Prince Charles will grant Southend city status TODAY following death of MP Sir David Amess 

Prince Charles warned in a speech today that the values of democracy are ‘under attack’ in Ukraine in the ‘most unconscionable way’ – as he blasted Vladimir Putin’s ‘path of violence’ for causing ‘appalling suffering and devastation’.

The Prince of Wales made the comments as he officially made Southend-on-Sea a city on Tuesday following a years-long campaign by the late MP Sir David Amess – who was stabbed to death by a terrorist last year. 

During his speech, the future King of England said he ‘stands in solidarity’ with the citizens of Ukraine as he lauded Sir David for his dedication to the ‘values which underpin the society we share’.  

He said: ‘We can only hope that those who are too often cynically dismissive of those in public life will look at his example of service.

‘No one could have given more for the values which underpin the society we share, values which appear all the more precious, at this present time, when we see more starkly than for many years, the appalling suffering and devastation caused when the path of violence is chosen. 

‘What we saw in the terrible tragedy in Southend was an attack on democracy, on an open society, on freedom itself. 

‘We are seeing those same values under attack today, in Ukraine, in the most unconscionable way.

‘In the stand we take here, we are in solidarity with all those who are resisting brutal aggression.’ 

He added: ‘In the aftermath of Sir David’s brutal murder, the people of Southend-on-Sea came together in a remarkable and inspiring way to bring good out of evil. 

‘In doing so, they demonstrated a deep truth: that what matters more than any name, whether of a person or a place, is the spirit. 

‘Today, Southend becomes a city. As we celebrate and honour that fact, we remember that it is always, and crucially, a community.’

Charles is the first working royal to condemn Putin’s actions, which have seen hundreds of civilians killed – and thousands of soldiers slain. 

Prince Harry and Meghan Markle, who gave up their royal duties last year, previously said they ‘stand with the people of Ukraine against this breach of international and humanitarian law.’

At an awards ceremony in Los Angeles on Saturday, Prince Harry added: ‘We would like to acknowledge the people of Ukraine, who urgently need our continued support as a global community.’

Charles formally presented the legal document which entitles the change of status, the Letters Patent, to Southend’s mayor Margaret Borton at the extraordinary council meeting on Tuesday. 

He presented the document on behalf of the Queen with his wife the Duchess of Cornwall by his side.

Sir David, who had served as Conservative MP for Southend West since 1997, was murdered during a constituency surgery at Belfairs Methodist Church in Leigh-on-Sea, Essex, on October 15.

The 69-year-old had campaigned tirelessly to make Southend a city.

Mayor Mrs Borton said Tuesday: ‘Formally receiving city status from His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales will be a special moment for Southend-on-Sea, and we are hugely honoured to receive a royal visit from Their Royal Highnesses on what is sure to be a momentous day for our new city.’

Hundreds of locals gathered behind metal barricades in the wet and windy weather to greet the royals. 

They were seen waving Union Jack flags and filming the future king and Queen Consort on their phones as they stopped to shake hands and chat. 

Camilla looked chic in a navy pea coat, paired with a black hat, gloves, boots and a dark blue Chanel bag, while Charles donned a navy pinstriped suit paired with a patterned tie and grey shirt. 

Lady Julia Amess was given the Freedom of The City honour on behalf of her late husband.

Former Conservative MP Ann Widdecombe, a friend of Sir David’s, read a statement on behalf of Lady Julia and her family.

‘Despite a traumatic and tragic journey, we have arrived at the city of Southend-on-Sea,’ she said.

‘How thrilled our husband and father would be to know that Her Majesty the Queen has bestowed such a huge honour to the people of Southend-on-Sea in his name.

‘A dream come true, and he would now be wanting to get out there and make the very best of this huge opportunity for the city.

‘There would have been talk of nothing else in our home or indeed whenever he spoke in Parliament. How we wish that this could be.

‘Of course, David was very well aware that city status would not have been possible without the help and hard work of so many people.

‘The people of Southend-on-Sea came together and look what they achieved

‘We know they will continue to work together in friendship and with pride to promote their city.’

Ms Widdecombe said that, on behalf of Sir David, the family ‘wish to say thank you to the amazing people in the community who have achieved so much for Southend’.

The statement concluded: ‘We are, of course, filled with sadness that he’s no longer with us but his legacy is huge and we are so grateful to have had him in our lives and to know that he will never be forgotten.’

Charles and Camilla also visited the seafront to unveil a new eco-friendly pier train named after Sir David.

The battery-powered trains will be used to take visitors from the shoreline to the end of Southend Pier, which at 1.33 miles (2.14km) is the longest pleasure pier in the world.

The £3.25 million pier train replacement project is seeing the existing diesel trains, which have been in operation on the pier since 1986, replaced with new, eco-friendly trains, designed in heritage green and cream following a public vote.

Green and cream liveried pier trains previously ran on Southend Pier from 1949 to 1978. 

The Duchess of Cornwall capped her visit with the Prince of Wales by having a seaside staple – fish and chips.

Camilla’s lunch of cod and chips was accompanied with tartar sauce and a wally – the local word for a gherkin – when she stopped for a bite to eat.

Philip Miller, executive chairman of Stockvale, which owns and runs the restaurant and Southend’s fun park Adventure Island, said: ‘The visit was tremendous for Southend. The turnout was brilliant.

‘When she came in we offered her cod and chips and she had them in the boardroom. She thoroughly enjoyed them.’

Before arriving at the restaurant, the couple went on a long walkabout along the seafront and Charles was asked about the health of the Queen by Janice Jacom, 64, an admin worker at a local golf course.

She said: ‘I asked the prince about his mother and he said “she’s a lot better now – it was very mild”. 

‘It was a bit worrying as the Queen is getting on a bit but I think she’s absolutely wonderful.’

Southend was one of several towns competing for city status as part of the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee celebrations in June next year, with Sir David having pushed for the recognition for at least two decades.  

With a population of around 183,000, Southend is a large coastal town and is home to the longest pleasure pier in the world, Southend Pier, measuring 1.33 miles. 

It also has London Southend Airport less than two miles north of the town centre.  

Cities historically were settlements with cathedrals, which is why small places such as Ely in Cambridgeshire and Salisbury remain cities.  

But having a cathedral is no longer an official requirement for a city-aspiring town. 

In recent years, towns have been able to apply to the Government for city status via competitions by the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government.

At the last competition, held to honour the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee nine years ago, three towns were granted city status – Perth, Chelmsford and St Asaph. 

In 2002, Preston became a city, while Brighton and Wolverhampton were granted the upgrade to mark the turn of the millennium.

In the days after his death, the Prime Minister praised Sir David as a politician who ‘simply wanted to serve the people of Essex’ as a backbench Conservative. 

He vowed that the ‘contemptible act of violence’ that took his life would not ‘detract from his accomplishments as a politician or as a human being’.

Mr Johnson added that Sir David was a ‘seasoned campaigner of verve and grit’ who ‘never once witnessed any achievement by any resident of Southend that could not somehow be cited in his bid to secure city status for that distinguished town’.

‘As it is only a short time since Sir David last put that very case to me in this chamber, I am happy to announce that Her Majesty has agreed that Southend will be accorded the city status it so clearly deserves,’ the Prime Minister said, to cheers from MPs. 

Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer said the city status for the seaside town was a ‘fitting tribute to Sir David’s hard work’.

Nadine Dorries paid a touching tribute to Sir David in October when she revealed his last letter to her pleaded for help making Southend a city. 

In it he congratulated on her promotion to replace Oliver Dowden in Boris Johnson ‘s reshuffle, adding: ‘Let’s now make Southend a city!’

In a tweet, Ms Dorries wrote: ‘It’s taken me a while to get through the post in my Parliamentary office.

‘Just opened this letter from David, in his true style, asking me to make Southend a city.

‘It happened David, it happened.’

Sir David was known for using every opportunity he could to lobby for Southend to be upgraded to city status.  

In March 2018, Theresa May, then Prime Minister, was being quizzed over Anglo-Russian relations following the recent Salisbury poisonings – but Sir David had other priorities.

During Prime Minister’s Questions, he asked Mrs May if she was aware that a charity for learning difficulties in his constituency had just broken the world record for dinging the most triangles – and whether or not she thought, as he did, that this was enough of a reason to make Southend-on-Sea a city.

At the Westminster Dog of Year contest last year, Sir David entered his French bulldog Vivienne. 

Asked why she should win, he said: ‘Because she is an enthusiastic supporter of Southend becoming a city.’

Zelensky thanks Kate and William for ‘standing by Ukraine’s brave citizens at this crucial time’… but fails to mention Harry and Meghan despite their own statement on invasion 

By Dan Sales for MailOnline

Prince William and Kate were thanked this morning by Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky and his wife after the royals said they stood with them in their fight.

