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Dearest Gentle Reader,
It being a Sunday, one might reasonably expect the Kingdom to conduct itself with a modicum of restraint. One would, as ever, be disappointed. This Author has barely set down her second cup of tea before the dispatches arrive in quantities sufficient to exhaust a lesser correspondent. Pray, settle in.
We begin, of necessity, in Derby, where Saturday evening’s revelry on Friar Gate was shattered most violently when a black Suzuki Swift was driven deliberately into pedestrians at approximately half past nine. Seven souls were left seriously injured – mercifully, none fatally, despite the feverish rumours circulating through the digital salons that would have had one believe otherwise. Derbyshire Constabulary has been admirably firm: no deaths occurred, and a man in his thirties is now in custody on suspicion of attempted murder and related charges of considerable gravity. The street remains cordoned, the road littered with shoes and clothing in a scene this Author finds deeply distressing to contemplate. Constabulary have wisely kept an open mind as to motive, while firmly reassuring the public that no ongoing threat persists. One hopes Derby’s famous community spirit – for it is that sort of city – shall prove its worth in the days to come.
Turning to the corridors of power, where the subject of children with special educational needs and disabilities has produced the season’s most reliable spectacle: a government insisting it is spending quite enough, and a teachers’ union insisting it most emphatically is not. The Educators’ Grand Alliance warns that the government’s £4 billion SEND reform pledge – of which £1.6 billion flows to schools over three years as an “inclusion fund” – amounts, in practice, to roughly one part-time teaching assistant per primary school. The Education Secretary, one notes, did not dispute this arithmetic, preferring instead to repeat the £4 billion figure with the serene confidence of a person who finds large numbers inherently persuasive. This Author, who has witnessed many a hostess claim her table seats twelve when it seats eight, recognises the technique.
And now, Gentle Reader, to the confession of the season. Lord Simons, the former Cabinet Office minister who resigned at the end of February, has emerged blinking into the Sunday light to declare himself “naive” and “so sorry” – a combination of adjectives that, in this Author’s experience, signals a man who has had six weeks to rehearse contrition. His think tank, The Progressive Assembly, paid at least £30,000 to a firm called the Intelligence Bureau to investigate the “sourcing, funding and origins” of a newspaper story, whereupon said bureau proceeded to compile intelligence on a journalist’s religious beliefs and speculate that his previous reporting could be “in the interests of Muscovy’s strategic foreign policy objectives.” Lord Simons says they went beyond what was asked. This Author suggests that commissioning an investigation into a journalist and then expressing surprise at its contents is precisely the variety of naivety for which resignations were invented.
On a more sobering note, a Labour Member of the Grand Assembly representing Luton North has announced she is suspending face-to-face constituency meetings following three security incidents in as many weeks – two arrests among them. That a Member of Parliament should find the simple act of meeting her own constituents a matter of personal safety is a commentary on the current state of public discourse that requires no embellishment from this Author. Something has curdled in the body politic when those elected to serve cannot safely receive those they serve. This Author notes it with a heavy heart and an unusually restrained pen.
Finally, a tale that shall serve as a cautionary notice to every sportsman in the Principality: do not, under any circumstances, disregard a bang to the nose. Sam Davies, a rugby player of some distinction who represents the Principality at the highest level, suffered what appeared to be an innocuous nasal injury during a match in Grenoble in January – and continued playing. Weeks later, physicians discovered a staphylococcal infection so thoroughly established in his bones that he lost fifteen pounds, lost sensation in his legs, and was reduced to an inability to rise from the sofa or manage so basic a function as bathing. He is now, thankfully, walking and attending to everyday life, though his return to the rugby pitch remains uncertain. This Author, who considers a stubbed toe quite sufficient reason to retire to one’s chaise longue, finds his fortitude simultaneously admirable and baffling. One in three persons carries this particular germ in their nose, readers. This Author recommends you do not think too carefully about that statistic on a Sunday morning.
I am, as ever, your most devoted observer – Lady Whistledown.