Andrew always denied the allegations – but the repeated accusations would not go away.

And his associations risked real reputational damage to the royal family.

His friendship with convicted paedophile Jeffrey Epstein, his dealings with an alleged Chinese spy, and then the posthumous publication of his accuser, Virginia Giuffre’s memoir.

Her family said she brought down a British prince with her truth and extraordinary courage.

The piling pressure was starting to overshadow the work of Andrew’s wider family. And with the Prince of Wales soon heading to Brazil for his Earthshot award, enough was enough.

We understand the Royal Family, including Prince William backed the King’s leadership on this matter.

The King made the decisions, his family supported them.

Andrew will leave Royal Lodge, his large home on the Windsor estate. His ex-wife, Sarah Ferguson, who also lived there, will “make her own arrangements”.

It was their family home for many years. Both daughters, Princess Beatrice and Princess Eugenie, who grew up there, will keep their titles.

As for Andrew, he will soon move to Sandringham – the King’s private Norfolk estate – where the family traditionally gathers for Christmas; and he will be funded privately by the King.

Read more:
Andrew allegations should be examined in ‘fullest ways’

This is all a formal process carried out in consultation with official authorities, but the government supports the decision taken.

This will not have been easy for the King, but he knew he could not ignore public opinion. The criticism and anger directed at Andrew was never going to stop – and only he had the power to take the ultimate action against his own brother.

For years, Andrew enjoyed the perks and privileges of his powerful position, but his birthright could not withstand withering public disdain.

And now he’s paid the ultimate price.

Corridor care in Britain’s hospitals is a “crisis in plain sight”, a charity has warned, with patients complaining of long waits and warzone-like conditions.

An Age UK report describes “truly shocking” incidents of elderly people waiting days for care, including them hearing and seeing others dying as they wait.

According to the latest figures for England, 75% of patients were seen within four hours in A&Es in September.

But the number of people waiting more than 12 hours from the decision to admit to actually being admitted – known as “corridor care” – stood at 44,765, a jump from 35,909 in August.

Describing her experience, a 79-year-old woman from south London told Age UK: “The corridors were lined with patients on trolleys, hooked up to drips, some moaning in pain.

“It reminded me of war films, with queues of stretchers and people suffering.”

Others spoke of “puddles of urine” on the floor as immobile patients are unable to go to the toilet – and patients being forced to use bedpans in corridors.

The report raises concerns that poor quality care “is now almost expected” in some A&E departments and warns the situation could “get worse” as the NHS heads into winter.

One person said her friend’s mother was left waiting “ages when she was having a heart attack, and died before receiving any care”.

Read more from Sky News:
Ofgem to wipe millions of debt with slight increase to bills
Data centre giant announces £4bn British investment

Age UK said many patients are now unwilling to go to A&E, even if they are in a life-threatening situation.

It called on the government to “urgently” tackle corridor care, with specific deadlines for ending long waits, as it warned older people have been disproportionately affected.

Responding to the criticism, health minister Karin Smyth told Sky News: “The stories in this report are heartbreaking.

“No one should receive care in a corridor – it’s unacceptable, undignified, and we are determined to end it.

“To tackle a problem, you’ve got to be honest about it. For the first time, the NHS will measure and publish the number of patients waiting in corridors.”

The government is investing £450m to build same-day urgent and emergency care centres, buy 500 new ambulances, build 40 new mental health crisis centres, and give NHS leaders on the ground more power to deliver local solutions.

Ms Smyth also urged people to get vaccinated, as flu season has arrived weeks earlier than usual.

Repeated delays to the UK’s multibillion-pound F-35 fast jet programme, because of a lack of cash, has increased costs and harmed the plane’s ability to fight, a report by MPs has said.

Exacerbating the problem, an “unacceptable” shortage of pilots and engineers is limiting how often the aircraft can fly, the Public Accounts Committee revealed.

