The Queen clears her diary
An inside source is saying that the Queen has cleared her diary of engagements for the holiday season at Balmoral in case Prime Minister Gordon Brown falls on his sword and resigns from office.

Such is his plight — poll ratings dropping like a brick, conspirators plotting against him from all sections of his party — that the Queen reportedly feels she should be prepared for any eventuality. It’s the convention that a Prime Minister resigns directly before the Queen at Buckingham Palace.

A courtier is quoted as saying, “The Queen is spending most of the summer at Balmoral but we aren’t putting any visits to far-flung tropical islands in her diary. If Brown comes a cropper, she must be able to get to Buckingham Palace sharpish.”

The source does not mention the PM’s annual pilgrimage to Balmoral when the Sovereign entertains her chief minister and spouse while being briefed on all the latest Westminster gossip.

According to various reports, on these occasions the Royal Family serve their guests and even clear away the dishes themselves after dinner. Cherie Blair was said to be speechless when this happened to her.

Perhaps that’s why the Queen does it.

Is Kate Middleton receiving free designer dresses?

A weekend newspaper report suggested that Kate Middleton was being gifted free or heavily-discounted outfits from the Brazilian couturier, Issa.

The haul included the astonishing coral pink number (pictured) that she wore to the Boodles Ball, on which we commented fulsomely here at Royal Anecdotes. The implication of the piece was that Kate may be using her Royal connections to obtain freebies.

However, the designer herself said that Kate is a “private client” and that was all there was to it.

I don’t know how these things work so can’t really make much sense of it. It may be that the designer “lent” her a dress or two for a big occasion because of her patronage in the past.

Kate’s signature “look” seems to come from this talented designer. But she must beware of any hint of free-loading. Once that hits the headlines, the public and press will never let go and every transaction she makes will be examined for the slightest discount or favouritism. The Duchess of York is a salutary example — and I won’t even mention the Blairs.

Judging by the style this Brazilian lady has given Kate, would I be amiss in suggesting she might be perfect to design her wedding dress?

But for Kate’s sake it should be paid for in full … plus a generous tip!

Are Royals infiltrating politics?

We know that some senior politicians, especially in the Labour Party, secretly covert the Crown. Their attitude is, “why should they get all the glory while we do all the work?”

But are the Royals hitting back — in the best traditions of Tudor skulduggery?

It seems the new Mayor of London, former Tory Minister, Boris Johnson, is a direct descendant of King George II and a distant cousin to the Queen. Having displaced Red Ken Livingstone in the May elections, Boris is perfectly placed to turn City Hall into a minor Royal Palace.

The revelation comes in that excellent BBC programme, Who Do You Think You Are?, which examines famous people’s family trees.

Amusingly, the show was held back during the election in case it dented Boris’s man-of-the-people image. As an Old Etonian with the poshest accent on record, that might have been water off a coot’s back.

And if you think that’s a one-off, think again. Conservative leader and the next Prime Minister after a general election, David Cameron, is a direct descendant of King William IV. The Royals are on the march.

Of course, the Labour Party could hit back by encouraging some of its young bloods to marry into Royalty.

Watch out Beatrice and Eugenie!

The Boris edition of Who Do You Think You Are? will be shown on BBC1 on August 20.

Peter and Autumn at St. George’s Chapel after the ceremony

Buckingham Palace is confirming that Hello! magazine was not at the wedding service in St. George’s Chapel and will not be at the reception at Frogmore House.

It looks like the Palace has finally put its foot down, possibly encouraged by the Queen, and put a stop to the commercial aspect of this Royal wedding in all but name. Quite what Hello! will publish on Wednesday is now open to question, but it can’t be much, judging by what we were allowed to glimpse.

Both Kate Middleton and Chelsy Davy were there, say the BBC, but didn’t figure in the photograph after the wedding. We look forward to the one official photograph.

What a pity this event has been marred by swirling rumours of a sell-out, even that they sold the Queen to a celebrity magazine.

I can’t imagine this happening in Robin Janvrin’s day.

For those who didn’t see the splendid five-part BBC documentary Monarchy: The Royal Family At Work, Amazon has the DVD out tomorrow, Monday.

Amazon.co.uk is offering a 40pc reduction at a value price of only £14 (around $27).

The documentary was shot by RDF Media for the BBC and caused a furore at the press launch when the Queen was said to have “stormed out in a huff” from a photoshoot with American star photographer, Annie Leibovitz. The footage actually showed her walking briskly into the session.

Some very senior executives lost their jobs in both RDF and the BBC before the matter was finally resolved and a re-edited version agreed with Buckingham Palace.

The scene — now shown in the correct sequence — is the first to be shown in Episode 1 of the series.

If you are at all interested in British Royalty — and you wouldn’t be reading this if you weren’t — this is a must have collectors’ item. The DVD also has a bonus of half an hour of unbroadcast material, so contains around six hours of truly sumptuous viewing.

Let’s hope the extra footage has been cut in the right order.

BBC News 24 has been airing live coverage of Prince William’s flying training at RAF Cranwell in Lincolnshire. Here are a couple of screenshots :

Prince William preparing to take off

William takes off on his training flight

As I write, William has just taken off on a training flight which will include aerobatics, a simulated stall and fire onboard, together with an emergency alert. In an earlier photocall, the Prince signified he wasn’t looking forward to the aerobatics.

The weather is not perfect for ground viewing as it’s currently raining with dense low cloud. As William took off, his plane disappeared into the rain cloud.

I would imagine that girlfriend Kate Middleton was watching the live coverage. She will be relieved to know that William is accompanied by an experienced RAF instructor.

Update : We are now hearing that yesterday his instructor “bailed out” on the runway forcing William to fly solo for the first time and earn his “wings”.

Afterwards the Prince said :

“It was an amazing feeling, I couldn’t believe it. I was doing a few circuits going round and round then Roger my instructor basically turned round and said ‘right I’m going to jump out now’ and I said ‘what, where are you going?’.

“He said ‘you’re going on your own’ and I said ‘there’s no way I’m going to do that’ but he said I was ready for it and jumped out. The next thing I knew I was taxiing down the runway and I was sitting there saying ‘oh my God this is a bit odd, there’s no one in here’.

“Once I’d taken off it was fine, you just remember your checks and do all the things you’ve got to do and fly the circuit. Then I was watching the runway getting closer and closer and thinking, please, please don’t mess this up.”

Later, a spokeswoman for British Airways said: “Congratulations to Prince William on his first flight. If he fancies flying a jumbo, he’s more than welcome.”

I think a jumbo-sized beer was much more likely.