A screenprint of the late Queen Elizabeth II by artist Andy Warhol is among dozens of images of the royal family which have gone on display in Edinburgh.

Royal Portraits: A Century Of Photography is due to run until 7 September at The King’s Gallery in the Palace of Holyroodhouse, having previously been exhibited at Buckingham Palace.

The exhibition chronicles the evolution of royal portrait photography from the 1920s until the coronation of the King in 2023, with more than 90 prints, proofs and documents from the Royal Collection and the Royal Archives.

Many images are being shown in Scotland for the first time and all the photographs are original vintage prints.

The earliest surviving colour print of a member of the royal family was taken by Madame Yevonde, a pioneer of the craft in 1935, showing Princess Alice, Duchess of Gloucester – and sister-in-law to King George VI and Edward VIII – on her wedding day.

Among the photographs in the exhibition are those taken to mark milestone birthdays, including “coming of age” images of Princess Anne to mark her 21st birthday in 1971, which were taken by Norman Parkinson in Frogmore House gardens.

Some of Cecil Beaton’s most memorable photographs taken over 60 years are on show, including original coronation portraits of Queen Elizabeth II.

A dramatic image of her in the countryside at Balmoral taken by Julian Calder in 2010 shows her wearing the mantle of the Order of the Thistle and was inspired by paintings of clan chiefs.

The Queen Mother’s famed 1939 shoot in Buckingham Palace gardens, dressed in gowns designed by Norman Hartnell, is also on display.

Images of Princess Margaret, taken by her husband Lord Snowdon before and after their marriage in 1960, form another section of the exhibition.

A photograph taken in 1966 to mark the 18th birthday of Prince Charles shows him dressed in a kilt in Balmoral tartan in the library of the castle, and was taken by Godfrey Argent.

Later 20th century photographs and more recent portraits include Andy Warhol’s diamond dust-sprinkled screen print and fashion photos by David Bailey, Nick Knight and Annie Leibovitz.

The exhibition concludes with the official coronation portraits taken by Hugo Burnand in May 2023.

Alessandro Nasini, curator of the exhibition, said: “Portrait photography is a creative process, and it has been fascinating to discover the careful decisions that were made to achieve such unforgettable portraits of the royal family, taken by some of the most celebrated photographers of the past century – from Dorothy Wilding and Cecil Beaton to David Bailey and Glasgow-born Rankin.

“Although we may be used to seeing photographs on screens, the opportunity to see the original prints up close is rare, as they can’t often be on display for conservation reasons.

“With archival material providing context into how these photographs were made and used, I hope visitors will enjoy going behind the scenes into the process of creating royal portraits.”

International Development Minister Anneliese Dodds has resigned over the prime minister’s cuts to the aid budget.

In a letter to Sir Keir Starmer, Dodds said the cuts to international aid, announced earlier this week to fund an increase in defence spending, would “remove food and healthcare from desperate people – deeply harming the UK’s reputation”.

She told the PM she had delayed her resignation until after his meeting with President Trump, saying it was “imperative that you had a united cabinet behind you as you set off for Washington”.

The Oxford East MP, who attended cabinet despite not being a cabinet minister, said it was with “sadness” that she was resigning.

She said that while Sir Keir had been clear he was not “ideologically opposed” to international development, the cuts were “being portrayed as following in President Trump’s slipstream of cuts to USAID”.

Ahead of his trip to meet the US president, Sir Keir announced aid funding would be reduced from 0.5% of gross national income to 0.3% in 2027 in order to fund an increase in defence spending.

Defending the move, the prime minister said it was “not a decision I wanted to make” but added there was “no driver of migration and poverty like conflict”.

In her resignation letter, Dodds said she welcomed an increase to defence spending at a time when the post-war global order had “come crashing down”.

She added that she understood some of the increase might have to be paid for by cuts to ODA [overseas development assistance].

However, she expressed disappointment that instead of discussing “our fiscal rules and approach to taxation”, the prime minister had opted to allow the ODA to “absorb the entire burden”.

She said the cuts would “likely lead to a UK pull-out from numerous African, Caribbean and Western Balkan nations – at a time when Russia has been aggressively increasing its global presence”.

“It will likely lead to withdrawal from regional banks and a reduced commitment to the World Bank; the UK being shut out of numerous multilateral bodies; and a reduced voice for the UK in the G7, G20 and in climate negotiations.”

The spending cuts mean £6bn less will be spent on foreign aid each year. The aid budget is already used to pay for hotels for asylum seekers in the UK, meaning the actual amount spend on aid overseas will be around 0.15% of gross national income.

The prime minister’s decision to increase defence spending came ahead of his meeting in Washington – the US president has been critical of European countries for not spending enough on defence and instead relying on American military support.

He welcomed the UK’s commitment to spend more, but Sir Keir has been attacked by international development charities and some of his own MPs for the move.

Dodds held off her announcement until the prime minister’s return from Washington, in order not to overshadow the crucial visit, and it was clear she did not want to make things difficult for the prime minister.

But other MPs have been uneasy about the decision, including Labour MP Sarah Champion, who chairs the international development committee, who said that cutting the aid budget to fund defence spending is a false economy that would “only make the world less safe”.

