In a timely intervention by Britain’s public spending watchdog, the National Audit Office, the monarch and her ministers have been ordered to come up with a comprehensive plan between them to maintain the royal residences amid mounting concern over a £32 million backlog of essential work and a further £20 million of other earmarked projects.

It’s about time that something was done about the state of Buckingham Palace, Windsor Castle, St James’s Palace and some of the other residences.

They are among Britain’s biggest tourist attractions – half of all visitors to London go to Buckingham Palace to see changing the guard, for example – and help to bring in billions of pounds in revenue. But they are falling apart because of a lack of maintenance cash.

Falling masonry, leaking roofs and other problems are starting to threaten priceless treasures and the safety of those who visit, live and work at the palaces. Among the £20 million of work classified as less urgent, there is a need for the electrics to be rewired and the State Apartments at Buckingham Palace to be redecorated for the first time

• Read Full BLOG

An American film maker has announced plans to publish a new version of the Old and New Testaments in which God says it is better to be gay than straight.

He's named it The Princess Diana Bible.

Max Mitchell, the US film maker who came up with the controversial idea, named it after Diana because of the way she became the first prominent person on the world stage to offer support to HIV/Aids patients at a time when they were shunned.

He also claims that the gay Bible is divinely inspired.

"There are scholars who say that, like many priests, Jesus was gay. In Biblical times homosexual relationships were so commonplace that no one gave it a second thought. It was heterosexuality that was considered sinful," he says.
"There are many different versions of the Bible. I don't see why we can't have one."

Others, however, disagree. Douglas Howe, writing on Christian blog site Idol chatter

• Read Full BLOG

Claims by the Prince's biographer Jonathan Dimbleby that the heir to the throne wants to be free to speak out on major issues if and when he assumes the throne have given succour to those who think it is time for Britain to have an elected president as head of state.

Republic, a campaign group that counts prominent actors, MPs, writers, lawyers and others among its members, claims that Charles wants to take the country back 400 years.

"The time is fast approaching when the future of the monarchy is going to become a major political issue," says the group's spokesman Graham Smith. "It is clear Charles will not settle for the traditional role of King."

The Prince is already walking a tightrope by speaking out on the issues that he does while heir to the throne.

His plans to use billions of pounds of taxpayers' money to help protect the world's rainforests, for example, could affect the Government's fiscal policies, as I pointed out earlier this mon

• Read Full BLOG

Viewers watching ITV's Tonight programme this evening will see an extraordinary programme featuring the Duchess of York and her daughters, Princesses Beatrice and Eugenie, exposing the mistreatment of children with learning disabilities in Romania and Turkey.

It's a hard-hitting programme that reveals disabled children in those countries are often restrained and kept in conditions that have not been regarded as acceptable in Britain for at least a generation and, if some are to be believed, 80 years.

But it has caused a diplomatic incident and upset Turkey, which has accused Prince Andrew's ex-wife Sarah Ferguson and her daughters of smearing the country and trying to damage its attempts to join the European Union.

It is a very worthwhile investigation and it makes compelling viewing but my question, when Fergie and Beatrice held a press conference and screening yesterday, was is it right for members of the Royal Family to be doing this?

Fergie, who since her 1996 divorce is no longer a member of the Firm, and her daughters, who are fifth and sixth in line to the throne, certainly think it was and some w

• Read Full BLOG

The heir to the throne has unveiled plans to use billions of pounds of taxpayers' money and pension funds to help protect the planet's rainforests, which offset the worst effects of global warming caused by the greenhouse effect.

In a series of speeches during a 10-day tour of the Far East, he has also called for Britain and other developed nations to cut emissions of pollutants causing climate change by 80 per cent by 2050.

That aspiration to cut greenhouse gases by 80 per cent by the middle of the century certainly reflects the British Government's new policy but I am not sure whether the Prince's rainforest plan does too.

The heir to the throne wants Britain and other wealthy nations to pay what he calls an annual utility bill to Third World countries to make it more worthwhile for them to save their rainforests instead of destroying them for agriculture and housing.

In a speech in Indonesia on Monday, he stressed the role of the worl

• Read Full BLOG