This exhibition offers a glimpse into the life of Madame Déficit through the lens of how she chose to look. Peter Kelleher, courtesy Victoria and Albert Museum, London
Welcome to One Fine Show, where Observer highlights a recently opened exhibition at a museum not in New York City, a place we know and love that already receives plenty of attention.
I was in Paris during the Louvre heist, and though my alibi is firm, I never would have predicted the extent to which the robbery would capture the imagination of New Yorkers. The robbery inspired countless Halloween costumes and signage at last month’s marathon. I think people like to imagine an Ernst Blofeld-type figure, awaiting delivery of the gem so that he can admire them in a secret vault or put them on his cat or something. It’s since become clear that this was never about anything more than the skyrocketing price of gold. Still, you can’t blame people for craving a villain who puts style above all else.
Marie Antoinette was certainly one of those, and whether you love her or love to hate her, the recently opened exhibition at the Victoria & Albert Museum, “Marie Antoinette Style,” is a must-see. It’s a fashion exhibition—not a historical show with a vast number of objects actually owned by her—but it recreates her world well. A facsimile of a necklace from the “affair of the diamond necklace,” for example, sits near other glittering jewelry that did belong to her.
It’s a glimpse into her life through the lens of how she chose to look. Her shoes were so delicate, you can tell she didn’t do much walking. She had so many dominoes that you find yourself wondering how there could possibly be a need for so many. My favorite objects in the exhibition were the gilded satin gardening tools from Petit Trianon, her make-believe Disney village at Versailles.
This is one of those “One Fine Shows” I had the pleasure of seeing in person, and I’m glad I did because there’s no way to convey the innovative exhibition design from a checklist. They don’t shy away from anything, which is first hinted at by a series of plastic busts that invite you to smell Marie Antoinette’s world through a series of holes at the base of the neck. The perfumes that flowed through her court were as bespoke and pleasing as the rest of her existence, but then the last one in the row is intensely foul. Is the machine broken? No, it’s simulating an 18th-century dungeon. This was near a room of pornographic cartoons about her from the time when it all started to go wrong, and it really snuck up on me. Next comes a red room and the last thing she ever wore: a thin prison smock.
So as not to end on a down note, the exhibition finishes with a host of haute couture inspired by her, from Manolo Blahnik, Vivienne Westwood and Christian Dior, with costumes by Sofia Coppola from Marie Antoinette. One risks a tummy ache with all that candy, but it does make you think about the power of a cohesive look. Our wealthiest today pride themselves on how they dress, but so many of them look like absolute shit. Marie Antoinette wasn’t much more villainous than her aristocratic contemporaries and managed to build a vibe that endured across the centuries. It’s hard to imagine many Instagram feeds ending up at the V&A.
In the past few days, as President Trump neared the three-hundred-day mark of his second term, he made what amounted to a royal progress through Asia, negotiating trade deals and basking in gilded palaces. In South Korea, he was presented with a replica of an ancient golden crown. “I’d like to wear it right now,” he said, only eleven days after millions of Americans had gathered to protest his assumption of near-monarchical powers, in hundreds of No Kings rallies around the country. The South Koreans sure knew their mark. During the trip, Trump also announced, via a social-media post, the resumption of nuclear tests for the first time in decades; unleashed another deadly strike on an alleged drug-running boat in what appears to be an undeclared war for regime change in Venezuela; threatened, during a political pep rally in front of the supposedly apolitical U.S. military, to send active-duty troops to American cities; and admitted that he “would love” to remain in office for a third term before reluctantly acknowledging the Constitution’s strict ban on it.
Back in Washington, meanwhile, the U.S. government remained shut down for a fourth straight week, the result of an impasse with congressional Democrats that Trump has seemingly done nothing to resolve—even as thousands of workers go without pay. It was, in other words, just another week in the Trump era. The new normal is forgetting yesterday’s scandals in order to make room in our overcrowded brains for tomorrow’s. Remember when Trump imposed punitive new tariffs on Canada because he got mad about a television ad? When he demanded that the Justice Department pay him more than two hundred million dollars in compensation for the costs he incurred from the Biden Administration’s decision to investigate him? When he circulated an A.I.-generated video of himself dumping poop on Americans protesting him? That was so last week. And last week, in the Trump era, might as well have been an eternity ago. The black hole in which our previous outrage resides is vast.
Which is why I was struck by the visceral and lasting anger that has resulted from Trump’s decision to raze the East Wing of the White House without so much as a single public hearing or permit. A very senior Republican, a repeat Trump voter, told me that it was “disgusting” and “sick.” Polls show that large bipartisan majorities oppose the demolition. It’s been more than a week and people are still stewing about it. Has something finally broken through? Is that even possible anymore?
At a dinner I attended earlier this week, a query about what the worst thing was that had happened since Trump’s return to the White House prompted a chilling array of answers—only one of which was the tearing down of the East Wing. (Can you imagine if a Prime Minister of the United Kingdom just woke up one morning and ordered the smashing of a wing of Buckingham Palace, someone said.) It was the range of responses that seemed most telling to me—from Trump’s politicization of the military and the Justice Department to the unleashing of a new MAGA culture celebrating cruelty.
I decided to continue the conversation, asking a few dozen smart folks to send me their thoughts about the most disruptive, significant, or truly surprising events of these past few months. Answers poured in—thoughtful, anguished, perceptive answers that reminded me that there is value in naming the problem, even if nothing, for the moment, can be done to stop it. It is a response, if an imperfect one, to the sense of being overwhelmed by events to take a minute to pause and assess them, to think about what really matters and what might last from the jarring, undeniably historic moment through which we are living.
