King’s coronation: Why are the Crown Jewels so controversial?

Published

2 years ago

May 6, 2023

admin

The Crown Jewels have been protected at the Tower of London since the 1660s, but their history remains controversial.

Known as the nation’s treasures, the Crown Jewels consist of over 100 items and over 23,000 gemstones, the Historic Royal Palaces website says.

A significant part of the Royal Collection, the Crown Jewels includes items such as orbs, sceptres and crowns – some of which the King and Queen held and wore during the coronation at Westminster Abbey.

The Cullinan diamond – the largest diamond ever found – is just one of the many diamonds that will be in the spotlight during the coronation ceremony.

It again entered the public eye when cuts of the original diamond sat atop the royal sceptre and in Queen Camilla’s crown, where it was substituted for the even more controversial diamond, the Koh-i-noor.

Here’s a look back at its history – and why those two jewels, in particular, are so controversial.

Who was Thomas Cullinan?

Thomas Cullinan, a businessman who worked in South Africa, is known for giving his name to the largest diamond ever discovered in the country.

He moved to Johannesburg in 1887, where he first became a bricklayer and after earning some money, he found an interest in sales and business.

In 1897, Cullinan moved to Parktown, where he discovered the Premier diamond fields a year later.

Cullinan soon became the co-founder of what came to be The Transvaal Chamber of Industries – a mining-industry employer organisation.

He continued to grow in his career and in 1910, Cullinan was knighted for his work in the diamond industry.

How did the diamond end up in the UK?

According to the Cape Town Diamond Museum, the diamond was first discovered at the Premier Mine in Pretoria, South Africa, by Fedrick Wells in 1905.

The Cullinan diamond was only a fragment of an even bigger stone that was still not yet discovered – it weighed 3,106 carats (621.2 grams).

The stone was carefully sent off to England and to keep it safe, detectives from London were asked to send out replicas and decoys in public to throw off potential thieves.

After the Anglo-Boer War, the South African Transvaal government bought the diamond from Cullinan and later presented and gifted it to Britain’s King Edward VII in 1907.

What are Cullinan I and Cullinan II?

The diamond was then entrusted to what is now known as The Royal Asscher Diamond Company.

King Edward VII invited the Asscher brothers to London to discuss cutting the diamond into different pieces.

The original diamond was “the size of a human heart”, the Royal Asscher website says.

After months of careful planning and studying, it was decided that Joseph Asscher who founded the company would cleave the Cullinan into nine major stones and 96 smaller stones.

There were two diamonds amongst those that weighed the most.

These were known as the Cullinan I and Cullinan II.

Cullinan I became known as the Star of Africa and Cullinan II became known as The Lesser Star of Africa.

In 1910, after King Edward’s death, King George V had the Cullinan I and Cullinan II set in the sovereign’s sceptre and Imperial State Crown respectively.

The 96 smaller stones were given to the Asschers as their fee for cutting the diamond.

‘The diamond’s gift in 1907 was controversial’

As the royals prepare their Crown Jewels for the upcoming ceremony, the question of right and wrong surrounds them – with growing calls for the royals to return the cuts of the diamond to their homeland.

Dr Matt Graham, a senior lecturer in African history at the University of Dundee, said: “The journey of this diamond [The Cullinan] from South Africa to the monarchy is part of imperial networks, empire, and colonial rule, where resources from across the world were extracted for the benefit of Britain.

“There are demands within South Africa for reparations and the return of the gem because it is a powerful symbol of empire.”

Read more on Sky News:

After the death of Queen Elizabeth II, both the Cullinan I and II were placed on display.

While the late Queen was laid to rest, criticism arose of the late monarch for never formally apologising for Britain’s colonial past in South Africa.

And so, the Cullinan diamond remains wrapped in the timeline of colonial history, which raises the question of whether the cuts of it should return to the land where the original stone was found.

Last year, activists in South Africa also petitioned for the cuts to be returned and placed in a South African museum instead.

