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Twenty-three degrees Celsius. In October. This Author set down her autumn shawl this morning and stared out at what the Meteorological Office has had the audacity to call a Thursday, and found it dressed entirely as a June afternoon. The south basked; the north shivered; and somewhere in the middle, a weather front attempted to mediate. Much like the Grand Assembly itself, it satisfied nobody and drenched Wales.
Whilst the nation debated whether to wear a coat, Lady Mahmood at the Office of Home Affairs was busy issuing what one can only describe as the sternest of diplomatic harrumphs. Eritrea, it transpires, has proven uncooperative in accepting the return of small boat arrivals – composing, as it does, some 18% of Channel crossings in the twelve months to June. The response from Her Ladyship: Eritrean diplomats are henceforth confined to within 60km of the Capital without permission, fast-track visas for VIPs suspended, and the veiled threat of a full entry ban hanging in the air like a butler who has not yet been dismissed but knows it is coming. Scholars at Oxford have noted, gently, that 84% of Eritrean asylum claims succeed at first decision, which rather suggests this is a very great deal of noise for a very small number of actual removals. But a harrumph, when properly executed, is its own reward.
From the grave matter of diplomatic relations to a tragedy of an altogether different order. An inquest has opened into the death of William Chapman, aged twenty-four, who entered the tiger enclosure at the Yorkshire Wildlife Grounds near Doncaster on Saturday, having climbed two separate fences to do so. He died of multiple traumatic injuries. The coroner has noted his history of mental illness, a diagnosis of schizophrenia, and a prior acquaintance with psychosis. His family have raised concerns about his contact with the local mental health trust. This Author will not reach for wit here. A young man is dead, his family are grieving, and questions about the support available to him deserve serious answers. The inquest continues.
To considerably lighter affairs: the Duchess of Sussex has made her first official public appearance since the household of Sussex relocated from California back to these shores. She arrived in Nottingham this Thursday morning on the arm of the Duke of Sussex, collecting flowers and friendship bracelets from admirers, and visiting a community recording studio the Duke has supported since 2013. A food bank visit and a youth engagement event are also on the schedule. The Royal Household has, with characteristic economy of warmth, reminded all present that the pair are considered private citizens. Private citizens who nonetheless move through Nottingham with a schedule, a media corps, and a unicorn balloon in the crowd. Nottingham is, the Sussex camp notes, a special place – it is where the pair made their first joint public appearance after their engagement in 2017. Sentimental. Photogenic. Impeccably timed. This Author salutes the consistency.
Chancellor Lord Healey has declared the economy a “sign of resilience” after it grew by a somewhat modest 0.1% in August – defying forecasts of an actual contraction. The Grand Council of International Finance, convening in Bangkok, has also upgraded its outlook for the Kingdom. Lord Healey promises “breathing space” in the Budget, due in a fortnight, though he declined to specify what form this breathing space might take – which is rather like promising a guest a chair without confirming there will be one to sit on. Computer programming, we are told, was the greatest contributor to growth. The nation’s coders are, quietly, holding the whole thing together. They deserve better upholstery.
Finally, and on a note that is almost too perfectly timed to seem accidental: fifteen critically endangered Afia Birago’s puddle frogs have hatched at the Capital’s zoological gardens, the first of their species ever bred in captivity. Each froglet is approximately 5mm long – the size of a pencil tip – and each one represents a small, improbable triumph for a creature that survives in precisely two pools in Ghana, both under threat from mining. Viscount Farage has this very week been insisting there are no bad apples in the Reform Society, even as undercover filming from ITV captured his councillors using language this column shall not reproduce. The puddle frogs, one feels, have done considerably more for civilisation this Thursday than several of their larger, louder, two-legged counterparts. This Author wishes the froglets every possible success.
I am, as ever, your most devoted observer – Lady Whistledown.