Some of my correspondents offered long lists of shocking events. Gary Bass, a professor of world politics at Princeton, listed seventeen examples “off the top of my head,” ranging from “pardoning the Jan. 6 insurrectionists” to “working to rig elections so that this nightmare never ends.” Others focussed on a telling individual moment. Jake Sullivan, who served as national-security adviser in the Biden Administration, said that it was the early capitulation of the law firm Paul, Weiss to Trump’s demands that set off “alarm bells.” It was, he added, the “canary in the coal mine.” Jill Lepore, a New Yorker colleague who is the Kemper Professor of American History at Harvard, and a law professor at Harvard Law, wrote that she was “genuinely surprised when, asked if it was his duty to uphold the Constitution, he said, ‘I don’t know.’ Just a surprising thing to say, given that the oath he’d taken, twice, is to ‘preserve, protect and defend the Constitution.’ ” She noted, “It seems a small thing, in a way, but I was struck by the glimmer of honesty here, a sort of shrug that seemed to say, ‘Eh, nah, who knows.’ ”
LONDON — Labour leader Keir Starmer officially became British prime minister on Friday hours after his Labour Party swept to power in a landslide victory after more than a decade in opposition.
Starmer was elevated to the nation’s leader after a private ceremony with King Charles III in Buckingham Palace.
In the merciless choreography of British politics, Starmer is taking charge in 10 Downing St. shortly after Conservative leader Rishi Sunak and his family left the official residence and King Charles III accepted his resignation at Buckingham Palace.
“This is a difficult day, but I leave this job honored to have been prime minister of the best country in the world,” Sunak said in his farewell address.
Sunak had conceded defeat earlier in the morning, saying the voters had delivered a “sobering verdict.”
In a reflective farewell speech in the same place where he had called for the snap election six weeks earlier, Sunak wished Starmer all the best but also acknowledged his missteps.
“I have heard your anger, your disappointment, and I take responsibility for this loss,” Sunak said. “To all the Conservative candidates and campaigners who worked tirelessly but without success, I’m sorry that we could not deliver what your efforts deserved.”
Labour’s triumph and challenges
With almost all the results in, Labour had won 410 seats in the 650-seat House of Commons and the Conservatives 118.
“A mandate like this comes with a great responsibility,” Starmer acknowledged in a speech to supporters, saying the fight to regain people’s trust after years of disillusionment “is the battle that defines our age.”
Speaking as dawn broke in London, he said Labour would offer “the sunlight of hope, pale at first but getting stronger through the day.”
For Starmer, it’s a massive triumph that will bring huge challenges, as he faces a weary electorate impatient for change against a gloomy backdrop of economic malaise, mounting distrust in institutions and a fraying social fabric.
“Nothing has gone well in the last 14 years,” said London voter James Erskine, who was optimistic for change in the hours before polls closed. “I just see this as the potential for a seismic shift, and that’s what I’m hoping for.”
And that’s what Starmer promised, saying “change begins now.”
Anand Menon, professor of European Politics and Foreign Affairs at King’s College London, said British voters were about to see a marked change in political atmosphere from the tumultuous “politics as pantomime” of the last few years.
“I think we’re going to have to get used again to relatively stable government, with ministers staying in power for quite a long time, and with government being able to think beyond the very short term to medium-term objectives,” he said.
Britain has experienced a run of turbulent years – some of it of the Conservatives’ own making and some of it not – that has left many voters pessimistic about their country’s future. The U.K. divorce from the European Union followed by the COVID-19 pandemic and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine battered the economy, while lockdown-breaching parties held by then-Prime Minister Boris Johnson and his staff caused widespread anger.
Rising poverty, crumbling infrastructure and overstretched National Health Service have led to gripes about “Broken Britain.”
Johnson’s successor, Liz Truss, rocked the economy further with a package of drastic tax cuts and lasted just 49 days in office. Truss, who lost her seat to Labour, was one of a slew of senior Tories kicked out in a stark electoral reckoning.
While the result appears to buck recent rightward electoral shifts in Europe, including in France and Italy, many of those same populist undercurrents flow in Britain. Reform UK leader Nigel Farage roiled the race with his party’s anti-immigrant “take our country back” sentiment and undercut support for the Conservatives and even grabbed some voters from Labour.
Conservative vote collapses as smaller parties surge
The result is a catastrophe for the Conservatives as voters punished them for 14 years of presiding over austerity, Brexit, a pandemic, political scandals and internecine conflict.
The historic defeat – the smallest number of seats in the party’s two-century history – leaves it depleted and in disarray and will spark an immediate contest to replace Sunak, who said he would step down as leader.
In a sign of the volatile public mood and anger at the system, the incoming Parliament will be more fractured and ideologically diverse than any for years. Smaller parties picked up millions of votes, including the centrist Liberal Democrats and Farage’s Reform UK. It won four seats, including one for Farage in the seaside town of Clacton-on-Sea, securing a place in Parliament on his eighth attempt.
The Liberal Democrats won about 70 seats, on a slightly lower share of the vote than Reform because its votes were more efficiently distributed. In Britain’s first-past-the-post system, the candidate with the most votes in each constituency wins.
The Green Party won four seats, up from just one before the election.
One of the biggest losers was the Scottish National Party, which held most of Scotland’s 57 seats before the election but looked set to lose all but handful, mostly to Labour.
