Charles and family cancel engagements following election announcement – live

Buckingham Palace has announced that King Charles will not attend any upcoming events that could “distract” from the general election campaign.

He will, however, still attend major events including the D-Day commemorations and the ongoing series of garden parties at Buckingham Palace will be unaffected.

It has been reported that all upcoming engagements will now be reviewed on a case-by-case basis in light of yesterday’s general election announcement.

The change comes after the King made it clear that he wanted to throw himself back into public life after he was forced to step back earlier this year following his cancer diagnosis.

He has been so keen to work that he attended five events in 48 hours last week.

Rishi Sunak revealed he spoke with the King on Wednesday to inform him of his decision to have a general election, and the King had agreed to the request for the dissolution of Parliament.

The Palace said Charles met Mr Sunak in person at Buckingham palace in London on Wednesday afternoon, following Charles’ Prince’s Trust Awards engagement.

They spent around 15 minutes together in the King‘s private audience room, in place of their normal weekly meeting on Wednesday evening.

The King, who is still undergoing treatment for cancer, has carried out a flurry of engagements since restarting public appearances in April and now has a number of duties ahead of him after the Prime Minister announced his plan for the country to go to the polls.

Heir to the throne the Prince of Wales has also pulled out of a day of previously unannounced engagements for Thursday, after Kensington Palace received updated guidance from Buckingham Palace following the announcement of the general election.

The Royal National Lifeboat Institution garden party on Thursday, marking the 200th anniversary of the lifesaving charity, will still go ahead, with thousands of guests set to descend on the Palace.

Charles, who has only just returned to public-facing duties after his cancer diagnosis, and Camilla never were due to attend the outdoor gathering.

But the King‘s public engagements for the rest of the week are now off – including a visit to Crewe on Friday to tour a Bentley factory and a community centre which supports people struggling financially, and another as yet-not publicly announced event that was due to happen elsewhere on Thursday.

It is understood the move is not a blanket approach to future events, and engagements will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis.

Both paintings, which are abstract in their own ways, received mixed reactions online.

The exhibition celebrates over 100 years of royal portrait photography and features previously unseen images.

The royal family has postponed engagements “which may appear to divert attention or distract from the election campaign” after Rishi Sunak called a surprise summer General Election.

Buckingham Palace said the King and Queen sent their “sincere apologies” to those affected, after Charles agreed on Wednesday to the Prime Minister’s request to dissolve Parliament for an election – for the first time in his reign.

The King and Queen’s D-Day 80th anniversary appearances in Portsmouth and Normandy in June are expected to go ahead as scheduled, but the announcement of a 4 July vote disrupted other events in the carefully planned forthcoming royal diaries.

A Buckingham Palace spokesperson said: “Following the Prime Minister’s statement this afternoon calling a General Election, the royal family will, in accordance with normal procedure, postpone engagements that may appear to divert attention or distract from the election campaign.

“Their Majesties send their sincere apologies to any of those who may be affected as a result.”

Declan Donnelly “broke” royal protocol when he told King Charles why Ant McPartlin was not present at today’s reception for Prince’s Trust award winners.

“I don’t know whether I broke royal protocol by giving that information,” he laughed.

Hemp, 23, was made an MBE at Windsor Castle today for her services to football, having served on England’s Lionesses team when they emerged victorious at the 2022 women’s European Championship.

“It was nerve-wracking, to be honest,” she told PA News Agency.

“We sat in a room and we got taught how to curtsy and what we needed to do to greet the prince, and I think just standing there and seeing him and being the next one to go was pretty scary.

“I managed to do my first-ever curtsy.”

The footballer, who also plays for Manchester, said they had a “really good” conversation about the sport.

“He’s really interested in football which is obviously great,” she said.

Sonia Boyce was made a dame at Windsor Castle today (22 May) after becoming the first black woman to be elected to the Royal Academy of Arts.

While accepting the honour, she took the opportunity to praise the arts as being “integral to everyday life”.

She told PA News Agency: “It’s (the damehood) a recognition of work that not only myself have done but has been done over the decades to just acknowledge and, I suppose, reward the contributions that many have done.

“So I feel very privileged – slightly shocked still – to be in this position and also to be an advocate for the arts.

“We so need that at the moment – the arts are just incredible, they’re not an add on, they’re integral to everyday life.

“The arts is really about if you’ve got something to say, or you’re envisaging something you’re in a dialogue with everybody about it, and so it really is about ‘Come and take part, come and add to the conversation, come and dream your dreams’.”