The supportive message from the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge was sent on Saturday as Putin’s forces bombarded the country.

And this morning Mr Zelensky and his wife Olena said they were ‘grateful’ for the rare political comment from the Royals.

They added the support was boost as Ukraine continued to fight off Russia‘s invasion.

President Zelensky said: ‘Olena and I are grateful to the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge that at this crucial time, when Ukraine is courageously opposing Russia’s invasion, they stand by our country and support our brave citizens.

‘Good will triumph.’

Harry and Meghan had also sent their own words of support to Ukraine, but was not mentioned by Mr Zelensky. It is not known whether he has privately thanked them. 

The Sussexes had posted on their website on February 24 ‘Prince Harry and Meghan, The Duke and Duchess of Sussex and all of us at Archewell stand with the people of Ukraine’.

They restated that support on television as they accepted the President’s Award at the NAACP Image Awards.  

William and Kate’s remarks were posted on Saturday and were a rare foray into politics.

Their February 26 post on Twitter insisted they ‘stand’ with the people of the war-torn nation, as they ‘bravely fight’ for their future.

The royal couple also recalled the ‘privilege’ of meeting President Zelensky and his wife, when they jetted into London in 2020. 

In a personal tweet signed by the couple, they wrote: ‘In October 2020 we had the privilege to meet President Zelenskyy and the First Lady to learn of their hope and optimism for Ukraine’s future.

‘Today we stand with the President and all of Ukraine’s people as they bravely fight for that future.’

William and Kate welcomed the Ukrainians to Buckingham Palace in October 2020 – their first audience since the start of the first Covid lockdown.

The Duke and Duchess entertained President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and his wife Olena in the opulent Throne Room. 

The couples did not wear masks but observed social distancing and appeared in good spirits during the meeting, the first royal event to take place at Buckingham Palace in nearly six months.

William and Kate held the audience on behalf of the Queen, who stayed at Windsor Castle to carry out a limited number of engagements.

Ukraine’s president has accused Russia of war crimes after Vladimir Putin’s forces launched what were believed to be cluster and vacuum bomb attacks in an attempt to turn the tide of a conflict that they have so-far been losing.

In a late night address directed at Russia, Volodymyr Zelensky said there would ‘definitely be an international tribunal’ for what he said was a ‘violation of all conventions’ and added that ‘no one in the world will forgive you for killing peaceful Ukrainian people.’ Prosecutors at The Hague say they intend to open a probe ‘as soon as possible.’

Zelensky spoke after what appeared to be a cluster bomb attack on the city of Kharkiv on Monday which killed at least 11 people and wounded scores more, and after Ukraine’s ambassador to the US accused Putin’s forces of using a banned thermobaric bomb on the capital of Kyiv overnight.

The bombardment of Kharkiv continued Tuesday morning with a rocket landing just in front of the civilian public administration building, destroying the road outside and blowing the windows out of the building itself.

Footage from inside shows the building was heavily damaged, with ceilings collapsing and rubble strewn around.

It came as Russia’s invasion of Ukraine – which met with heavy defeat in its initial plan to seize key targets and infrastructure in precision strikes – entered a new phase, with the aim seemingly to surround and besiege cities such as Kharkiv, Kyiv, Mariupol, Sumy and Kherson which have so-far put up fierce resistance – and bomb them into submission using indiscriminate weapons in echoes of tactics Russia used against rebel forces in Syria while fighting alongside dictator Basahar al-Assad.

Fears that Kyiv will be hard-hit have been growing and reached new heights on Tuesday as satellite images revealed a column of Russian vehicles heading towards the capital is actually 40 miles long, as opposed to the 4 miles that were reported on Monday.

The most-advanced units in the column are now just 15 miles from the city, having been significantly slowed by Ukrainian resistance but never-the-less inching closer day by day.

Russia’s plan appears to be using the heavy armour to encircle and shell the city, before troops move in for street-to-street fighting. 

A taste of what was to come struck Kharkiv on Monday when bombs rained down on the most Russia-friendly city in Ukraine – which sits 25 miles from the border and is home to 1.5million people – in a bid to break its will to resist.

The hail of bombs, shells and rockets which began falling at lunchtime left at least 11 dead, including three children, with homes and even a school reduced to rubble.