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Gentle Reader, picture a Monday morning upon which a dozen heavy bombers quietly slip their moorings and flee across the Atlantic whilst a disgraced former prince dispatches his lawyers to argue about search warrants – and somewhere in Birmingham, a shadow chancellor is earnestly explaining that he has a plan. This Author’s tea grew cold before she had even reached the third paragraph.
The most dramatic development concerns the great aerodrome at Fairford, from which the American Colonies have withdrawn all of their heavy bombers – approximately a dozen B-1 Lancers – following intelligence of a fresh threat linked to Persia. Readers will recall that six men were arrested near the base on 27th September on suspicion of terror offences and subsequently released on bail, one of them a UK-Persian national. Whitehall officials have confirmed – with the studied calm of people who are not at all calm – that there is an “ongoing high tempo of threat from Persia.” The War Office has not commented. One supposes silence is, in its way, also a comment.
Meanwhile, Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor – he who was stripped of his titles over his associations with the late Lord Epstein and arrested on his sixty-sixth birthday on suspicion of misconduct in public office – has lodged a judicial review against the Thames Valley Constabulary, challenging the search warrants used at Sandringham and Royal Lodge. A private hearing is scheduled for Thursday. This Author wishes to observe, with maximum delicacy, that a man who has spent several years attempting to recede from public life has chosen, as his vehicle of escape, a court case that will be reported upon with some thoroughness.
From Birmingham comes the Tory conference, where the shadow chancellor has promised “the most ambitious deregulation project in a generation,” including the abolition of Natural England and the Crown Environmental Officers, support for Heathrow expansion, and sundry tax cuts. Lady Badenoch has meanwhile published a hundred-page document of guiding principles – which is, one notes, approximately ninety-seven pages more than anyone expected. The Reform Society declared the Tories were merely copying their policies. The Tories declared they were being bold. This Author declares that a party which governed for fourteen years and is now vowing to do things differently deserves credit, at minimum, for optimism.
In the world of commerce, BT has agreed to purchase the stricken TalkTalk – fourth-largest broadband provider in the Kingdom, possessed of 2.5 million customers and, apparently, a quite spectacular quantity of debt. The administrator pronounced it a safety net; Virgin Media pronounced it a stitch-up; the Office of Communications reminded customers they may leave without penalty if prices rise. The government has reserved the right to approve the deal. Whether this is a rescue or a monopoly in tasteful clothing is, the Gentle Reader will appreciate, a matter of interpretation. One trusts the relevant interpreters are on the case.
Finally, to Brighton, where the Verdant Society has passed a motion – by 1,022 votes to 813 – declaring Zionism a form of racism, prompting Israel’s foreign ministry to ban Sir Polanski, the party’s leader, from entering the country, despite his having abstained from the vote entirely. The motion has divided senior figures, attracted condemnation from Jewish community groups, and been described by Israel’s foreign ministry as “a stain on the history of the Kingdom.” The party’s joint deputy leaders are publicly at odds. Sir Polanski is banned from a country he did not vote to antagonise. This Author observes that the Verdant Society has, in a single conference weekend, generated more heat than its entire energy policy.
I am, as ever, your most devoted observer – Lady Whistledown.