Labour was cautious but reliable
Labour did not set pulses racing with its pledges to get the sluggish economy growing, invest in infrastructure and make Britain a “clean energy superpower.”
But the party’s cautious, safety-first campaign delivered the desired result. The party won the support of large chunks of the business community and endorsements from traditionally conservative newspapers, including the Rupert Murdoch-owned Sun tabloid, which praised Starmer for “dragging his party back to the center ground of British politics.”
Conservative missteps
The Conservative campaign, meanwhile, was plagued by gaffes. The campaign got off to an inauspicious start when rain drenched Sunak as he made the announcement outside 10 Downing St. Then, Sunak went home early from commemorations in France marking the 80th anniversary of the D-Day invasion.
Several Conservatives close to Sunak are being investigated over suspicions they used inside information to place bets on the date of the election before it was announced.
In Henley-on-Thames, about 40 miles (65 kilometers) west of London, voters like Patricia Mulcahy, who is retired, sensed the nation was looking for something different. The community, which has long voted Conservative, flipped to the Liberal Democrats this time.
“The younger generation are far more interested in change,” Mulcahy said ahead of the results. “But whoever gets in, they’ve got a heck of a job ahead of them. It’s not going to be easy.”
LONDON — Labour leader Keir Starmer officially became British prime minister on Friday hours after his Labour Party swept to power in a landslide victory after more than a decade in opposition.
Starmer was elevated to the nation’s leader after a private ceremony with King Charles III in Buckingham Palace.
In the merciless choreography of British politics, Starmer is taking charge in 10 Downing St. shortly after Conservative leader Rishi Sunak and his family left the official residence and King Charles III accepted his resignation at Buckingham Palace.
“This is a difficult day, but I leave this job honored to have been prime minister of the best country in the world,” Sunak said in his farewell address.
Sunak had conceded defeat earlier in the morning, saying the voters had delivered a “sobering verdict.”
In a reflective farewell speech in the same place where he had called for the snap election six weeks earlier, Sunak wished Starmer all the best but also acknowledged his missteps.
“I have heard your anger, your disappointment, and I take responsibility for this loss,” Sunak said. “To all the Conservative candidates and campaigners who worked tirelessly but without success, I’m sorry that we could not deliver what your efforts deserved.”
Labour’s triumph and challenges
With almost all the results in, Labour had won 410 seats in the 650-seat House of Commons and the Conservatives 118.
“A mandate like this comes with a great responsibility,” Starmer acknowledged in a speech to supporters, saying the fight to regain people’s trust after years of disillusionment “is the battle that defines our age.”
Speaking as dawn broke in London, he said Labour would offer “the sunlight of hope, pale at first but getting stronger through the day.”
For Starmer, it’s a massive triumph that will bring huge challenges, as he faces a weary electorate impatient for change against a gloomy backdrop of economic malaise, mounting distrust in institutions and a fraying social fabric.
“Nothing has gone well in the last 14 years,” said London voter James Erskine, who was optimistic for change in the hours before polls closed. “I just see this as the potential for a seismic shift, and that’s what I’m hoping for.”
And that’s what Starmer promised, saying “change begins now.”
Anand Menon, professor of European Politics and Foreign Affairs at King’s College London, said British voters were about to see a marked change in political atmosphere from the tumultuous “politics as pantomime” of the last few years.
“I think we’re going to have to get used again to relatively stable government, with ministers staying in power for quite a long time, and with government being able to think beyond the very short term to medium-term objectives,” he said.
Britain has experienced a run of turbulent years – some of it of the Conservatives’ own making and some of it not – that has left many voters pessimistic about their country’s future. The U.K. divorce from the European Union followed by the COVID-19 pandemic and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine battered the economy, while lockdown-breaching parties held by then-Prime Minister Boris Johnson and his staff caused widespread anger.
Rising poverty, crumbling infrastructure and overstretched National Health Service have led to gripes about “Broken Britain.”
Johnson’s successor, Liz Truss, rocked the economy further with a package of drastic tax cuts and lasted just 49 days in office. Truss, who lost her seat to Labour, was one of a slew of senior Tories kicked out in a stark electoral reckoning.
While the result appears to buck recent rightward electoral shifts in Europe, including in France and Italy, many of those same populist undercurrents flow in Britain. Reform UK leader Nigel Farage roiled the race with his party’s anti-immigrant “take our country back” sentiment and undercut support for the Conservatives and even grabbed some voters from Labour.
Conservative vote collapses as smaller parties surge
The result is a catastrophe for the Conservatives as voters punished them for 14 years of presiding over austerity, Brexit, a pandemic, political scandals and internecine conflict.
The historic defeat – the smallest number of seats in the party’s two-century history – leaves it depleted and in disarray and will spark an immediate contest to replace Sunak, who said he would step down as leader.
In a sign of the volatile public mood and anger at the system, the incoming Parliament will be more fractured and ideologically diverse than any for years. Smaller parties picked up millions of votes, including the centrist Liberal Democrats and Farage’s Reform UK. It won four seats, including one for Farage in the seaside town of Clacton-on-Sea, securing a place in Parliament on his eighth attempt.
The Liberal Democrats won about 70 seats, on a slightly lower share of the vote than Reform because its votes were more efficiently distributed. In Britain’s first-past-the-post system, the candidate with the most votes in each constituency wins.
The Green Party won four seats, up from just one before the election.
