Vladimir Putin has secured a huge victory in Russia’s “pseudo-election”, says BBC News, with exit polls suggesting he has beaten his Kremlin-approved “opponents” with a record 87% of the vote. European Council president Charles Michel was the first to offer his congratulations – he sarcastically hailed Putin’s “landslide victory” on Friday, as soon as polling booths opened. Rishi Sunak has urged Tory backbenchers to stick with him, says The Daily Telegraph, amid speculation about a potential leadership challenge. Rumours have been swirling in Westminster that some Conservative MPs are lining up Commons leader Penny Mordaunt to replace the PM before the next election. A state of emergency has been declared in southern Iceland after yet another volcanic flare-up. Lava fountains burst out of the ground near the Blue Lagoon by the town of Grindavik on Saturday, in what is thought to be the most powerful eruption on the Reykjanes Peninsula since December.

Millionaire donors cast a shadow over our politics

The French author François de La Rochefoucauld wrote that God invented sex to “place Man in embarrassing positions”, says Will Lloyd in The Times. “The Almighty might have had the same thing in mind for the Conservative party when He came up with millionaire donors.” The latest “human ATM” to make life awkward is Frank Hester, who got embroiled in a racism row last week over old remarks about Diane Abbott. But he’s hardly alone. Peering around the ballroom at a recent party fundraiser you would have seen: an Egyptian billionaire who served in the autocratic government of Hosni Mubarak; a pair of brothers facing a serious investigation by HMRC; and a Lebanese businessman who recently bragged to Boat International magazine that his life resembled The Wolf of Wall Street.

And this isn’t unique to the Tories. In 2023, Labour received £13m from rich individuals and companies, including supermarket magnates, a “hippy millionaire who owns the world’s first all-vegan football club”, and a virtually unknown South African tycoon. It’s easy to forget that the major scandals of the New Labour era – when Peter Mandelson happily declared he was “intensely relaxed about people getting filthy rich as long as they pay their taxes” – were all to do with party funding. Until the rules change, perhaps with a cap on donations, dodgy sorts seeking undue influence will continue to plague both parties. Only a fool would think Keir Starmer is any less susceptible than Rishi Sunak. “Moral sanctimony comes naturally to Labour”, but when it comes to dodgy donors, “the only difference between them and the Conservatives is the colour of the branding”.

🏎🚬 One of the biggest party funding scandals was over Tony Blair’s dealings with Bernie Ecclestone, says Anthony Seldon in the FT. The Formula One supremo gave Labour £1m before the 1997 general election – and the party subsequently announced that F1 would be exempt from its ban on tobacco advertising. After considerable public outrage, “the donation was returned”.

Staff at the bank that owns the insurance company Scottish Widows have been advised not to use the word “widows” because it might be triggering for women who have lost their spouse. In the new guidance on “inclusive language”, which was based on suggestions submitted by employees, Lloyds labelled the term “unnecessarily vivid”, and suggested people say “separated” instead.

This video of a dog leaping for a frisbee at a competition has been viewed almost nine million times on X. As the user who posted it said: “Eyes on the prize.”

Who’d want to be a modern royal?

People are always debating whether we should abolish the monarchy, says Tim Stanley in The Daily Telegraph. Frankly, the way we treat the royals, I wouldn’t be surprised if they “abolish themselves”. Princess Catherine’s illness should have been met with “sympathy and privacy”. Instead, her public absence sparked all manner of preposterous rumours, and her “lightly tweaked” family photo has been analysed “more times by more fantasists than the JFK Zapruder film”. In 2013, the late Hilary Mantel wrote an essay mocking “perfect” Kate for being “designed by a committee” to rescue the Windsor brand. It was a mean piece, but Mantel was bang on the money in one respect. “The royal body,” she said, “exists to be looked at.”

Being a royal has become an impossible job. They have to be “word perfect but unscripted; exotic but down to earth; classy yet modest”. They can never respond to their critics or go on strike. And they do all this knowing it’s just “theatre”. We put a crown on the king’s head, in a “display of divinely approved hierarchy”, and then whisper: “Remember dear fellow, this is just for show.” With Charles and Kate ill, and Andrew and Harry out of the picture, the royal family is undergoing a severe labour shortage. Poor old Princess Anne – “a woman of such conscience and endurance that she won’t just be on time for her own funeral, she’ll cut the ribbon” – has been left to “open every supermarket from Land’s End to John o’Groats”. How long before they all call it quits and “make podcasts instead”?

In a glass case deep in the Vatican archives is the original 1530 letter sent by British nobles urging Pope Clement VII to grant Henry VIII an annulment so he could marry Anne Boleyn. The only reason it has survived, retiring chief archivist Bishop Sergio Pagano tells Associated Press, is that when Napoleon sacked the Vatican archives in 1810 and carted the contents off to Paris, the then-chief archivist took the letter, rolled it up, and hid it in a secret drawer in a chair in the archive’s antechamber.

It’s Queen Camilla Barbie, says Sky News. The royal was presented with the tiny version of herself – wearing an identical outfit – for her work as president of the Women of the World Foundation, at an event marking International Women’s Day. “You’ve taken about 50 years off my life,” said the Queen. “We should all have a Barbie.”