Traveling

Wednesday, September 16, 2026

Palace hits back at Diana’s brother

Body found in search for missing boy | Newts could thwart Piddington migrant camp
 ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏

Britain’s most popular daily newsletter, read by more than 850,000

Thursday, 17 September 2026

Issue No. 571

Good morning.

“Rest assured, we’ll forget her soon enough.” These are the words Earl Spencer claims were hissed down the phone to him by the then Prince Charles in the days after Diana’s death. In a statement, echoing Elizabeth II’s “recollections may vary” response to the Duke and Duchess of Sussex’s claims about the Royal family, the Palace has accused Earl Spencer of “clouded reasoning”. India McTaggart, our Royal Correspondent, has the story.

Elsewhere, the search for three-year-old Noah Woods gripped Telegraph readers yesterday. More than 1,000 volunteers had joined the search in Suffolk, which ended in tragedy when a body was found in a lake close to where the boy had become separated from his grandfather.

Chris Evans, Editor

P.S. We’re giving you a whole year of The Telegraph for just £29. If you’re already a subscriber, make sure you’re logged in to read today’s stories.


 

In today’s edition

Great crested newts could thwart Piddington migrant camp

The billionaire who accidentally cancelled Ed Sheeran

Plus, the best new TV shows of the year so far

Try 1 year for just £29

Unlock this newsletter, plus full access to our website and app for less than £2.50 a month.

 

Palace hits back at Earl Spencer book

India McTaggart

India McTaggart

Entertainment & Royal Correspondent

 

Buckingham Palace has accused Earl Spencer of “clouded reasoning” after he claimed the King made disparaging comments about Diana, Princess of Wales, in the days after her death.

According to the Earl, a row took place during a phone call while they were debating whether Princes William and Harry, then 15 and 12, should walk behind their mother’s coffin during the funeral procession on Sept 6, 1997.

In his new book, the Earl claims the then Prince Charles told him he had walked in the funeral procession of his great uncle, Lord Mountbatten, in 1979.

The memoir, Swan Song: Diana, My Sister, alleges that when the Earl pointed out that he had been 30 at the time, the Prince “went nuts”.

The Earl writes: “Prince Charles continued his stream of anger, without me interrupting. Then he stopped.

“I assumed the pause signalled an effort to bring himself under control, but then he unleashed down the phone what I have always taken to be his pent-up contempt for Diana, and his horror that the world was so bowled over by her death. ‘Rest assured,’ he hissed, ‘we’ll forget her soon enough!’”

In a highly unusual move, Buckingham Palace swiftly responded to the allegations, and a spokesman said: “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.”

The comments echo Elizabeth II’s “recollections may vary” response to a series of allegations made by the Duke and Duchess of Sussex in their interview with Oprah Winfrey.

A source close to the King said that the alleged comment about Diana was “just not in his nature and it certainly wasn’t in his nature at that time, when he was a man absolutely grief-stricken”.

They added that at the time, the then Prince of Wales was “paralysed with grief” and defied protocol by insisting that Diana be afforded a full state-style ceremonial funeral, and that her coffin be draped in the royal standard as it returned from Paris to London.

This report is available only to subscribers.
Continue reading

 

Body found in search for missing three-year-old boy

Tom McArdle

Tom McArdle

 

A quiet Suffolk village has been left reeling after a body was found in the search for a three-year-old boy.

Noah Woods had been missing since Tuesday afternoon, having become separated from his grandfather at a playground.

Supt Tom Pearse of Suffolk Constabulary said that while the body had not been formally identified, Noah’s family had been informed.

The red-haired toddler’s disappearance triggered a monumental effort from the close-knit community of Brantham.

The force said more than 1,300 volunteers had combed through the Suffolk countryside in an attempt to find him.

Brantham’s village hall and leisure centre were converted into temporary sorting venues where hundreds of people were grouped and sent far and wide to search for Noah.

Noah disappeared from a playground just 320m from Decoy Pond

As news of the discovery filtered through to volunteers preparing to head out to continue searching yesterday afternoon, many wept openly.

Groups of men, women, and children – many of whom had come straight from work or were still in their school uniform – hugged and cried as notifications on their phones alerted them that a body had been found.

Addressing the media, an emotional Supt Pearse said the police had been “overwhelmed by the outpouring [of] public support”.

“As a parent myself, I completely understand why people would want to help and such a response is one that typifies the strong sense of community and the heartwarming nature of Suffolk people that make the county such a special place,” he added.
Read the full story here

 

Opinion

Daniel Hannan Headshot

Daniel Hannan

The true ‘special relationship’ is between Britain and Canada

As the EU signals closer ties to Mark Carney, we should remember our own history with a nation which shares Anglosphere values

Continue reading

 
<span style="color:#DE0000;">Con Coughlin</span> Headshot

Con Coughlin

The Houthis are exposing the bankruptcy of Labour’s foreign policy

Continue reading

 
<span style="color:#DE0000;">Neil McCormick</span> Headshot

Neil McCormick

The Ed Sheeran I know will be reeling from this political nightmare

Continue reading

 
Matt Cartoon
 

To make sure you don’t miss our newsletters when they land in your inbox, click here.