One of the biggest losers was the Scottish National Party, which held most of Scotland’s 57 seats before the election but looked set to lose all but handful, mostly to Labour.
Labour was cautious but reliable
Labour did not set pulses racing with its pledges to get the sluggish economy growing, invest in infrastructure and make Britain a “clean energy superpower.”
But the party’s cautious, safety-first campaign delivered the desired result. The party won the support of large chunks of the business community and endorsements from traditionally conservative newspapers, including the Rupert Murdoch-owned Sun tabloid, which praised Starmer for “dragging his party back to the center ground of British politics.”
Conservative missteps
The Conservative campaign, meanwhile, was plagued by gaffes. The campaign got off to an inauspicious start when rain drenched Sunak as he made the announcement outside 10 Downing St. Then, Sunak went home early from commemorations in France marking the 80th anniversary of the D-Day invasion.
Several Conservatives close to Sunak are being investigated over suspicions they used inside information to place bets on the date of the election before it was announced.
In Henley-on-Thames, about 40 miles (65 kilometers) west of London, voters like Patricia Mulcahy, who is retired, sensed the nation was looking for something different. The community, which has long voted Conservative, flipped to the Liberal Democrats this time.
“The younger generation are far more interested in change,” Mulcahy said ahead of the results. “But whoever gets in, they’ve got a heck of a job ahead of them. It’s not going to be easy.”
The palace statement said Charles was “grateful to his medical team for their swift intervention,” and insisted the king “looks forward to returning to full public duty as soon as possible.”
A source close to Charles’ younger son Harry, who lives in California, told the BBC the prince had spoken to his father and will be flying back to the U.K. to be at his side. The pair have met just once since Charles became king — at his coronation in May 2023.
Charles’ health had already been of some concern after he spent three days in a London hospital for prostate treatment last month.
Buckingham Palace revealed Monday night that during this treatment, “a separate issue of concern was noted.”
“Subsequent diagnostic tests have identified a form of cancer,” the statement said. “His majesty has today commenced a schedule of regular treatments, during which time he has been advised by doctors to postpone public-facing duties.
“Throughout this period, his majesty will continue to undertake state business and official paperwork as usual.”
One is a king who has spent most of his adult life campaigning for bold action on global warming — but is now bound by ancient convention to stick to his government’s skeptical script.
The second is a prime minister who just scaled back Britain’s net zero ambitions and wants to “max out” fossil fuel production at home — and stands accused by former colleagues of being “uninterested” in environmental policies.
And the third? A former prime minister — now the U.K. foreign secretary — who once pledged to lead the “greenest government ever,” but then grew tired of what he called “the green crap” … and is already showing signs of overshadowing his new boss.
All three — King Charles III, Rishi Sunak, and David Cameron — are due to descend on the United Nations climate conference, COP28, which starts in Dubai next week, rounding off a year set to be the hottest ever recorded. (Sunak and the king are already confirmed to attend, while Cameron is due to do so in the coming days.)
The unlikely trio, each jostling for their place on the world stage, are symbolic of a wider identity crisis for the U.K. heading into the summit.
The country staked a claim as a world leader on climate when it hosted COP26 just two years ago. But it is now viewed with uncertainty by allies pushing for stronger action on global warming, following Sunak’s embrace of North Sea oil and gas and his retreat on some key domestic net zero targets.
“There is a lot of confusion about what the U.K. is going to do this year,” said one European diplomat, granted anonymity to give a candid assessment ahead of the summit.
“It raises the question, which team are they on? I think we’ll need to find out during COP.”
Green king, Blue Prime Minister
One of the key moments for the U.K. will come early in the conference, when Charles delivers an opening speech at the World Climate Action Summit of world leaders, the grand curtain raiser on a fortnight of talks.
Sunak is expected to fly in the same day to deliver his own speech later in the session.
Rishi Sunak speaks at COP26 in Glasgow | Christopher Furlong/Getty Images
At least Charles has been allowed to attend the summit this year. In 2022, then Prime Minister Liz Truss advised the king against travelling to Egypt for COP27.
But anyone looking for signs of friction between Sunak and the climate-conscious king will be unlikely to find them in the text of Charles’ address.
Speeches by the monarch are signed off by No. 10 Downing Street and this one will be no different, said one minister, granted anonymity to discuss interactions between the PM’s office and Buckingham Palace.
That’s not to say tensions don’t exist. Just don’t expect the king to overstep the constitutional ground rules, said Charles’ friend and biographer, the broadcaster Jonathan Dimbleby.
“I can only imagine that he must be intensely frustrated that the government has granted licenses in the North Sea,” Dimbleby told POLITICO. “Whatever the actual practical implications of the drilling in terms of combating climate change, it will not send a great message to the world from a nation that claims moral leadership on the issue.”
But Charles finds himself in “a unique position,” Dimbleby added.
“He is the only head of state who has a very long track record on insisting that climate change is a threat to the future of humanity … He speaks with great authority — but of course on terms from which the government will not dissent, because he has an overriding commitment, regardless of his own views, to abide by the constitutional obligations of the head of state in this country.”
Others see the speech as a major test for Charles.
“This is one of the most significant speeches he’ll make as king,” said Craig Prescott, a constitutional expert and lecturer in law at the Royal Holloway university.
Prescott noted the speech will be watched closely for clues as to how Charles maintains “political impartiality while pursuing the environmental issue — striking the right balance.”
“There will be some to-ing and fro-ing between Downing Street and the Palace,” he added. “But fundamentally he has to comply with any advice he gets.”
