeral of her husband Lord Fellowes in 2024.
Harry is particularly tight with George McCorquodale, who is his peer. He will remind the Duke of happy younger years and childhood holidays together with Diana and Sarah – including a trip to Richard Branson’s Necker Island in 1990. He was a guest of honour in South Africa’s KwaZulu-Natal for George’s 2016 wedding, where they all, apparently, had a very raucous time.
But it is the Earl’s sense of duty towards Harry that is unique. In the first serialisation of Swan Song, Diana My Sister, trailed and published in the , the Earl lays claim to Diana’s sons. “Diana had left me as her sons’ guardian,” he wrote. “This was a role without legal function while the other parent lived, but it made me feel empowered to speak on Diana’s behalf with William and Harry in mind.”
Referring to the request for the boys to walk behind her coffin, Spencer wrote: “I knew that she would never have wanted her boys to have to undertake such a public ordeal,” calling it “barbaric”.
The death of his sister devastated the Earl. It broke something in him that blew up his respect for protocol, most dramatically during the live television broadcast of Diana’s funeral. “On behalf of your mother and sisters,” his voice echoed in Westminster Abbey, “I pledge that we, your blood family, will do all we can to continue the imaginative way in which you were steering these two exceptional young men so that their souls are not simply immersed by duty and tradition but can sing openly as you planned.”
It was a blunt message to the Palace and Charles – and the boys returned to Althorp with him after the funeral before Diana’s coffin was delivered.
Now the war of the Charleses has reignited. In his book, Spencer has unleashed all hell on the King in such a forthright fashion it made his infamous eulogy sound like a kitten’s purr. The Earl claims that then-prince Charles sounded “giddily elated… like a lottery winner” about Diana’s death; calls him a “bellowing buffoon”; and alleges that he ended a phone call with a hiss: “Rest assured, we will all forget her soon enough.” It is an explosive, emotional, intentionally worded account that has rattled the Royal Family.
The King issued a rare and immediate statement, suggesting that the Earl’s memory had been clouded by grief. It is curious that Spencer has reignited this story the very month of Harry’s return, but I understand there are no links.
Spencer’s loyalty to Harry has been true. Where the Earl failed to attend even the wedding of his daughter Kitty in 2021, he was front and centre at his nephew’s nuptials. But this new eruption could put Harry in a difficult spot just when he was trying to smooth things over with his father.
The rift that can’t be healed
The King is already wary of his younger son. Only a week ago a statement was put out on his behalf confirming that the Sussexes would remain private citizens. It “shocked” team Sussex. So while that fragile relationship is being rebuilt bit by bit, Harry’s proximity to a man making such damning statements about the King, dredged up after 29 years, will be a difficult hurdle to clear.
There is a marked contrast between the modus operandi of the Spencers and the Windsors. King Charles has certainly been cross, though that ice is melting. The Prince and Princess of Wales now treat the Sussexes with total . To them, the relationship is over.
In the Spencer camp, Harry evidently feels less judged and is freer at the green haven of Althorp. His mother craved freedom too, from things real, imagined and self-inflicted. And as with Diana, there is a driving force in Harry to tell his truth – even when those close to him advise otherwise. Now, as the Earl spells out his version of the Spencer story, the family connection looks clear.
There is certainly no press briefing from the Spencer side. While the Sussexes and the Palace have proactive relationships with the media, and the Spencer girls Kitty, Eliza and Emilia are very press-friendly when it comes to their own lives and projects, every one of my approaches to discuss Harry is politely shut down. And while Harry and Meghan are not living on the estate, when visiting its 14,000 acres they can be guaranteed the safety and privacy of the bucolic home Diana grew up in.
If Meghan is smart, she will know that the Cotswolds already has its queens: it will be an incredibly tough social scene for her to crack. I wouldn’t be surprised if she and Harry end up settling nearby around the border of the Cotswolds and Northamptonshire.
But perhaps it was always going to end up this way. Perhaps we all missed the signs. Because the real tell was at St Paul’s in 2024, when George McCorquodale was seated directly behind Harry at the Invictus Games anniversary, alongside two other Spencer cousins – actor Louis Spencer, Viscount Althorp (heir to Althorp) and his sister Lady Lara Spencer.
It is among this group that he thrives. There is a connection with his mother and a sense of that freedom he so desires.