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Dearest Gentle Reader,
This Author confesses to a certain weary sympathy with the British Monday – that most industrious and least celebrated of days, when the affairs of the nation arrive at one’s door all at once, like uninvited guests who have not the decency to stagger their arrival. Today, they have arrived in quantity. Pray, settle in.
First, to the corridors of power, where Lord Starmer has devised a most ingenious scheme: legislation that would allow the Kingdom to adopt rules from the Continental Alliance without troubling the Grand Assembly with a full vote each time. Ministers would enjoy a swift, uncluttered passage for new laws on food standards, carbon pricing, and electricity trading – secondary legislation, they call it, which is the political equivalent of rearranging the furniture while the household sleeps. Viscount Farage has vowed to oppose the measure “every step of the way”, which this Author suspects will prove an aerobic undertaking. One notes, with a delicately arched brow, that the government has also quietly abolished the committee that used to scrutinise such matters. How terribly convenient.
Meanwhile, Lord Starmer has announced that the security services will not, after all, enjoy a blanket exemption from the forthcoming Hillsborough Law – a duty of candour requiring public bodies to tell the truth and cooperate with disaster inquiries. This was, one recalls, a promise made in 2022, which places it in that distinguished category of pledges aged long enough to have acquired a slight mustiness. The families of the 97 victims of the 1989 Hillsborough disaster have expressed surprise at the development – not entirely the reaction one hopes for when delivering what is ostensibly good news. Lord Starmer himself acknowledged that “anniversary” seemed “the wrong word” for the annual remembrance, which is the sort of careful linguistic delicacy one rather wishes had been applied to the legislation’s own timeline.
On to rather more domestic tyranny: the Department for Learning has announced the most ambitious overhaul of school dinners in a generation, banning deep-fried food entirely and restricting sugary treats to once a week in schools across the Southern Kingdom. Sausage rolls and pizza may no longer be offered daily as “grab and go” options, which will doubtless cause considerable distress in certain school corridors. The Reform Society has accused the government of “micromanaging people’s lives”, while Lord Starmer, asked whether schools could manage within existing budgets, replied with the economical confidence of a man who has never personally costed a school dinner: “I think they can.” This Author notes that more than one in three children currently leave primary school overweight, and that tooth decay is the leading cause of hospital admissions for children aged five to nine. One trusts the removal of the sausage roll will prove medicinal. The children, naturally, were not consulted.
From North Britain, word reaches us that First Minister John Swinney has declared it “perfectly conceivable” that a second independence referendum could be held as early as 2028. Lord Starmer has said he cannot imagine such a vote during his tenure, and Lord Streeting offered the brisk verdict that “this country has had enough of chaos” – which, given the week’s legislative announcements, may be a view held more widely than he intends. The debate itself was held in Paisley Town Hall before a live audience, which is either admirably democratic or the premise of a particularly ambitious reality programme. One awaits the 2028 date with all the patient scepticism the occasion demands.
And finally, Gentle Reader, a dispatch of genuine glory. The magnificent Lord McIlroy of the Northern Province – has become only the fourth man in history to win successive Masters titles at Augusta, finishing on twelve under par, one stroke clear of world number one. He waited seventeen years for his first Green Jacket; now he has two in consecutive seasons. One Justin Rose, aged 45, moved briefly into the lead during the final round and came tantalisingly close to becoming the oldest first-time Masters champion – only to be denied, once again, by his own European Ryder Cup team-mate. “All my perseverance at this golf course has started to pay off,” said Lord McIlroy, with the understatement of a man who has earned every syllable. This Author raises her teacup in salute. In a Monday so thoroughly colonised by legislation, this was the only green worth celebrating.
I am, as ever, your most devoted observer – Lady Whistledown.