As is the convention, Downing Street declined to comment on any discussions with Buckingham Palace. The Palace did not respond to a request for comment.
Fossil fuel politics
The king is attending the summit at the invitation of its hosts, the United Arab Emirates — a sign of close ties between the British establishment and the Gulf monarchies presiding over some of the world’s biggest oil and gas-producing countries.
It’s a connection some view as a potential asset for British climate diplomacy.
The then Prince Charles addresses the audience at COP26 | Paul Ellis/AFP via Getty Images
“Trust between these royal families and institutions could provide the chance to have candid conversations” on issues such as fossil fuel reduction and the need to expand renewable energy supply, said Edward Davey, head of the U.K office of the World Resources Institute, where the king is patron.
“One could imagine those issues being discussed in a respectful way, in a way that perhaps other leaders couldn’t achieve.”
“I think it’s perfectly possible for the sovereign and the PM to both attend a COP and for them both to play a complementary role,” Davey added.
Others are much more skeptical. “[The king] has a lot of close friends in the Middle East who are massive producers of oil,” said Graham Smith, boss of the Republic campaign group, which wants to abolish the British monarchy.
“They can use him as a point of access to the British state because he has direct access to the government, and whatever he says to government is entirely secretive.”
Cameron, meanwhile, has his own close ties to the UAE and — before his return to government — took on a teaching post at New York University Abu Dhabi earlier this year.
Negotiation confusion
The U.K.’s big three will be joined in Dubai by Energy Secretary — and Sunak ally — Claire Coutinho. But the head of the British delegation is a junior minister, Graham Stuart, who does not attend Cabinet.
While the country will be officially arguing — alongside the EU — for a “phase-out of unabated fossil fuels,” Stuart sparked confusion earlier this month when he suggested to MPs that he was not troubled by the distinction between a “phase-out” (a total end to production of fossil fuels, where carbon capture is not applied) and a “phase-down,” the softer language preferred by the summit’s president, UAE national oil company boss Sultan Al-Jaber.
Chris Skidmore, an MP and climate activist in Sunak’s Conservative party, and the author of a government-commissioned report on net zero policy, said Stuart was wrong if he thought the distinction was just “semantics.”
“The fate of the world is resting on a distinction between phase-out and phase-down. But the U.K. finds itself now [unable] to argue for phase-out because it’s joined the phase-down club.
“That in itself puts us in an entirely different strategic position to where we were.”
Climate brain drain
London’s climate diplomatic corps are still well-respected around the world, said the same European diplomat quoted above. Even with Sunak’s loosening of net zero policies, the U.K. is seen to be in the group of countries, alongside the EU, leading the push for strong action on cutting emissions.
And there is a chance Cameron’s appointment will see more effort going into the U.K.’s global reputation on climate, according to Skidmore.
Citizen scientist Pat Stirling checks the quality of the River Wye water in Hay-on-Wye | Darren Staples/AFP via Getty Images
“It was under his premiership that the U.K. played a leading role in helping to get the Paris Agreement [to limit global warming] signed through … It will be interesting to see if he comes to COP and wants to play on the opportunities for the U.K. to demonstrate its climate credentials,” he said.
But the team that pulled off a relatively successful COP26 now has significantly less firepower, said one former U.K. climate official, who warned their efforts risk being undermined by No. 10’s approach to fossil fuels.
“There was a brain drain of experts working on climate, [the sort of] officials that could help hold government to account internally and try to maintain the level of ambition that we needed,” the former official said.
This spring, the U.K. scrapped the dedicated role of climate envoy, held by the experienced diplomat Nick Bridge since 2017. The remaining team of climate diplomats have been left frustrated, the former official said, by changes to domestic climate policy driven by a Downing Street operation fixated with next year’s U.K. general election, without consideration for how they might affect Britain’s negotiating position on the world stage.
“When Sunak gave his speech in September [rolling back some interim green targets], his team didn’t even realize that a U.N. climate action summit was happening in New York,” the former official said. “His team aren’t thinking in this way. For them it’s just about votes and the election.”
The risk, said the European diplomat, is that countries at COP28 pushing for softer targets on fossil fuels — likely to include the Gulf states, China and Russia — could point to Sunak’s statements on a “proportionate, pragmatic” approach to net zero as a reason to ignore the U.K. and its allies when they call for higher ambition.
“This will happen,” the European diplomat said. “They can point to the U.K.’s prime minister and say — ‘Look what the U.K. is doing with its own climate ambitions. So why are you being such a hard-ass about ours?’”
As for Cameron’s potential impact at the FCDO, the European diplomat was skeptical.
“It was a big surprise for everybody, but we’re not sure what he can do,” they said. “Maybe he can call a referendum on the climate?”
During the coronation service for King Charles III and Queen Camilla on Saturday, one moment served to remind viewers of the family at the center of the ceremony: Near the service’s end, Prince William dropped to his knees and pledged an oath similar to the one his grandfather Prince Philip uttered at the 1953 coronation of his grandmother, Queen Elizabeth II. “I, William, Prince of Wales, pledge my loyalty to you and faith and truth I will bear unto you, as your liege man of life and limb,” he said. “So help me, God.”
In the audience three rows back sat Prince Harry, who had traveled from Los Angeles. He had kept the details of his trip so tightly under wraps, as cohosts Katie Nicholl and Erin Vanderhoof explain, that his family had to remove a place setting for him at their informal coronation luncheon when they realized that the spare was already long gone, having flown immediately back to California.