In other news

Britain must once again become a naval superpower to counter Vladimir Putin’s fleet, the head of the Navy has said. Gen Sir Gwyn Jenkins said Britain urgently needed to build more traditional warships and drones to protect the Atlantic from Russia.

The researcher behind the Duke of Sussex’s phone hacking claim is preparing a campaign to discredit the High Court judge who threw out the case, The Telegraph can reveal.

Dementia patients are receiving “second-class service” and should be treated with the same urgency as those with cancer, health chiefs have said.

Sweden’s centre-Left opposition bloc defeated the ruling Right-wing coalition in a razor-thin general election, the country’s SVT public broadcaster announced yesterday.

Despite having more than 6,000 press officers adept at using social media, the Labour Government has spent more than £1.7m on influencers over the past two years to help get its message across.

Gemma Collins and Bridget Phillipson

Gemma Collins, a reality star, who helped promote vocational studies for the DfE with Bridget Phillipson

 

Your essential reads

Sir Ranulph Fiennes

Where is Sir Ranulph Fiennes?

This is one of the strangest and most rewarding stories I’ve ever worked on, writes Alex Diggins. Like many, I’ve known the public face of Sir Ranulph Fiennes for almost as long as I can remember. The great privilege of this investigation has been getting to see “Ran” through the eyes of those who love him: as a colleague, a father, a friend. His inner circle hasn’t broken their silence for nothing – to them, Ran is missing. Throughout his 82 years, Fiennes has been a social butterfly: he doesn’t simply vanish. So where is he? The search has taken me to a £4,000-a-week care home, we’ve tangled with NDAs and the hunt has even involved the King. It is, as one of his friends said, a story “worthy of le Carré”. 

For subscribers only

 

Piddington residents celebrate the result of their symbolic referendum to leave the UK

Great crested newts could thwart Piddington migrant camp

A colony of rare newts has become an unlikely obstacle to the Government’s plans for an asylum camp in Oxfordshire. Campaigners say the Home Office overlooked records of protected wildlife, including 12 bat species and breeding great crested newts, when assessing the proposed site. The discovery could expose the planning process to a legal challenge, which will come as welcome news to the nearby villagers who voted to “secede” from Britain in protest against the scheme.

Continue reading

 

The billionaire who accidentally cancelled Ed Sheeran

Ed Sheeran is facing the biggest crisis of his career. After his supporting act Macklemore called for a “free Palestine” on stage, the rapper was dropped from Sheeran‘s US arena tour at the demand of his powerful friend: the sports tycoon Robert Kraft. The internet’s cancellation of Sheeran has been swift. So who is the billionaire who put the Briton in the firing line? Iona Cleave reports.
Continue reading

Greta Thunberg leads pro-Palestinian backlash against Sheeran

 

How ‘genocide’ lost all its meaning

Sir Simon Schama, the Jewish historian, has revealed that pro-Palestinian activists chanted at him: “You can’t hide. You’ve committed genocide.” The incident is a reminder that genocide, which might seem an act so grotesque as to be self-evident, is in fact the most politically explosive and contested of legal terms, writes Norman JW Goda, a professor of Holocaust studies who specialises in war crimes trials.

Continue reading

 

Seize the day

The best new TV shows of the year so far

As the nights are closing in, you might find yourself spending more evenings on the sofa than going for a sunset stroll. Television has brought us cosy crime in Ludwig and Bookish, quirky comedies such as Colin From Accounts and Ann Droid, and the Emmy-winning horror-comedy Widow’s Bay – among many others. Here’s our rundown of this year’s best television so far.

Continue reading

Here is another article that may be of interest this morning:

 

diary of an mnd sufferer

‘My inside and outside no longer match’

Few can imagine the agony of motor neurone disease (MND), a condition that causes muscles to waste away, leading to paralysis and respiratory failure. One in 300 of us will develop it, and there is currently no cure.

For the past 18 months, one courageous Telegraph reader, whose face we never see, has been living with MND and, with the help of her family, has recorded her battle against a condition that, as she writes so movingly, “does tend to make one feel that one is disappearing from the world”.

 

Our anonymous author writes:
Our National Gardens Scheme open day was a success, though the garden was not really ready and my inability to talk left me disappointed and embarrassed. Still, for the last time, we welcomed people in and raised money for charity, helped by family who travelled long distances to prune, weed, clean, greet visitors, serve refreshments and finish with a celebratory supper.

Most tireless was my husband. It is often said that a family member’s illness falls hardest on those around them, and this has fallen hardest on him: preparing the garden while cooking food that might keep my weight up without choking me, and finding almost no rest of his own.