Professor Saul Dubow from the faculty of history at the University of Cambridge told Sky News the Cullinan diamond was controversial, but it also played a role in the dispute within “white politics”.

He said: “The diamond’s gift in 1907 was controversial, but it was principally a matter of dispute within white politics, specifically, about the gift as a gesture to win the support of the Crown and British Liberal opinion in the aftermath of the Boer War.”

Professor Dubow said the hope at the time was that “this would facilitate reconciliation between English and Dutch-speakers. Further Cullinan stones were gifted to Queen Mary by the new South African government of Louis Botha and Jan Smuts – both of whom had fought against British imperialism – on the achievement of independence from Britain in 1910.”

He continued: “Political union was indeed achieved at the cost of black South Africans. But it is hard to see a direct connection between the gift of the diamond and the loss of African rights.

“Some campaigners are now arguing that the diamond should be restored to Africa because it came out of African soil and that the colonial government had no right to give it away in the first place.

“The crown’s designation of the Cullinan as the ‘Great Star of Africa’ may thus be an unintentional hostage to fortune!”

What is the Koh-i-noor diamond and why is it controversial?

Earlier this year, Buckingham Palace released a statement confirming the Koh-i-noor diamond would not be worn by the Queen Consort.

The East India Company seized the historic treasure in 1849 when it was presented to Queen Victoria and became part of the Crown Jewels.

The Koh-i-noor diamond, also known as “Mountains of Light” in Persian, has also been the centre of controversy over the years with political and legal disputes regarding its original owner.

In 2016 the All India Human Rights and Social Justice Front, a non-governmental organisation, filed a lawsuit seeking its return.

However, Solicitor General Ranjit Kumar told India’s Supreme Court in New Delhi it was given to Queen Victoria in 1850 by a 19th-century Sikh king.

“It was given voluntarily by Ranjit Singh to the British as compensation for help in the Sikh Wars. The Koh-i-noor is not a stolen object,” he said.

But the debate of ownership and its painful past continues to this day.

A spokesman for Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party reportedly said last year – before the decision was made to remove it: “The coronation of Camilla and the use of the crown jewel Koh-i-noor brings back painful memories of the colonial past.

“Most Indians have very little memory of the oppressive past. Five to six generations of Indians suffered under multiple foreign rules for over five centuries.

“Recent occasions, like Queen Elizabeth II’s death, the coronation of the new Queen Camilla and the use of the Koh-i-noor does transport a few Indians back to the days of the British Empire in India,” he added.

The King’s Coronation

Queen Camilla was crowned with Queen Mary’s Crown – reset with cuts of the Cullinan diamond – which was originally commissioned for the coronation of Mary of Teck as Queen Consort at the coronation of King George V in 1911.

The King was crowned with the St Edward’s Crown, a solid gold crown set with precious stones. The crown weighs 2.23kg (nearly 5 lbs).

The grand event will be celebrated on Saturday 6 May 2023, across the weekend, with 2,000 guests set to attend the ceremony at Westminster Abbey.

There will also be processions, a concert, and nationwide lunches to commemorate the historic crowning ceremony.

To find out more about what’s happening across the weekend – you can see full details here.

UK

Discord hack shows dangers of online age checks as internet policing hopes put to the test

Published

3 hours ago

October 10, 2025

admin

Discord hack shows dangers of online age checks as internet policing hopes put to the test

Messaging platform Discord has said the official ID photos of around 70,000 users have been stolen by hackers.

The app, which is popular with gamers and teenagers, said the hackers targeted a firm responsible for verifying the ages of its users. Discord said its own platform was not breached.

The stolen data could include personal information, partial credit card numbers and messages with Discord’s customer service agents, the firm said.

No full credit card details, passwords or messages and activity beyond conversations with Discord customer support were leaked, it added.

Discord said it had revoked the third-party service’s access and was continuing to investigate. It said all affected users have been contacted.

“Looking ahead, we recommend impacted users stay alert when receiving messages or other communication that may seem suspicious,” it said.

