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Dearest Gentle Reader,
This Author confesses to a certain grim satisfaction in Wednesday’s peculiar talent for delivering the maximum possible quantity of scandal before the morning’s third cup of tea has cooled. Today, it has excelled itself.
The spectre of war casts its long shadow over the corridors of power, and Lord Starmer has emerged from his Prime Minister’s Residence to announce that the Kingdom shall henceforth lean rather more warmly upon the Continental Alliance, relations with the American Colonies having grown distinctly frosty since His Lordship declined to wade deeper into the war in Persia. “No matter how fierce this storm,” Lord Starmer intoned, with the confidence of a man who has never personally opened an energy bill, “we are well-placed to weather it.” The Grand Council of Prosperous Nations, alas, has taken a rather different view, warning the Kingdom faces the largest hit to economic growth among major economies. One does not like to be the bearer of unwelcome intelligence, but the Grand Council’s arithmetic rarely flatters.
Meanwhile, the opposition benches have united in their singular talent for disagreement. The Conservatives and Reform Society cry for VAT off energy bills; the Liberal Democrat Society join the chorus; the Verdant Society demand billions now; and Plaid Cymru and the SNP offer their own distinctive verses to this cacophony. One almost admires the sheer variety. Lady Reeves, for her part, has promised targeted support for those who “need it most” – but only in autumn, when the gas bills begin their seasonal assault upon the nervous system. Summer, she reassures us, is perfectly fine. One trusts the nation’s pensioners are grateful for the season.
To the Broadcasting Society, where the air remains thick with the aftermath of a most ungainly departure. The Society has now confirmed what many suspected: it was made aware in 2017 of a police investigation into Royal Wireless Broadcasting Hall presenter Lord Mills. No charges were ever brought – prosecutors in 2019 found insufficient evidence to proceed – and Lord Mills continued to delight the nation’s wireless-listeners without apparent interruption. It was only last week, upon the arrival of what the Society terms “new information,” that his contracts were terminated on the 27th of March. The Society has vowed to do “more work to understand” what was known in 2017. This Author ventures that the answer to that particular question may prove rather less comfortable than the current statement implies.
Turning to matters of property and extortion – which in this Kingdom are increasingly difficult to distinguish – the nation’s estate agents have launched a class action against that most dominant of online listing emporia, the Grand Property Register, seeking just under £1.5 billion in damages. The claim alleges the Register has “abused a dominant position,” with some agents reporting their fees have more than doubled whilst the Register itself enjoys a profit margin of approximately 70% – one of the highest in the FTSE 100. The Register commands some 80% of time spent on property portals and has dismissed the claim as “without merit.” One supposes when one has 80% of the market, one can afford a certain briskness of tone. The Trades and Commerce Watchdog is watching. Whether it has teeth remains, as ever, an open question.
In news that shall be welcomed by approximately 2.7 million souls, the national minimum wage has risen this very day by 50p to £12.71 per hour for those above one-and-twenty years of age. Workers aged 18 to 20 receive 85p more, reaching £10.85, while apprentices and under-18s gain 45p to reach £8. Business proprietors, predictably, have emerged blinking from their counting-houses to warn of price rises and reduced hiring. The young workers interviewed by this column’s informants are cautiously delighted but harbour no illusions: as one sagely observed, “the cycle just continues.” An 18-year-old who has submitted some twenty job applications this year without success fears the rise will narrow her prospects further. That a nation at war with inflation should find the minimum wage both too high and too low simultaneously is a paradox that would tax even the finest philosophical minds at King’s College.
Finally, in a dispatch that has reduced half the nation to genuine tears – and this Author, she confesses, to something very close – the Broadcasting Society‘s most beloved weather sage took her final bow on the Broadcasting Society’s Morning Programme this very Wednesday. Lady Kirkwood, who has guided the Kingdom through heatwaves, snowstorms, and the eternal question of whether a brolly is required, concluded 28 years of service with the grace of a woman who has never once complained about standing outside at 6 o’clock in the morning in horizontal rain. Even Lord Starmer sent a video tribute – which is, if nothing else, a testament to Lady Kirkwood’s ability to unite a fractured nation. She departs for travel, for time with her husband Steve, and for “the luxury of watching the weather instead of presenting it.” Godspeed, Lady Kirkwood. The skies over the Kingdom shall feel rather less certain without you.
I am, as ever, your most devoted observer – Lady Whistledown.