For more than a dozen years we had built this garden together, on a steep site below far-reaching views of hills and woodland – heavy, physical work, that had kept us both fit. I had not felt old. My outside no longer matched my inside, still energetic and unwilling to let the garden go, however less able I became.

Then came this year’s drought summer – weeks of relentless heat after a wet spring, the garden a losing battle, even the lavenders and viburnums struggled. One morning, on my knees, weeding, I felt a moment of cool relief on my face, and for a second or two simply enjoyed it.

Then I realised: it was my own saliva, drooling down my chin.

This, I’m afraid, was soon to become one of my condition’s most obvious indignities, and it would be visited upon me every day.
Read the full diary

Next week: Who am I?

If you, a family member or a friend have had an experience with MND,
share your story here.

 

Your say

Pour decisions

Every weekday, Orlando Bird, our loyal Reader Correspondent, shares an off-piste topic that has brought out the best of your opinions and stories.

Orlando writes...
Whatever happened to the spectacularly rude pub landlord? Over the course of my drinking career, I have encountered mild curmudgeons and opinionated dispomaniacs presiding over the bar. I was once laughed at when, aged about 19, I ordered a glass of sherry, and that was probably fair enough. I’ve never been really memorably insulted. Maybe courtesy is what comes with spending the best part of £10 on a pint.


 

These thoughts have been prompted by a recent correspondence on the Letters page, evoking something of a golden age. “My father rarely drank,” wrote Lesley Thompson, “but enjoyed an occasional shandy in the 1980s at the Tickell Arms in a village outside Cambridge. The attraction was the notoriously rude landlord who, if he took a dislike to a customer (he often found fault with their accent or grammar when ordering, and objected to ‘Lefty loonies’ and ‘collarless shirt wearers’), would shout: ‘You’re barred – get out!’

“A man we knew was mortified to be expelled after buying a bottle of expensive wine to impress his date. The publican – who went by the grand name of Kim Joseph Hollick de la Taste Tickell – decided that the woman he was with was not his wife (this was correct) and said he would not serve ‘scheming adulterers’.

“Later on, people flocked to the pub and would compete to be thrown out. My father rather regretted that he was never sent packing.”


 

Tim Oldfield, meanwhile, recalled: “Fifty years ago I was in a pub in Old Windsor, which had a notoriously difficult landlord. One friend asked me for a Kahlúa and milk. After I cautiously placed the order, the landlord bellowed at me, ‘What do you think this is, a bloody milk bar?’ He then continued, ‘Tell you what, go outside and if you can find a passing milk float I’ll make it for you.’ I did go out, but never went back in.”


 

Graham Ashen added: “When I was a barman in Worcestershire in the 1980s, my boss was a small, impatient man from the Black Country, who drank half pints of mild and smoked 80 Park Drives a day. At the end of the evening, he dismissed regulars with the words: ‘I have had yow money, now sup up and sod off home.’”

Are pubs politer now, or am I just going to the wrong ones? Send your responses 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.

 

On this day

1940 | Adolf Hitler indefinitely postpones Operation Sea Lion, the planned invasion of Great Britain (see how we covered the news in the following day’s paper below)

2001 | Major trading markets in the United States reopen for the first time since the September 11 attacks

2001
| The Millennium Bridge connecting Gateshead and Newcastle over the River Tyne opens to the public

Birthdays: Warren Gatland (63), Damon Hill (66), Narendra Modi (76)

Telegraph front page

Also, in today’s news, JD Vance, the US vice-president, has hailed which popular Netflix series as the “Shakespeare of our time”?

1. Stranger Things
2. Emily in Paris
3. Bridgerton
4. Squid Game

Click one of the options to reveal the answer...

 

Puzzles

Panagram

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 ENJOYMENT. Come back tomorrow for the solution to today’s puzzle.

 

Thank you for reading. Have a fulfilling day and I hope to see you tomorrow.

I’d love to hear what you think of this newsletter. You can email me your feedback at fromtheeditor@telegraph.co.uk.

Chris Evans, Editor

Try 1 year for just £29

Unlock this newsletter, plus full access to our website and app for less than £2.50 a month.

 

We have sent you this email because you have either asked us to or because we think it will interest you.

Unsubscribe from this newsletter.

Update your preferences.

If you are a Telegraph subscriber and are asked to sign in when you click the links in our newsletters, please log in and click “accept cookies”. This will ensure you can access The Telegraph uninterrupted in the future.

For any other questions, please visit our help page here.

Any offers included in this email come with their own Terms and Conditions, which you can see by clicking on the offer link. We may withdraw offers without notice.

Telegraph Media Group Holdings Limited or its group companies - 111 Buckingham Palace Road, London SW1W 0DT. Registered in England under No 14551860.

No comments:

Post a Comment