Until recently, a hack like this could not have happened, because companies had no need to process and collect proofs of age.

Now, so many governments are following the UK and introducing age verification for unsuitable or pornographic content that a company like Discord has to roll out age checks for a decent portion of its 200 million active users.

It’s a bit like the way that shops have to check your age if you’re buying alcohol – only because it’s online, it comes with a lot of additional complications.

A shop, for instance, won’t keep a copy of your passport once they’ve checked your age.

And it definitely won’t keep it in a massive (yet strangely light) safe along with thousands of other passport photocopies, stored right by its front door, ready to be taken.

Online, it’s surprisingly easy to do just that.

It’s worth noting that the age verification system used by Discord wasn’t hacked itself. That system asked people to take a photo of themselves, then used software to estimate their age. Once the check was complete, the image was immediately deleted.

The problem came with the appeals part of the process, which was supplied to Discord by an as-yet-unnamed third party.

If someone thought that the age verification system had wrongly barred them from Discord they could send in a picture of their ID to prove their age. This collection of images was hacked. As a result, Discord says, more than 70,000 IDs are now in the possession of hackers.

(The hackers themselves claim that the number is much bigger – 2,185,151 photos. Discord says this is wrong and the hackers are simply trying to extort money. It’s a messy situation.)

There are ways to make age verification safer. Companies could stop storing photo ID, for instance (although then it would be impossible to know for sure if their checks were correct).

And advocates of ID cards will point out that a proper government ID could avoid the need to send pictures of your passport simply to prove your age. You’d use your digital ID instead, which would stay safely on your device.

But the best way to stop data being hacked is not to collect it in the first place.

We’re at the start of a defining test – can governments actually police the internet? Or will the measures that are supposed to make us safer actually end up making us less secure?

UK

Starmer’s found new enthusiasm for his digital ID project – but will he be able to sell it?

Published

3 hours ago

October 10, 2025

admin

Starmer's found new enthusiasm for his digital ID project - but will he be able to sell it?

One metric for the rise and fall of this government might end up being the progress of the rollout of digital ID.

The lack of a clear plan – despite the high profile announcement by the PM – means the destination still remains slightly opaque, and some cabinet ministers are sceptical.

However, the PM’s India trip suggests that there might just be a path to success, if things fall in Keir Starmer’s favour.

During his visit, Starmer met the boss of Infosys, Nandan Nilekani, who is behind the rollout of digital ID to more than 1.4 billion Indian citizens.

Afterwards, when I asked about it at the closing press conference of the India trip, he was infused by a fresh enthusiasm for the plan, not evident at the Labour gathering in Liverpool in the days after he first unveiled it.

Below is what he said to me, transcribed in full.

But as you read it, notice how the PM’s explanation and justification for this scheme – which will be one of the biggest projects this government undertakes if it does happen – centres around convenience for citizens and makes no mention of the case originally used for it – to combat illegal migration.

Politics latest – follow live

Starmer told me: “We did discuss [digital ID] yesterday. And in particular, the benefits that it has brought in India.

“We’ve obviously also looked at other countries – Estonia, for example. The speed with which it allows citizens here to access services, particularly financial services, is something that was recognised in our discussions yesterday and actually at the fintech discussion that we had today, as well.

“So, we’re looking at those examples of how digital ID helps individuals, with the processes that sometimes take too long and are too cumbersome, and makes it easier for them.”

The answer is clear: the prime minister now puts personal convenience as the top justification.

While Starmer was locked in the Fintech summit, we visited Mumbai University to gauge opinion on digital ID, which has rolled out across India over the past 10 to 15 years.

We asked students as they could traditionally have been thought to be one of the more cautious groups in society towards a project which involves state intrusion into the lives of individuals.

Among all the people that we talked to – and you can watch our video at the top of this page – there was a recognition of privacy concerns, worries about data leaks, and uncertainty about how some of the information might be used.

