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The Prime Minister is understood to be considering a departure date |
Sir Keir Starmer’s allies believe he is getting ready to resign after support for the embattled Prime Minister collapsed over the weekend.
A senior government figure told The Telegraph Starmer has realised that the “game is up”, and his thoughts have turned to how he can “shore up his legacy”.
They revealed there had been “quite a bit of movement” among Cabinet ministers since Andy Burnham’s Makerfield by-election victory, leading Starmer to reconsider his previous commitment to fighting a leadership contest.
One MP – who is usually considered loyal to Starmer – said he believed the Prime Minister could announce his departure date as soon as tomorrow.
They said: “There’s no one left. Literally people whose relatives work in No 10 or people who are long term personal friends of Keir’s are pretty much the only ones left.”
Continue reading ➤ |
The King will reveal his personal tax bill for the first time |
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Victoria Ward Deputy Royal Editor |
Never let it be said that the King is simply a “caretaker” monarch, merely keeping the ship steady until his son takes the throne.
Slowly, quietly, step by step, King Charles is ushering in reform. This week, he will become the first British monarch to reveal how much he pays the taxman.
Buckingham Palace will disclose the figure when it publishes the annual royal accounts next week in a move that “further enhances clarity and accessibility”.
Not to be outdone, Prince William, who had previously resisted calls to publish his own income tax figure, is expected to follow suit. The King’s effort to be more transparent has been described as a “historic first”.
It will surely be seen, even by opponents, as a laudable attempt to “modernise and evolve” an ancient institution.
Financial transparency has long been considered a weak spot for the monarchy.
The Royal family’s extraordinary wealth and privilege make it an easy target for those who demand to know why even a penny of hard-earned taxpayer cash is funnelled in their direction.
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The royal residences in London and Windsor |
Its finances were once described by a royal financial expert as being “shrouded in a pea soup of impenetrability”.
Next week, however, some of the fog will lift with the publication of the “new and extensive” annual royal household financial report, alongside the traditional Sovereign Grant report, loaded with palace accounts and plans for the future.
The King’s tax bill will be published alongside it, derived from all private sources of income, including investments and trading profits, funds generated by his private estates of Balmoral and Sandringham and private savings.
The development comes amid heightened scrutiny of royal finances after revelations that Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor paid just a peppercorn rent for the vast Royal Lodge mansion on the Windsor estate, while his daughters, Princesses Beatrice and Eugenie, live rent free in royal palaces.
The King, to his credit, has already made a valiant attempt at turning the tide. As Prince of Wales, he became the first heir to the throne to declare his income tax bill.
He inherited from his late mother an institution whose clandestine operations were deeply rooted in the decades-old mantra “never complain, never explain”.
Now, he hopes that by letting in a chink of light, he will be able to put to bed some of the conspiracy theories, allay suspicions and present the monarchy as a modern institution with nothing to hide. Continue reading ➤ |
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Harry Kane is getting in the swing of life in America |
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Jason Burt Chief Football Correspondent, in Kansas City |
The regime at World Cup camps is usually either too strict or too lax, depending on how England perform. Has Thomas Tuchel got the balance right? Certainly the players are getting plenty of time off after training: with trips to the baseball, a country and western night, barbecues and plenty of board games to combat potential boredom.
Who has embraced US culture the most here in Kansas City? It appears to be captain Harry Kane, an Americanophile, and defender Dan Burn who revealed he even turned up for a concert by country star Ella Langley in specially purchased cowboy hat and boots.
Celebrity hairdressers and country music: Inside England’s World Cup base ➤
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Nigel Farage The establishment should not take comfort from this result. The next election will be a straight fight between us and Labour Continue reading ➤
Simon Calder Ryanair is the world’s best airline – and I say that after three flights in 30 hours Continue reading ➤
Janet Daley Two-party politics is back. Get ready for Burnham vs Badenoch Continue reading ➤ |
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‘We can’t wait to meet our baby girl,’ the couple said in a social media post |
The Telegraph’s digital reconstruction of the building of Stonehenge |
The most detailed reconstruction of the building of Stonehenge ever created has been produced by The Telegraph and English Heritage to mark the summer solstice. Our digital recreation takes you to the heart of this astonishing engineering feat, which involved hundreds of prehistoric Britons. Continue reading ➤ |
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Official figures reveal graduates will earn less over a lifetime compared to two decades ago |
University was once a guarantee of higher earnings, but the rise of “Mickey Mouse” degrees and Sir Tony Blair’s insistence on swelling student numbers have broken that promise. Today, a degree is worth £80,000 less than it was in 2004, and the average graduate will earn just 1.6 times the minimum wage. Increasingly, it seems the cost of university doesn’t add up. Continue reading ➤ |
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Writer Jack Rear: ‘My father is not my best friend, but who cares?’ |
Aged eight, I bought a Father’s Day gift: a red mug bearing the words “World’s Best Dad”, writes Jack Rear. It probably wasn’t true: my dad is often foolish and unhelpful. However, isn’t it time we gave our unreconstructed dinosaur dads a bit more of the benefit of the doubt? Learning to see my dad for all his foibles reminded me that he’s more deserving of that mug than I ever gave him credit for. Continue reading ➤ |
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Simon Russell Beale returns to the stage in the RSC and Little Angel’s new adaptation of Shakespeare’s Venus and Adonis |
Simon Russell Beale is the finest Shakespearean actor of his generation. His Lear, his Hamlet and his Prospero have been among the most memorable in the past 30 years. Recently, the 64-year-old actor revealed that he had been diagnosed with colon cancer and here, in a candid interview, he talks to Claire Allfree about his treatment, thoughts of mortality and of course his beloved Bard. Continue reading ➤ |
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The best pyjamas for summer nights |
Until you’re trying to get comfortable at 2am on a hot, airless night, heatwave sleep wear can be a bit of an afterthought. Normal pyjamas are too hot, nothing at all is too clammy. From granny nighties to light-as-air shorts, this is the best nightwear for sleeping well in the heat. Continue reading ➤
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Cricket season is here – and I couldn’t care less
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Orlando Bird Letters Editor |
Look, I don’t say this lightly. In fact, working where I do, I may well be putting my career on the line. However, summer is here, and once again the soft air burbles with talk of overs, jaffas, dollies, wobble seams. Friends, ordinarily placid people, discuss these things in tones more commonly heard at a faith healing. I survey social media: photos proliferate of a certain stadium in south London, where, beneath wide skies, nothing whatsoever is happening. It is cricket season. I just don’t get it.
