The Queen was always going to be a hard act to follow – but is King Charles overstepping the mark?
For seven decades many of us welcomed his mother into our sitting rooms.
At 3pm every Christmas Day, a chance for families and friends to pause and for the Queen to address us all. In so many ways, she was always going to be a much loved, and very hard act to follow.
The King’s message immediately looked different from the Queen’s recordings we’ve seen in recent years. Not sitting behind a desk with significant photos alongside him, but instead standing up inside St George’s Chapel, the perfect location to begin what was in part a loving tribute to his mother, just months after she was buried there at Windsor Castle.
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It was the Queen’s example of service he again encouraged us to take inspiration from, as with the deepest respect for his mother’s way, he is beginning to show how he wants to do things differently.
We’d got used to his mother’s subtlety in her annual messages. I remember one recently where she mentioned simply how it had been a bumpy year; she didn’t need to spell out the specific issues of political turmoil and problems she’d had with her own family.
Her son it seems wants to be more straight-talking, dedicating several minutes of his message to focus on what he calls a time of “great anxiety and hardship”. He doesn’t hold back in spelling out what for him is an indisputable fact, that many are struggling and it’s really community heroes who are keeping the country going.
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Watch the King’s Christmas message
Is King Charles being political?
We clearly have a new king for whom the cost of living crisis, and what he can do in his new role, is playing on his mind; he wants to express a sense of empathy albeit from a position of immense privilege.
What’s tricky is when you put his message in the context of the strike deadlock we’ve seen before Christmas involving many of the public sector workers that he name-checks and praises, ambulance staff, nurses, etc, and why some may suggest he’s erring on the side of being political.
His focus on faith is also particularly striking. Both his own and recognising the diverse religious communities that make up the United Kingdom.
While the Queen was so private about many aspects of her life, her strong Christian beliefs were something she wore very publicly. It hasn’t always been the same with her son.
But just like his first address to the nation after the Queen died he obviously wants to reinforce in our minds how much guidance he also takes from his own Christian beliefs; particularly interesting from a man who once seemed to suggest that he would be a “Defender of faith” more generally rather than “Defender of the Faith” when he became monarch.
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Now as supreme governor of the Church of England he is firmly committing himself to that role. But not to the exclusion of others. I’m not sure the Queen always specifically name-checked other religions in the way the King does or tried to talk so directly to those who don’t believe.
The fact he addresses everyone “whatever faith you have or whether you have none” he couldn’t be clearer that he doesn’t want anyone to feel excluded, he wants to be a King for all.
King Charles III on his way to church with the royal family. Pic: AP
A defining year for the monarchy
As we head into what will be another defining year for the monarchy that sense of reaching out and connecting will only gather pace in the lead-up to the Coronation, a moment the palace hope won’t just mark a change of reign, but showcase to the world a celebration of what Great Britain is today, a vibrant and diverse United Kingdom.
This Christmas broadcast begins that process. A message of inclusion, understanding, and empathy from a man who said he wouldn’t meddle as monarch, but still it would seem has plenty to say.
Only with time will it become clearer if in his new role it’s felt he’s saying too much and overstepping the mark.
Footage of the moment 10-year-old Sara Sharif’s alleged killers were detained after police boarded their plane back to the UK has been played in court.
As they are approached by officers, Sara‘s stepmother Beinash Batool is heard saying: “I think you’re looking for us.”
Batool, 30, Sara’s father Urfan Sharif, 42, and uncle Faisal Malik, 29, are accused of carrying out a campaign of abuse against her culminating in her death at her family home in Surrey on 8 August last year.
The defendants, along with five of Sara’s siblings, aged between one and 13, flew to Pakistan the following day.
Sara’s body was found by police in a bunkbed on 10 August after Sharif called police from Pakistan to say he had beaten her “too much” for being “naughty”.
A murder investigation was launched involving agencies including Interpol and the National Crime Agency to locate the defendants.
They returned to the UK on a flight from Dubai to Gatwick Airport on 13 September.
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‘I beat her up too much’
The clips of officers’ body-worn video shown to the jury on Friday captured the moment police boarded the plane and detained the defendants at 7.42pm, seven minutes after touchdown.
After Batool addresses the officers, Sharif, who had been sitting next to her, is asked to follow them.
The three were then taken off the plane and arrested.
Pic: Surrey Police
A post-mortem examination established Sara had sustained extensive and significant injuries over a sustained period prior to her death.
The jury heard on Friday how concerns were raised by Sara’s school about bruising on her body in June 2022 and March 2023.
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Several items seized from Sara’s home were also reviewed by the court, including a leather belt which had full DNA samples at both ends for Sara, Sharif, and Malik.
A cricket bat was also found to have Sara’s DNA profile on it, along with the DNA samples of Sharif and Malik.
Neither item had a DNA trace of Batool.
The court also reviewed the defendants’ bank accounts – both joint and separate.
All three defendants have pleaded not guilty to murder and causing or allowing the death of a child.
The trial continues.
Six teenagers have been arrested after a 13-year-old girl was found with multiple stab wounds on a roadside near Hull.
