MPs will put the Crown Estate under the microscope as questions mount over the renting arrangements of the royal family. The Public Accounts Committee (PAC) has announced an inquiry following the public outcry over the revelation that Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor paid a “peppercorn rent” for more than 20 years for his vast Royal Lodge mansion at Windsor.

What are MPs looking into?
The committee will investigate the Crown Estate, an independent commercial business that manages an extensive portfolio of land and developments owned by the monarch. Its origins can be traced back to the time of the Norman Conquest. The inquiry, which will begin next year, will consider leases given to members of the royal family, as well as wider work based on analysis of the estate’s annual accounts. 

What are royal rents?
Instead of paying annual rent for his “sprawling 30-room Windsor mansion”, said the BBC, Andrew made “large lump-sum payments up front”, including for renovations, and had a rental agreement described as a “peppercorn”. Under such a deal, a “small sum such as £1” can be paid every year on a long lease, as part of a legal arrangement between a tenant and the landlord. “In this case, there was no payment at all.”

How much do other royals pay?
According to the terms of Prince Edward’s lease extension, signed in 2007 with his company Eclipse Nominees Limited, he paid £5 million upfront for a lease of 150 years on his Surrey mansion, but now pays only a peppercorn rent, said The Times. Campaigners have “questioned” whether Edward, who is 15th in line to the throne, can “justify his occupation” of a property that could otherwise be leased by the Crown Estate for the benefit of taxpayers.

The late Queen’s cousin Princess Alexandra has a rent arrangement for Thatched House Lodge, in “sought-after” Richmond Park, that is “complicated” and “involves two leases”, said the Daily Mail. But “taken together” she appears to pay “around £225 a month”.

William and Kate reportedly pay “market rent” on their new home, Forest Lodge in the Windsor estate, which is estimated to cost them between £32,000 and £100,000 a month.

Netflix’s $72 billion deal to take control of Warner Bros Discovery could put the streaming giant a step closer to its own Hollywood ending – with a Best Picture Oscar win – but at what cost to the quality and variety of Tinseltown’s output?

WBD has “hailed the deal as a new chapter for the over 100-year-old studio”, said The Telegraph, but “in reality, it signals the company’s failure to adapt to the digital age”. The prospective deal represents a “major reshaping of the US media landscape”, where traditional studios are being picked off by the “tech bros”.

‘Silicon Valley’s grasp’
With the fall of WBD, which has been through multiple deals and mergers, Disney and Universal are the only major studios to have eluded “Silicon Valley’s grasp”.

The appeal of WBD to Netflix is clear, said The New York Times. HBO, in particular, represents something that Netflix craves: “prestige”. The network has been “piling up Emmys” with global smashes such as “Succession”, “The White Lotus” and “Euphoria”. Even with a “significantly smaller budget and far fewer programmes”, the consistent quality of HBO’s television shows is something that Netflix has “struggled to match”.

If it goes through, this deal will “reshape the business, end the streaming wars” and “likely bring another culture clash”, said Deadline. Since its inception, Netflix has “disrupted” the film industry by “changing viewing habits” and this promises to be no different.

‘Generic background viewing’
“Tech has swallowed up American entertainment for good,” said Slate. MGM has been acquired by Amazon, Disney is a “giant bundle of streamers”, and YouTube wields “enough clout to shake down older TV giants”. This could signal a major decline in quality, as the potential monopoly expands. “Prestige titles” could give way to “generic background viewing”, as high-level creativity reduces to “slop factories”. Now that it has taken over WBD, Netflix will “denigrate” its quality, while “swallowing up another formidable competitor. Congrats to us all.”

On the flip side, this could be the end of cinema altogether. Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarandos (pictured above) is “definitely, and infamously, bearish” on the viability of the traditional film-attending experience. Instead, he prefers shorter, more “exclusive” film openings “that go just long enough to qualify their titles for the Oscars”.

People sing and dance in Umayyad Square in Damascus as Syria marks the first anniversary of the overthrow of Bashar al-Assad. President Ahmed al-Sharaa today vowed to “rebuild a strong Syria with a structure befitting its present and its past”.

Chris McGrath / Getty Images

“Here’s a tip: don’t use the term ‘British wine’ unless you really know what it means,” said Susy Atkins in The Telegraph. When talking about “home-grown grapes”, the distinction between English and Welsh wine is important.

Despite dealing with a “rollercoaster of variable harvests”, the summer of 2025 – the hottest on record for Wales – is expected to produce more complex wines and could mark a “turning point in recognition of Welsh wines”. The country is home to 56 registered commercial vineyards, mainly in South Wales, that often send their fruit “across the English border” to Gloucestershire’s Three Choirs and Staffordshire’s Halfpenny Green for fermentation. But Welsh producers including White Castle Vineyard “have recently built their own in-house wineries”.

Although not “well-known”, the solaris grape is “proving a mainstay” for Welsh wineries. “Early-ripening” and “disease-resistant”, it produces “quaffable, brightly fruity whites”. On the premium end, sparkling wines made using the “traditional champagne method” and “long-aged” champagne grapes, also show “impressive” promise. The sparkling wines yielded from 2025’s harvest “should be top-notch”, and it’s worth keeping an eye out for experimental pét nats (pétillant naturel wines) and orange wines, too.

Welsh reds are “improving by leaps and bounds” too, said Jane MacQuitty in The Times. This year is being “trumpeted” as the “best still red vintage yet”, thanks to the “exceptionally warm spring and long sunny summer”, which resulted in “fully ripe grapes”.

As for bottles to try, said Atkins in The Telegraph, Velfrey Vintage’s Welsh 2020 sparkling wine is an “elegant trad-method sparkler” that delivers the “whistle-clean” acidity of any seyval with “light toastiness” and “succulent” notes of “pear, quince and apricot”.

The Liz Truss Show – the worst thing to hit YouTube in its 20 years
 Imogen West-Knights in The Independent
If only we could “quietly put” Liz Truss’ 49 days as PM “into the memory hole and leave it there”, writes Imogen West-Knights. “Alas. She’s back” – with “her own YouTube show”. It looks “extraordinarily cheap” and her words are “delivered with the charm of a wet towel”. It’s not “going to have a wide appeal”: “if you’re into small boats rhetoric or handwringing” about birth rates, there are “so many more eloquent nutters” to “pick from”.

Wes Streeting isn’t the solution. He’s the problem
Tim Stanley in The Telegraph
Our health secretary “is catnip to anyone with a photo of Tony Blair in their wallet”, writes Tim Stanley, because “he is good at interviews and a little bit right-wing”. But would putting him “in charge” solve anything? “Wes, undeniably, is a better salesman” of Labour policies, “but until he sets out” some “radically different, pro-growth ideas”, he “wouldn’t be changing the product itself”. And he would be “as much” a “prisoner” of “militant backbenchers” as Keir Starmer.

The joy of receiving Christmas cards – even from people I loathe
Druin Burch in The Spectator
Seeing the “pen strokes” of my friends has “grown rare”, writes Druin Burch. “But for a brief period each winter, that odd intimacy returns” as Christmas cards drop on my doormat. “I adore receiving cards. Even ones from people I cordially dislike, or frankly loathe.” These festive greetings “remind us that our existence matters, even to those we last met a continent or a lifetime away”, and that scrawled signature is “proof that we still lodge in each other’s thoughts”.