Despite the melancholy lingering over such tangled dynamics, the event went off without a hitch—not counting the rain.
We want to know your thoughts on the coronation of King Charles III. What kind of king will Charles be? What does he need to do next? Record a voice memo on your mobile and email it todynasty@vanityfair.com, and we might include your voice in the next episode.
London’s Metropolitan Police said it made 52 arrests during the coronation of King Charles III on Saturday, as the force faces growing scrutiny over its attitude toward anti-monarchy demonstrators.
Thousands gathered in central London on Saturday to celebrate the once-in-a-generation occasion. But it also drew demonstrators, with protesters wearing yellow T-shirts booing and shouting “Not My King” throughout the morning.
Republic, Britain’s largest anti-monarchy group, told CNN that police – without providing any reason – arrested organizers of the anti-monarchy protest.
At around 7 a.m. (2 a.m. ET) police stopped six of Republic’s organizers and told them they were detaining and searching them, Republic director Harry Stratton told CNN at the protest.
Graham Smith, the chief executive of Republic, was among those detained, according to a video shared by the Alliance of European Republican Movements.
Stratton said that when the organizers asked police why they were being detained, they were told officers “would figure it out” after they had searched the anti-monarchy protesters. After searching them, police told the six organizers they were arresting them and seizing hundreds of their placards carrying the slogan “Not My King.”
“They didn’t say why they were arresting them. They didn’t tell them or us where they were taking them. It really is like something out of a police state,” Stratton said.
“I think people are quite perturbed by the police reaction. But the crowd reaction to us has been overwhelmingly friendly,” he added.
The group posted on Twitter Saturday, commenting: “So much for the right to peaceful protest.”
Members of environmental activist group Just Stop Oil also appeared to have been arrested on The Mall outside Buckingham Palace, the UK’s PA Media news agency reported, adding that a large group of the protesters were seen in handcuffs.
The Metropolitan Police confirmed several arrests had been made in central London and defended its actions.
“A total of 52 arrests have been made today for offenses including affray, public order offenses, breach of the peace and conspiracy to cause a public nuisance. All of these people remain in custody,” the police said in a press release.
Commander Karen Findlay, who is leading the police operation, said in the release: “We absolutely understand public concern following the arrests we made this morning.
“Protest is lawful and it can be disruptive. We have policed numerous protests without intervention in the build-up to the coronation, and during it.
“Our duty is to do so in a proportionate manner in line with relevant legislation. We also have a duty to intervene when protest becomes criminal and may cause serious disruption.
“This depends on the context. The coronation is a once in a generation event and that is a key consideration in our assessment. A protest involving large numbers has gone ahead today with police knowledge and no intervention.”
Human Rights Watch, a non-profit campaign group, said earlier Saturday that the coronation arrests were “something you would expect to see in Moscow not London,” according to a statement obtained by PA Media.
Republic claimed it was expecting between 1,500 and 2,000 people to join the group at its protest in Trafalgar Square, just south of the royal procession route.
“Instead of a coronation we want an election. Instead of Charles we want a choice. It’s that simple,” the group tweeted on Saturday.
The Metropolitan Police, the UK’s largest police force, has been scrutinized for its tough approach toward protests around the coronation.
“Our tolerance for any disruption, whether through protest or otherwise, will be low,” the force wrote on Twitter this week. “We will deal robustly with anyone intent on undermining this celebration.”
Ahead of the event, the Met said that more than 11,500 police officers would be deployed in London on Saturday, making the coronation the largest one-day deployment in decades.
The operation – labeled Golden Orb – saw officers line the processional route, manage crowds and road closures, protect high-profile individuals and carry out searches with specialist teams.
There are also plans for facial recognition technology to be used in central London, which has sparked criticism from human rights groups.
“We all have the right to go about our lives without being watched and monitored, but everyone at the coronation is at risk of having their faces scanned by oppressive facial recognition technology,” Emmanuelle Andrews of human rights group Liberty, said on Twitter.
The operation comes amid growing concern over the increase in the police’s power to stifle dissent in Britain, following the recent introduction of controversial pieces of legislation.
Last year, the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022 significantly “broaden[ed] the range of circumstances in which police may impose conditions on a protest.” Under the new Act, it is an offense for protesters to “intentionally or recklessly caus[e] public nuisance” – including causing “serious annoyance.”
In a statement to CNN, Liberty said this Act “has made it much harder for people to stand up for what they believe without facing the risk of criminalization.”
On Tuesday, a new law called the Public Order Act received royal assent from King Charles, which is a formality and the final hurdle before a bill becomes law.
It will “give police the powers to prevent disruption at major sporting and cultural events taking place this summer in England and Wales,” the UK Home Office said in a statement.
Specific measures in the Act were introduced from Wednesday.
Under this law, long-standing protest tactics such as locking on – where protesters physically attach themselves to things like buildings – could lead to a six-month prison sentence or “unlimited fine,” said the Home Office.
When Marion Portelance plays in King Charles’s coronation concert on Sunday, she’ll be playing a cello with a special connection to the monarch.
The student from the Royal College of Music, who is originally from Montreal, will be playing on a William Forster cello from 1804 that is believed to the same one once owned and played by King Charles.
The 24-year-old says she’s honoured and excited to play at the concert, which follows Saturday’s coronation ceremony.
“It’s surreal to me to be able to participate in a historic event like this,” she said in an interview.
She said the instrument was played by King Charles during his days as a student. It was later sold to benefit charity, Portelance said, and then donated by the Linbury Trust to the Royal College of Music’s collection.
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“So, a lot of history and a beautiful instrument, and it sounds amazing,” she said.
Portelance is part of a string quartet that will perform a new arrangement of the song “Somewhere” from West Side Story, as part of a collaboration that includes the Royal Opera and the Royal Ballet. The Royal College of Art will provide a visual backdrop.
“It’s just a big collaboration of all sorts of arts and I think it represents really well the fact that King Charles was always a big advocate for the arts and especially for music,” said Portelance, who is a graduate of the Conservatoire de musique de Montreal.
Never-before-seen photos of King Charles
She said she was contacted a few months ago to ask if she was free the first weekend in May, but only later found out why.
Pop stars Lionel Richie, Katy Perry and opera singer Andrea Bocelli are among the headliners that are scheduled to be performing at Sunday’s concert at Windsor Castle.
Portelance got a chance to visit the site for the first time on Thursday for a rehearsal, which made the situation feel even more real.
Portelance said she’s more excited than nervous, but is trying not to think about whether the King will be paying special attention to her performance on the cello he used to play.
LONDON — In a ceremony of pageantry, quirks and ancient tradition, King Charles III, Britain’s 62nd monarch, was on Saturday officially crowned head of state of the United Kingdom and 14 Commonwealth realms.
The king, who succeeds his late mother, Queen Elizabeth II, was coronated at London’s Westminster Abbey alongside his wife Camilla in a two-hour ceremony attended by world leaders, members of the royal family, foreign dignitaries, faith leaders, and heads of state.
The historic event was overseen by the Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, and punctuated with rituals, regalia, and objects dating back centuries.
These included oaths, spurs, a Jewelled Sword of Offering, various sceptres and an orb. The king was anointed with holy oil via a coronation spoon, while the watching public were offered the chance to declare their loyalty by proclaiming: “God save King Charles.”
Among the 2,000 guests were French President Emmanuel Macron and his wife, Brigitte. First Lady Jill Biden, the wife of U.S. President Joe Biden, was also present, accompanied by her granddaughter, Finnegan. They wore blue and gold attire respectively, interpreted as support for Ukraine, whose flags share the same colors.
The U.S. president himself chose not to attend, but wrote on Twitter: “Congratulations to King Charles III and Queen Camilla on their Coronation. The enduring friendship between the U.S. and the U.K. is a source of strength for both our peoples. I am proud the First Lady is representing the United States for this historic occasion.”
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen sat beside President of the European Council Charles Michel, despite long-standing tensions between Brussels’ two most prominent politicians. European Parliament President Roberta Metsola was also in the congregation.
U.S. Special Presidential Envoy for Climate John Kerry was seen speaking briefly to former U.K. Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg, now president for global affairs at Meta. King Charles has been a life-long campaigner on the environment.
U.K. Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, who gave a reading during the service, was joined by senior members of his Cabinet and as well as all his living predecessors, including Tony Blair, Boris Johnson and Liz Truss — the latter having served in Downing Street for just 49 days last year. Commons Leader Penny Mordaunt, a member of Sunak’s Cabinet, took a leading role in the ceremony, carrying the sword of state due to her ceremonial role as lord president of the privy council.
Keir Starmer, leader of the U.K.’s opposition Labour Party, sat next to the leader of the Liberal Democrats, Ed Davey, while leaders of the devolved nations in the U.K. were also in attendance. Prince Harry was seated among members of the U.K. royal family, though his wife, Meghan Markle, remained in California with their children.
Also present were the presidents of Germany and Italy, Frank-Walter Steinmeier and Sergio Mattarella, China’s vice-president, Han Zheng, and the prime minister of Pakistan, Shehbaz Sharif. Han’s attendance had been a subject of controversy in the U.K. due to his central role in China’s repression of Hong Kong.
There were also leaders from the 14 Commonwealth nations for whom Charles is head of state, including Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and New Zealand’s Chris Hipkins, as well as representatives from Grenada, Papa New Guinea, the Bahamas and others.
Celebrities such as singer Katy Perry, chef Jamie Oliver, actor Emma Thompson, and British TV duo Ant and Dec also took seats in the Abbey.
Thousands of flag-carrying members of the public gathered along the procession route | Niklaas Halle’n/AFP via Getty Images
Britain is a constitutional monarchy, and as head of state King Charles has a ceremonial role in opening and dissolving parliament, appointing a government, and approving bills before they become law. He also meets weekly with Sunak, the prime minister.
However, the ability to make and pass legislation rests with politicians in an elected parliament.
Thousands of flag-carrying members of the public enjoyed another British tradition — light summer drizzle — as they gathered in the early hours along the procession route from Buckingham Palace to Westminster Abbey. Before the coronation, the head of the U.K.’s leading republican movement, which held a protest in Trafalgar Square, was among those arrested by police.
Members of the royal family were gathered on the Buckingham Palace balcony later Saturday afternoon ahead of a series of celebratory events taking place Sunday, including a pop concert at Windsor Castle. Monday has been designated a public holiday in Britain to mark the occasion.
This article is being updated as the ceremonies continue.