I’ve tried. I really have. I like village greens. I like tepid ale. I am a man who should love this game. I was even born in Somerset, which is supposed to confer a sixth sense for when, somewhere in the world, a cover drive has occurred. Indeed, my only serious claim to fame is that my first exposure to cricket was in the company of none other than Jack Leach, an early-childhood friend who went on to become the bespectacled yeoman hero of England’s 2019 Ashes squad (though in my view, ascribing an individual year to the Ashes is meaningless, because it is almost always, somehow, the Ashes).
In the little cricket I played growing up, I exhibited about as much flair as I did for other team sports – that is to say, I was an outright liability. With football, I shuffled over to the spectator zone contentedly enough. I simply stopped thinking about rugby, ever, and thoroughly recommend it. Cricket was more complicated. I would have flirted with fandom if only I could have got past the small-talk: 273 for seven, 15 not out, and all that. Whenever I settle down to educate myself in the granular details of the game, I experience the same sensation that washes over me when confronted with a dehumidifier manual clumsily translated from Chinese, or the small print of my pension scheme. And cricket, I’ve found, is hostile to the bluffer. Where’s the fun in that?
We might conclude that the problem isn’t really cricket: it’s me. But I submit that it is also cricket, at least a bit. Supposing I managed to overcome my somnolence and master the rules. What would I get in return?
In the name of total objectivity, I have just watched some of the latest Test match. England vs New Zealand. No, I hadn’t misremembered what this sport entails. So much commotion when the ball isn’t hit. So much milling around. I found myself excited by the prospect of someone stooping to retie his shoelaces.
Cricket lovers, it must be said, don’t put up much of a fight against this complaint. A favourite argument is that, yes, it’s often extremely boring, but that is a good thing. “It’s like a Victorian novel,” I have been assured more than once. “You have to be patient.” You could also just – I don’t know – pick up The Last Chronicle of Barset, instead of schlepping over to the Oval.
Speaking of which, I’m also struck by how unbothered fans are when they do just that, then don’t get to watch anything. “Well, there were only 20 minutes of play,” they report cheerfully. In similar circumstances, football fans would feel entitled to wreck the place. Fair enough, frankly. Still, I suppose it means there are no distractions from getting stuck into the Pommery.
This would all be fine – each to their own and so on – if the game wasn’t touted as a quasi-spiritual experience, with “Test” portentously capitalised like something from a first-edition King James Bible. Perhaps it does probe the players’ very moral fibre. Mostly, though, it feels like a test of the viewer. One in which, I’m afraid, I will probably always be found wanting.
Do you agree with Orlando? Send your replies here, and the best of the bunch will feature in a future edition of this newsletter. Please confirm in your reply that you are happy to be featured and that we have your permission to use your name. |
Mexborough in 1963: he was regarded by friends as the epitome of aristocratic cool |
The 8th Earl of Mexborough, who has died aged 95, was a stylish Yorkshire landowner and a dedicated collector as well as an intrepid airman, writes Andrew M Brown, Obituaries Editor. Friends regarded him as the embodiment of blue-blooded cool, and among his collections at his Yorkshire estate, Arden Hall, was a stable of some 20 rare Porsches and Ferraris. In 1991, along with petrol-head celebrities including James Coburn and Simon Le Bon, he took his white Porsche 959 (registration 959 MOT) on a 1,000-mile challenge to race the Orient Express from London to Venice. They beat the train – and raised funds for the Royal Marsden cancer hospital in London in the process. As a keen young aviator in the 1960s, he had flown a Piper PA-24 Comanche (nicknamed “the Widowmaker”) on trips around the Mediterranean, Middle East and North Africa. Another collecting passion was for memorabilia associated with the Great American Songbook, and with twice-yearly buying trips to New York he managed to acquire among other unique items Cole Porter’s typewriter and Billie Holiday’s handwritten setlists for her live shows. Read Lord Mexborough’s full obituary here ➤ |
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1887 | Britain celebrates Queen Victoria’s golden jubilee (see coverage of the event on page two of the following day’s paper below)
1978 | Andrew Lloyd Webber’s musical Evita premieres
1982 | John Hinckley Jr is found not guilty by reason of insanity of the attempted assassination of Ronald Reagan
Birthdays: Prince William (44), Lana Del Rey (41), Brandon Flowers (45)
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Find as many words as you can in today’s Panagram, including the nine-letter solution. Visit Telegraph Puzzles to play a range of head-scratching games, including The 1% Club, Cogs, and Quick, Mini or Cryptic Crosswords.
Yesterday’s Panagram was MOLLIFIED. Come back tomorrow for the solution to today’s puzzle. |
Thank you for reading. Allister Heath, Sunday Telegraph Editor
P.S. Please share your thoughts on the newsletter here. |
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