Police said she was found around 6.50am on the A63 in Hessle with “life-threatening injuries” including “lacerations to her neck, abdomen, chest and back”.
Four boys and two girls – aged between 14 and 17 – were quickly arrested in a nearby wooded area and are being questioned on suspicion of attempted murder.
Members of the public came to the girl’s aid before emergency services arrived, Humberside Police said.
Detective Superintendent Simon Vickers said they “believe the attackers knew the victim” and the circumstances are still being investigated.
“The girl remains in hospital in critical condition and her family are being supported by officers at this difficult time,” he added.
The boys arrested are aged 14, 15, 16 and 17, and the girls 14 and 15.
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Cordons are in place around a wooded area off Ferriby High Road while investigations continue.
Police said they would have an increased presence in the area over the weekend and have asked anyone with information or video to get in touch, or contact Crimestoppers anonymously.
UK
Ex-soldier Daniel Khalife tells court it was a ‘foolish idea’ to have someone with his ‘skillset’ in prison
A former soldier has told a jury his escape from Wandsworth prison to avoid being held with sex offenders and terrorists showed his “skillset”.
Daniel Khalife, 23, who was being held accused of passing secrets to Iran said he was “never a real spy” but planned a fake defection to the state following his arrest after watching American television show Homeland.
He said he wanted to be moved to a high-security unit because he was getting unwanted attention from the sex offenders on the vulnerable prisoners wing and feared a move to Belmarsh prison because, as a British soldier, terrorists wanted to kill him.
Khalife said he first wanted to “make a show” of escaping, acting suspiciously and covering himself in soot from a food delivery lorry on 21 August last year, while he was working in the prison kitchen.
He was spotted and reported to security but was “pretty shocked” when nothing happened so decided to take the “full measure,” he told the jury.
A makeshift sling. Pic: Met Police
Talking about his escape for the first time at his Woolwich Crown Court trial, Khalife told how he fashioned a makeshift sling from kitchen trousers and carabiners used by inmates to keep their possessions safe from rats.
He attached it to the Bidfood lorry on 1 September last year, to see if it would be spotted by officers at Wandsworth or other prisons on the delivery route.
“I put the two carabiners and the makeshift rope underneath the lorry,” he said.
“When I had made the decision to actually leave the prison I was going to do it properly so I tested the security not just in Wandsworth
“Strangely, over the coming days, I could see it but it wasn’t spotted in Wandsworth or any other prison.”
Then on the morning of 6 September, Khalife said he concealed himself underneath the lorry, resting his back on the sling as the lorry was searched.
“They did normal checks around with torches but they didn’t find me. After that, a governor came to the tunnel and said, ‘Have you searched the vehicle?’
“I was facing upwards. There was action around the lorry.”
Daniel Khalife joined the Army aged 16
He said that when the vehicle stopped he “came out underneath the lorry and stayed in the prone position” until the lorry moved off.
Khalife, who joined the Army aged 16 and took up a post with the Royal Signals, based in Beacons barracks, Staffordshire, said he made no attempt to leave the country and had no intention to “run away” from the charges he was facing.
He was arrested three days later on the footpath of the Grand Union Canal in Northolt, west London, after a nationwide manhunt.
Asked why he had not handed himself in after his escape, Khalife said: “I was finally demonstrating what a foolish idea it was to have someone of my skillset in prison. What use was that to anyone?”
“I accept that I left the prison and didn’t have any permission to do so,” he said. “I accept absolutely that I shouldn’t have done what I did.”
Daniel Khalife
Inspired by Homeland
The court has heard Khalife initiated contact with Iranian intelligence officers after he was told he could not pass developed vetting because his mother was born in Iran.
Khalife told MI5 he wanted to be a “double agent” and he said in court he thought he would be “congratulated” but described his arrest as like a “punch in the face”.
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Wearing a blue checked shirt and chinos, he said police were “blinded at the prospect of a successful prosecution” but he did not think being in prison would be in “the public interest”.
“I didn’t do anything that harmed our national security. I wanted to put myself in a position where I could help my country,” he said.
“I believed I could continue my work actually located in the state – the state being Iran.”
Khalife said he took inspiration from watching Homeland, starring Claire Danes and Damian Lewis, in which Americans and terrorists go undercover, on Netflix.
“I had seen one of the characters in the programme had actually falsely defected to a particular country and utilised that position to further the national security interests of that character’s country,” he said.
“The country in question, Iran, thought it was real. She did it to further the interests of her own country.”
Khalife told jurors he is a “patriot”, adding: “I do love my country. All I wanted to do was help. I never wanted to do any harm, I never did do any harm.”
He added: “It is tragic it has come to this and I would do anything to go back to my career.”
Khalife, from Kingston, southwest London, denies a charge of committing an act prejudicial to the safety or interests of the state under the Official Secrets Act between 1 May 2019 and 6 January 2022.
He has also pleaded not guilty to a charge under the Terrorism Act of eliciting information about Armed Forces personnel on 2 August 2021, perpetrating a bomb hoax on or before 2 January 2023 and escaping from prison on 6 September last year.
The trial continues.
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