But every single person we stopped and talked to about it was nevertheless enthusiastically in favour – and said it had made their lives simpler and more efficient.

The net benefits of this scheme had landed with the Indian citizens we spoke to.

The engagement from Infosys is also significant after the boss of Palantir, a rival tech company, gave the idea of a UK digital ID scheme a comprehensive shellacking last week.

For a moment, it looked like the corporate world might be pulling back from the scheme – so the engagement of a massive multinational corporation has come at just the right moment.

None of which is to downplay the obstacles.

In a bizarre move, the Home Office appears to have been allowed to swerve responsibility for the project, which has gone instead to Liz Kendall’s Department of Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT), which does not yet have any track record of major delivery.

One DSIT aide said that the young average age of staff at the newly formed department is an advantage, a claim which seems somewhat doubtful.

So, Whitehall may tie itself up in knots over this project. Or, it might turn out that India’s cultural norms simply make it an easier place to roll out a scheme like this.

But on the basis of our enquiries, there is the potential case for a scheme that can be sold to a willing public.

UK

‘The time is now to stop Reform’ – Plaid Cymru calls on Labour voters to unite behind Welsh nationalists

Published

3 hours ago

October 10, 2025

admin

'The time is now to stop Reform' - Plaid Cymru calls on Labour voters to unite behind Welsh nationalists

One party has held court over Welsh politics for more than a century.

Welsh Labour MPs have been the largest group sent to Westminster in every general election since 1922 – and the party has been in government in the country for more than a quarter of a century.

But if the polls are accurate, Labour’s long-standing grip on politics in Wales is fading.

Politics latest – follow live

Plaid Cymru and Reform UK are running almost neck and neck, while Labour trails significantly. A recent YouGov poll put Plaid Cymru on 30%, Reform UK on 29% and Labour at 14%.

Plaid Cymru, heading into its conference this weekend, can sense the mood for change in Wales – and intends to show it is ready for government.

The party hopes to capitalise on disillusioned Labour voters feeling let down by their party under Sir Keir Starmer, and use this to tackle the rise of Reform – which is key to getting it into power.

In his leader’s speech, Rhun ap Iorwerth is expected to position Plaid Cymru as Wales’s progressive force, and the only party capable of taking on Reform.

He will say: “We’re not here to act as Labour’s conscience. We are not here to repair Labour. We are here to replace them.

“If you’ve never voted for Plaid Cymru before, the time is now.

“The time is now to stop Reform and elect a government more radical, more ambitious, more impatient to bring about positive change than any which has gone before it. A government of progress and of progressive values.”

One in five Labour voters in Wales intend to back Plaid Cymru at the Senedd elections in 2026, according to YouGov. But almost a quarter of Labour voters remain undecided on who to endorse.

The topic of independence will no doubt be a contentious issue for voters who are angry about decisions made by Labour in Wales and Westminster, but do not want an independent Wales.

Mr ap Iorwerth has ruled out an independence referendum if Plaid Cymru wins next year’s elections, signalling that he doesn’t want the campaign to centre on independence.

Throughout the conference, Plaid Cymru will position itself as ready to govern. But voters will expect clear plans for the NHS, education, and the economy. The question for the party, both during this conference and over the coming months, will be whether its proposals can win over Labour voters in its quest to beat Reform.

But Plaid Cymru’s challenge to Nigel Farage’s party faces a critical test sooner than May. Instead, its next battle will be in the Caerphilly Senedd by-election on 23 October.

Historically a Labour stronghold at both Senedd and Westminster levels, Caerphilly has consistently returned Labour representatives, with Plaid Cymru as the main opposition at Senedd elections.

However, this election introduces a new dynamic, as Reform has emerged as a credible challenger, poised to disrupt the traditional two-party contest.

Coming second at this election won’t be a total loss for Plaid Cymru.

If it can come second at the by-election, it will prove the point Mr ap Iorwerth will be making at the conference in Swansea: that his party is the only credible anti-Reform vote.

The full list of candidates standing at the Caerphilly by-election: