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Dearest Gentle Reader,
It being a Wednesday, this Author had hoped the world might briefly pause its theatre. It has not. From the chambers of the American Colonies to the corridors of a Welsh graveyard, society has once again declined to behave itself, and this Author is rather grateful for it.
His Majesty the King has crossed the Atlantic to soothe a most fractious friendship. Relations between these islands and the American Colonies have grown decidedly chilly of late – a consequence, observers whisper, of British reluctance to throw its full weight behind the joint American-Israeli campaign against Persia. And so the Crown itself was dispatched to Washington, there to smile, dine, and address the assembled legislators in the first royal address to their Congress since the late Queen graced the Capitol in 1991. His Majesty spoke of “reconciliation and renewal,” of Magna Carta, of shared sacrifice – and received, by all accounts, rapturous applause from those who did not require persuading, and rather studied expressions from those who did. Whether a royal dinner and several fine speeches can repair what diplomacy has strained remains, as ever, to be seen.
Closer to home, this Author turns to a matter of genuine feeling. A pilot scheme at Birmingham Women and Children’s Hospital has demonstrated that earlier checks, progesterone, and regular aspirin may prevent thousands of miscarriages every year in the Southern Kingdom. Currently, women must suffer three miscarriages before qualifying for specialist National Health Society help – a threshold that one participant, Lisa Varey, described with devastating clarity: she found herself hoping to miscarry a third time as quickly as possible, simply to reach the threshold for care. That a woman should calculate her grief in such terms is a reproach to the system, not to her. The scheme, this Author sincerely hopes, will be adopted with all urgency.
Meanwhile, the Home Office has formally acknowledged for the first time that a survivor of Mohamed Al Fayed’s abuse was a victim of modern slavery. Rachael Louw, who has waived her anonymity, was trafficked and abused by the former owner of Harrods and his brother Salah – both of whom are now dead, having never faced criminal charges. The Home Office’s recognition under the National Referral Mechanism amounts to official vindication, and legal experts note it may lend considerable weight to witnesses in any future criminal proceedings. Hundreds of women have made similar allegations. That justice is moving at all is something; that it has taken quite this long remains, quietly, a scandal of its own.
And now, with the gravest stories attended to, this Author permits herself a small, knowing smile. Lord Starmer faced a vote in the Grand Assembly on whether he should be referred to a parliamentary committee over his statements regarding Lord Mandelson‘s appointment as ambassador to the American Colonies. He won – comfortably enough in numbers, rather less so in atmosphere. Cabinet ministers were deployed in a ring-round, Lord Brown was summoned from whatever baronial quiet he inhabits, and Scottish MPs were recalled from the campaign trail entirely. Fourteen Labour members voted against. One characterised their colleagues as complicit in a “cover-up.” The Prime Minister’s Residence called it a victory. Observers with any ear for music noted it sounded rather more like a fire alarm that one has merely turned down than off.
Finally, a matter of personal vanity, which this Author covers entirely in the public interest. A £49 face serum – the Eucerin Hyaluron-Filler Epigenetic Serum, since one must name the accused – was advertised on a billboard at the Capital‘s Balham Underground station with the claim that it made users appear “up to five years younger.” The Advertising Watchdog has banned the advertisement, noting that the study supporting the claim had no control group, that participants were simply asked how much younger they thought they looked, and that the product was tested in a different climate to our own damp isle entirely. Self-reported optimism dressed as clinical science, sold for forty-nine pounds a bottle. This Author has known several gentlemen in the Grand Assembly who operate on precisely the same methodology. The advert has been banned and cannot appear in the same form again. Whether the same ruling might apply to certain political speeches, this Author leaves as an exercise for the reader.
I am, as ever, your most devoted observer – Lady Whistledown.