Labour MP Diane Abbott, who had been critical of the cuts earlier in the week, said it was “shameful” that other ministers had not resigned along with Dodds.

Dodds’s resignation also highlights that decisions the prime minister feels he has to take will be at odds with some of the views of Labour MPs, and those will add to tensions between the leadership and backbenchers.

In a post on X, Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch said: “I disagree with the PM on many things but on reducing the foreign aid budget to fund UK defence? He’s absolutely right.

“He may not be able to convince the ministers in his own cabinet, but on this subject, I will back him.”

However one of her backbenchers – and a former international development minister – Andrew Mitchell backed Dodds, accusing Labour of trying “disgraceful and cynical actions”. “Shame on them and kudos to a politician of decency and principle,” he added.

Liberal Democrat international development spokesperson Monica Harding said Dodds had “done the right thing” describing the government’s position as “unsustainable.

She said it was right to increase defence spending but added that “doing so by cutting the international aid budget is like robbing Peter to pay Paul”.

“Where we withdraw our aid, it’s Russia and China who will fill the vacuum.”

Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner said she was “sorry to hear” of Dodds’s resignation.

“It is a really difficult decision that was made but it was absolutely right the PM and cabinet endorse the PM’s actions to spend more money on defence,” she said.

Dodds first became a Labour MP in 2017 when she was elected to represent the Oxford East constituency.

Under Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership of the Labour Party she served as a shadow Treasury minister and was promoted to shadow chancellor when Sir Keir took over.

Following Labour’s poor performance in the 2021 local elections, she was demoted to the women and equalities brief.

Since July 2024, she has served as international development minister.

Dodds becomes the fourth minister to leave Starmer’s government, following Louise Haigh, Tulip Siddiq and Andrew Gwynne.

The US-UK trade deal warmly suggested by President Donald Trump should help insulate the UK from the direct impact of global trade tensions.

It signals that the White House has accepted the statistical logic that the US and UK have a balanced trade position.

Essentially each country roughly exports the same amount of goods to one another. Indeed, rather helpfully, according to the US numbers it exports more.

There is no general case that the UK is, in the words and logic of the president, “ripping off” or “screwing” the US, as he has suggested of many other countries and the EU.

So a deal to avoid the further trade barriers is very much on the cards.

But this is not the wideranging US-UK free trade agreement to lower almost all existing tariffs, that was the subject of so much debate in the Brexit era.

It is important to remember that the wider deal was never properly prioritised by Trump’s own team, because, as they told me, they never truly believed that the UK would find it in its interest to make the necessary hard break from the EU.

It is difficult to see that the UK government would want to further aggravate farmers, or its own base, by putting US farm imports or NHS pricing on the table.

In addition, on goods trade, the government is already prioritising its “Brexit reset” – a food standards deal, and some customs arrangements to bring down newish trade barriers with the European Union. Tellingly, the top official on that negotiation was in the Oval Office.

The narrower “economic deal”, as it was termed by Sir Keir Starmer, centres around technology and what the UK has referred to as the “further integration of our two countries’ tech sectors”.

Perhaps the best analogy is that the tech expertise held within the London-Oxford-Cambridge triangle could become for a booming AI-driven Silicon Valley what London’s financial City became to New York’s Wall Street. The fact that Vice President and big tech ally JD Vance will be leading some of the US negotiation is key here.

This strategy will have consequences. Trump’s team are already railing against digital services taxes.

The UK’s digital services tax was introduced in 2020 and imposes a 2% charge on revenues made by big tech firms running social media, internet search engines or online marketplaces.

While the £700m-£1bn a year it raises in the UK is smallish beer, since the UK and France introduced a hit to big tech’s revenues, many other countries have followed suit.

The White House wants to “stop the contagion”, and that could mean persuading the UK to lower or abolish it. Chancellor Rachel Reeves advocated raising it from 2% to 12% just four years ago.

Likewise the vice president in the Oval Office mentioned US tech firms being unfairly affected by what he called “freedom of speech” issues.

This appears to be a reference to the Online Safety Act. This aims to make social media firms and search engines protect children and adults in the UK from illegal, harmful material, although some have argued it risks stifling free expression online. My understanding is that, right now, movement may be less likely here.

The prize will be integration into the massive investments from the best capitalised tech companies in the world.

Could the UK start to attract back some of the investments lost to Dublin, for example? Would the EU stand back and allow the UK to develop as an offshore hub for US tech companies to service the whole of Europe?

There are two other significant issues. It is not unknown for warm words in the Oval Office to be somewhat contradicted by actions soon after. While sat next to the PM, President Trump described the EU’s levying of VAT as a trade restriction, seemingly unaware that the UK does exactly the same thing.

And even if it avoids direct new tariffs from President Trump, the open UK economy would be affected by any wide-ranging trade war involving most of the G7 and other countries.

That is still on the cards. Not only would that collapse world growth and potentially spike up inflation again, but could upend entirely the workings of the World Trade Organization.

The PM says the UK doesn’t have to choose between the US and other allies, but it may appear like that to them.

The strategy appears to be to become the Switzerland of global economics. Neutrality in a world of trade turmoil, not so much sat on a fence, but tiptoeing along a rather wobbly one.