If nothing else, Gordonstoun, Philip’s alma mater on the remote, windswept north coast of Scotland, taught the Prince of Wales to endure freezing temperatures. Each day began with a regimen designed to “shake the sleep out of them”: a predawn shirtless run through the countryside—even when it snowed—followed by an icy shower. Classrooms were unheated, and, in keeping with the school’s antediluvian philosophy that “fresh night air” was good for you, dormitory windows were left wide open while the boys slept, regardless of the season. Charles was assigned to Windmill Lodge, a long, narrow, stone-and-timber building with a green asbestos roof and bare wooden floors. There were fourteen beds to a room and bare lightbulbs dangling from the ceiling. Throughout the winter, Charles, whose wooden bed was located beneath a window, often woke to find his bedcovers encrusted with frost or even snow. On those occasions when it rained, he was forced to gather up his blankets and sleep on the floor in the center of the room.
After Charles emerged from five dismal years at Cheam, the exclusive lower school Philip had also attended, the Duke of Edinburgh was still worried that his son was “too soft” for the job he was born to do. The Queen, bowing to her husband’s authority in all matters related to Charles’s upbringing, agreed that four years at Gordonstoun would undoubtedly do the trick. “Charles was a very polite, sweet boy— always incredibly thoughtful and kind, interested in art and music,” Elizabeth’s cousin and confidant Margaret Rhodes said. “But his father interpreted this as weakness, and the Queen believed he knew what was best.” Gordonstoun was supposed to “‘make a man out of him,’ although I never really understood what that meant.”
From what Charles had heard, life at Gordonstoun was, as he put it, “pretty gruesome.” He was leaning toward another school, Charterhouse, where some of the more palatable students from Cheam were going. But he had little to say in the matter. According to royal heraldry and genealogy expert Dermot Morrah, a close friend of the Queen Mother who had chronicled Charles’s early life with the royal family’s blessing, Philip believed his son was “of a shy and reticent disposition” and that “something that would draw him out and develop a little more self-assertiveness in him seemed to be required.” Moreover, “Philip himself had been very happy there.”
Unfortunately for Charles, he had to overcome one major obstacle not faced by Philip. Anyone who attempted to befriend the future sovereign was immediately branded a bootlicking sycophant, a “suck-up.” Whenever Charles walked down a hall on the way to class, he invariably did it to a chorus of boys making a loud sucking noise. At times, according to classmate Ross Benson, they “followed him in packs making that dreadful slurping sound.”
If he wasn’t being piled on by his rugby teammates or hung up in the shower, the Prince of the realm had to contend with being battered in bed. “The people in my dormitory are foul,” he wrote in a letter home. “Goodness, they are horrid. I don’t see how anybody could be so foul.” It didn’t help that Charles snored. According to the Prince, most nights he was pummeled with shoes, pillows, and fists. “I simply dread going to bed,” he complained, “because I get hit all night long.”
There were other indignities to be suffered. On a school trip to the village of Stornoway Harbour on the Isle of Lewis, Charles was suddenly swept up in a crowd of onlookers. Seeking refuge in a bar, he was asked what he wanted to drink. “My God! What do I do?” Charles thought. “Everybody is looking at me.” The fourteen-year-old hesitated a moment before answering. “Cherry brandy,” replied Charles, who explained later that he’d had it before while shooting at Sandringham, and it was “the first drink that came into my head.” A reporter (“That dreadful woman,” Charles would call her) happened to be standing nearby, and the next day, the press had a field day with the tale of the Prince’s underage drinking. “The impression grew,” recalled Dermot Morrah on behalf of the Queen, “that the heir to the British throne must have been discovered in a drunken orgy.” Charles was mortified. “I thought,” he said, “that it was the end of the world.” Deeply upset over having embarrassed his family, he called his mother and tearfully apologized.
The Prince of Wales needn’t have worried about his mother. The incident, she told Morrah at the time, “will do him good. He learnt the hard way” that, given his position, even “the smallest thing” would be blown out of proportion in the press.
But the unfortunate episode did have other, even more hurtful ramifications for Charles. During his first two terms at Gordonstoun, his six-foot-five-inch-tall royal protection officer, Don Green, had become a confidant and father figure to the beleaguered boy. When Green was discharged after the cherry brandy incident, the young Prince was crushed. “I have never been able to forgive them for doing that,” Charles said decades later, “because he defended me in the most marvelous way, and he was the most wonderful, loyal, splendid man. . . . It was atrocious what they did.”
Charles called home to apologize again after someone pilfered his book of essays and sold it to the German magazine Der Stern. “I suppose,” he told Mabel Anderson, searching for a reason to blame himself, “I could have been more careful and locked them up.”
Prince Charles pictured on his arrival at London airport from Glasgow, on July 30, 1963, at the end of the Gordonstoun school summer term. He is pictured wearing a charcoal coloured suit and school tie.By Victor Boynton/AP Photo.
LONDON — Get ready for plenty more pomp and ceremony in the United Kingdom. The coronation of King Charles III will take place on Saturday, May 6, 2023, Buckingham Palace announced Tuesday.
Charles ascended to the throne last month following the death of his mother, Queen Elizabeth II, but a formal coronation date had not yet been set.
In a statement Tuesday night, Buckingham Palace finally named the date, and confirmed the coronation ceremony will take place at Westminster Abbey, the site of the queen’s own coronation and state funeral. It will be conducted by the Archbishop of Canterbury, the head of the Church of England.
“The Ceremony will see His Majesty King Charles III crowned alongside The Queen Consort,” the statement said, referring to Charles’ wife, Camilla Parker Bowles. “The Coronation will reflect the monarch’s role today and look towards the future, while being rooted in longstanding traditions and pageantry,” it added.
Buckingham Palace is promising further details “in due course.”
