The resignation of a Bromley councillor filmed saying King Charles was a “traitorous” secret Muslim who should be beheaded has brought fresh attention to the conspiracy theory.

Dean Miller’s baseless remarks, recorded during ITV News’ undercover investigation into Reform UK, follow decades of claims that the monarch, and head of the Church of England, is actually a stealth Muslim who intends to dismantle the country’s Christian identity.

When did the rumours start?
The origins of the theory that Charles secretly converted to Islam are hard to trace, but many point to a book published in 1996, called “The Riddle and the Knight: In Search of Sir John Mandeville”. Author Giles Milton quoted the Grand Mufti of Cyprus saying that the then Prince of Wales had become a Muslim during a visit to Turkey.

The claim caused a huge stir in the British press, at a time when Charles was already deeply unpopular with the public after his divorce and adultery. Buckingham Palace broke with its normal convention of not commenting on speculation to dismiss the book’s assertions as “nonsense”.

What is the King’s history with Islam?
Charles is known to have studied the Koran. In 2013, he had six months of private Arabic lessons. He’s long demonstrated a devout Anglicanism, but he is also interested in theological scholarship that argues that “all the great religions share universal truths”, said Middle East Eye. Charles has praised Islam for its view of the universe, nature and spirituality, and said that the West is in debt to Islamic scholars.

Why has the conspiracy gained traction?
The King has often spoken of the cultural strengths of classical Islam, but to claim that means he’s a Muslim is almost the “dictionary definition of deranged”, said vicar Marcus Walker in The Critic. Yet the theory is “increasingly being made across social media”, and, shockingly, at “polite dinner parties and on the fringes of academic conferences”.

Last week, during a state banquet for Oman’s Sultan Haitham bin Tariq at Windsor Castle, the King quoted a hadith, a saying of the Prophet Muhammad, in Arabic. A clip of his recitation has since gone viral on social media, adding more fuel to the far-right conspiracy.

A 17th-century Dutch mutineer who inspired hit TV show “The Traitors” could have been the world’s first “corporate psychopath”, a new study has claimed.  Jeronimus Cornelisz was put in charge of about 200 survivors after the Batavia, a merchant vessel run by the Dutch East India Company, ran aground off the west coast of Australia in 1629.

After senior officers set off to seek help in what is now Jakarta, Cornelisz divided the remaining survivors into factions, playing them off against each other. He “quickly installed loyalists on a ruling council, demanded oaths of allegiance and isolated potential opponents”, said The Times. Over the next two months, “his henchmen drowned, strangled, hacked or bludgeoned to death up to 115 men, women and children”. Cornelisz justified the killings as a way of conserving food and supplies, but after a rescue ship arrived, he and six accomplices were condemned to death.

‘World’s first psychopathic boss’
A new study published in the Asian Journal of Business Ethics says Cornelisz displayed all 10 core characteristics associated with psychopathic business leaders. Clive Boddy of Anglia Ruskin University, who conducted the research, said Cornelisz followed the “same playbook we see in toxic workplaces today”. The 30-year-old apothecary-turned-merchant “removed opponents, rewarded loyalists, created fear, manipulated followers and pursued power at any cost”. To put it another way, he was “world’s first psychopathic boss”, said The Telegraph.

From Cornelisz to The Traitors
The story of Cornelisz and the Batavia inspired Jasper Hoogendoorn to produce Dutch TV show “De Verraders” (The Traitors), on which the hit UK series is based. “It’s a story about people who murder each other, backstab each other, betray each other,” he told the Edinburgh TV Festival in 2023. It’s “horrible” but “fascinating” and “also exciting”. That’s where “the whole idea” to create the show came from.

Hoogendoorn said the Dutch show was initially going to be called “The Mutineers” and take place on a replica ship, with contestants pushed into the sea when voted out. But that proved too costly for producers, so the decision was made to change the location to a castle – while keeping the idea of mutiny.

A man tends to graves at a cemetery in the Filipino city of Antipolo ahead of All Souls’ Day on Monday. Millions of people nationwide travel to their hometowns for Undas, an annual religious tradition in which families pay tribute to their ancestors through prayers and offerings.

Ryan Eduard Benaid / ZUMA Press Wire / Shutterstock

Lincolnshire: Northorpe Hall, Northorpe
This is a remarkable Grade II, Norman-revival mansion with magnificent, ornate interiors and a wealth of gothic detailing. The property is set in approx. 6.5 acres of gardens and rolling parkland. 8 beds, 6 baths, kitchen/ breakfast room, 7 receps, garden, outbuildings, utility, 2 climatecontrolled kennels, plus garaging for up to ten cars.£2.25 million; Strutt & Parker.

Gloucestershire: East Folly, Gotherington
Picturesque Grade II, 19th century house, with gothicstyle mullioned windows and far-reaching views, set on the edge of a village. 2 suites, 2 further beds, family bath, kitchen, 3 receps, garden, parking. £875,000; Savills.

Worcestershire: Bretforton Hall, Bretforton
An eye-catching Grade II white stucco gothic house set in approx. 2 acres of landscaped gardens and grounds in the heart of the village. 6 beds, 5 baths, kitchen/breakfast room, 6 receps, garden, parking. £2.3 million; Morgan Aps.

East Sussex: The Clock House, St Leonards-on-Sea
Striking and secluded Grade II* gothic revival building designed by the architect James Burton, and set close to the sea. 4 beds, 2 baths, kitchen, 3 receps, garden, parking. £2 million; Strutt & Parker.

Suffolk: Bacton Grange, Bacton
Elegant and imposing Victorian house nestled within grounds of approx. 6.5 acres, comprising sweeping lawns, mature specimen trees and a picturesque pond bordered by weeping willows. 11 beds, 3 baths, kitchen/dining room, 8 receps, garden, tennis court, outdoor pool, pool house, outbuildings, parking. £2.3 million; David Burr.

My Ring doorbell was useful. Now it’s amplifying pure paranoia
Harry Wallop in The Times
My Amazon Ring is “genuinely useful” when I need to tell a delivery driver where to leave a parcel, writes Harry Wallop. But I’m less keen on a new Neighbours feature that is, essentially, a platform to “broadcast every curtain-twitching conjecture”. Simply “glance” at “the flurry of warnings pinging onto my phone” and you’d think my neighbourhood “is a hotbed of crime”. Amazon wants to “enhance social cohesion”, but you don’t do that by “giving a megaphone” to “the paranoid and suspicious”.

AI is making us write worse – but not for the reason you think
Jemima Lewis in The Telegraph
“Before AI,” writes Jemima Lewis, “semi-colons were almost extinct.” If you used them, you were a “grammatical sophisticate”, but “now, it just makes you look like a cheat”. This raises a “weird dilemma” for professional writers: should we “pretend to be less literate” in order to “be believed”? Fortunately, another “hallmark” of AI is “its tendency towards guff”. It’s “incorrigibly verbose, producing hundreds of words where ten would do”. We must all learn to spot this, or “the robots will take all the prizes”.

Everything is going wrong for Muhammad bin Salman
The Economist’s editorial board
This is an “annus horribilis” for Saudi’s crown prince, says The Economist. Muhammad bin Salman’s “Saudi Vision” plan has “all gone awry at once”, scuppered by Houthi attacks, feeble foreign investment and an unreliable Donald Trump. The Saudi leader has made “laudable strides” on liberalising society, but with an economy still dependent “on oil money”, an army “built to protect the regime rather than wage war”, and a foreign policy over-reliant on US protection, MBS must transform “the foundations” of his kingdom, “not just the façade”.