The royal wedding buildup starts here – live!

Prince William and Kate Middleton are due to be married at Westminster Abbey in four weeks time. Follow here for live coverage of all the latest royal wedding news, build up and reaction 7.53am: The French news channel France24 is reporting that French president Nicolas Sarkozy is using diplomatic back-channels to try to seize control of royal wedding preparations. “This is seen as crucial for the president’s hopes of re-election in 2012,” comments the Paris-based political analyst Avril de Poisson, though French union leaders have accused Sarkozy of taking his eye of the ball at home, and are threatening a general strike. 7.49am: Royal bakers Greggs have today released a range of commemorative Royal wedding cakes and fancies, writes G2 chef Angela Hartnett. The Newcastle-based bakery — whose award of a royal warrant in January was seen as a mark of the Queen’s desire to become a more populist, Scandinavian-style monarch — insisted that the confectionary range, entitled “Let Them Eat Cake”, contained no clues as to the top secret recipe of the Royal wedding cake itself, which Greggs pastry chefs have been developing since last October at an undisclosed location. 7.45am: We’re excited to be able to confirm that the Duke of Edinburgh will be writing a daily online diary for Guardian.co.uk in the run-up to the wedding, and we’ll be bringing you the first installment soon, here on the blog. The Duke jovially told Guardian deputy editor Katharine Viner she was “making [him] work like a bloody Yugoslav” but he graciously agreed to the request. 7.39am: Let’s kick things off with a summary of developments overnight: • Reuters is reporting on rumours from Westminster of an initiative to amalgamate the Royal Wedding with that of Labour leader Ed Miliband and his longtime partner Justine Thornton. A senior Labour aide tells the wire service that the “undeniably cost-effective” move would “reflect the national focus on austerity” as well as highlighting the Labour leader’s “deeply felt and longstanding admiration for the royal family.” Our political editor Patrick Wintour is in the lobby with his ear to the ground. • In a story that would be astonishing if true, Sky News is reporting that the president of Kazakhstan, Nursultan Nazarbayev, has been granted the front three rows of seating in Westminster Abbey on April 29 as a result of a deal brokered by Prince Andrew. A source “close to Andrew” is quoted as saying that the arrangement is “crucial to furthering democracy and UK trade interests in central Asia”. More on this as it emerges. • Suggestions are flying around the Twitterverse this morning that the Queen’s corgis will be present at the wedding — and that one may even bear the wedding rings to the bride and groom. Sir Simon Jenkins is investigating. 7.35am: As explained in this morning’s leader column , the Guardian is enhancing its royal coverage by temporarily recalling correspondents from various parts of the world to focus full-time on coverage of the wedding preparations. Justin McCurry is currently en route from Tokyo, and Chris McGreal will be joining us later in the week. (“Can’t wait finally to get my teeth into a big story!” Chris emails.) Meanwhile, Esther Addley is heading up a team of reporters who are already based in special wifi-enabled tents on the Mall and outside Westminster Abbey. She tweets: @estheraddley On Mall. Mood palpable. no sign of crowd yet but slowly building thru day. Ice crm vn playing nat.Anth, no queue. so exciting!!! #gdnroywed 7.30am: Good morning, and welcome to a radical new frontier in the Guardian’s embrace of the live blogging format. For the next month, in line with our new commitment to unrivalled coverage of the royal family, we’ll be bringing you a minute-by-minute, 24-hour live blog of preparations for the wedding of Prince William and Kate Middleton in Westminster Abbey on 29 April. There’s little doubt that, when the history-books come to be written, the spring of 2011 will be remembered above all for one event of major geopolitical significance — and this will be the place to stay up-to-date with it. The fashion, the parties, the souvenirs, the world’s reactions, the constitutional implications, and the razor-sharp commentary: we’ll have it all. I’ll be here for the rest of today; my colleague Andrew Sparrow will then be working a 19-hour extended night shift to keep us going through until the morning. Monarchy Prince William Kate Middleton The Queen Olaf Priol guardian.co.uk

Posted by on April 1, 2011. Filed under News, Politics, World News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.