It also raised questions about a major announcement by Sir Keir Starmer in June that the UK would purchase a variant of the aircraft that is able to carry American nuclear weapons, saying there did not appear to be a timeframe for when this capability would be operational nor an estimate of the additional price tag.

The strong criticism will likely make uncomfortable reading for Air Chief Marshal Sir Richard Knighton, Britain’s new military chief. He was previously the head of the Royal Air Force and before that the top military officer at the Ministry of Defence (MoD) in charge of capability.

The UK only has 37 out of a planned 138 F-35 jets in service – almost four decades since the programme, led by the US, was conceived and nearly a quarter of a century since Britain initially started paying tens of billions of pounds for it.

The aircraft are among the most advanced, stealthy and lethal jets on the planet, provided they have the right technology, weapons and – crucially – software updates.

A persistent squeeze on UK defence budgets, though, means military chiefs developed a bad habit of slowing down the F-35 procurement and scrimping on orders to save money in the short term – only for taxpayers to be hit with a much larger bill overall and for the RAF and the navy’s Fleet Air Arm to be left with jets that are unable to meet their full potential.

The Public Accounts Committee laid bare the impact of this behaviour, highlighting five key issues:

One:

A short-term cost-saving decision by the MoD in 2021 to save £82m by delaying an investment in what is known as an Air Signature Assessment Facility – which is vital for the F-35’s stealth capabilities to fly undetected – will add an extra £16m when it is finally built in 2032.

More worryingly, this limits the UK’s ability to deploy the jets.

Two:

A cost-saving move to delay by six years building infrastructure for the naval squadron that operates the F-35 jets means the cost for that construction will almost treble to £154m from £56m.

Three:

A failure by the MoD to accurately update the total acquisition cost of the F-35s.

The department only this year said the whole-life cost until 2069 to acquire a total of 138 aircraft will be almost £57bn – up from £18.4bn for the first 48 jets out until 2048.

But even the new higher price tag was dismissed by the MPs as “unrealistic” – because it does not include additional costs such as fuel.

Four:

The current fleet of F-35B jets will not be armed with conventional missiles to hit targets on the land from a safe distance until the early 2030s.

This is a critical capability in modern warfare when operating against a country like Russia that has sophisticated air defence weapons that can blast jets in range out of the sky.

Five:

The military will claim its F-35B jump jets have met “full operating capability” by the end of the year – a timeline that is already years late – even though they do not have the long-range missiles and are blighted by other woes.

A ‘leaky roof’ mistake

Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown MP, the committee chair, said: “Making short-term cost decisions is famously inadvisable if you’re a homeowner with a leaky roof, let alone if one is running a complex fighter jet programme – and yet such decisions have been rife in the management of the F-35.”

The UK’s existing F-35Bs are designed to fly off the Royal Navy’s two aircraft carriers.

The nuclear weapons-capable A-variant only operate off the land.

The MoD has said it will purchase an additional 15 F-35Bs and 12 of the As at an anticipated cost of £3.2bn.

However, there is no estimate yet of the cost to certify the F-35As to join a NATO mission, carrying American nuclear warheads.

Read more:
Can UK’s new air defence missile systems protect us?

The MPs said they were told work on becoming certified to operate with US nuclear weapons “is at an early stage and the department did not provide any indication of forecast costs”.

‘Very complacent’

The report flagged concerns about personnel shortages and how that impacted the availability of the few F-35s the UK does operate.

This included the need for an extra 168 engineers – a 20% increase in the current workforce and a shortfall that “will take several years to resolve”, the MPs said.

Making the recruitment and retention dilemma even worse is “substandard” accommodation at RAF Marham, which has been the home for the F-35 force since 2013. This has again been caused by budget shortfalls, meaning insufficient funds to invest in infrastructure.

The MoD said some upgrades would be completed by 2034. The Public Account Committee said this “is very complacent and should be given greater priority”.

An MoD spokesperson said: “Many of the decisions referenced in the report were taken under the previous government, and we have set out plans to tackle historic issues with procurement, infrastructure, recruitment, and skills through the Strategic Defence Review.”