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Dearest Gentle Reader,
This Author shall not pretend that Thursday has arrived with any great promise of serenity. The morning carries that particular weight which descends when the news is neither wholly dreadful nor entirely manageable – when one must set down one’s pen, breathe steadily, and attend to what decency demands before permitting oneself so much as a raised eyebrow.
It is with grave concern, then, that This Author reports the events of Wednesday last in Golders Green, where two Jewish gentlemen – Shloime Rand, aged four-and-thirty, and Moshe Shine, aged six-and-seventy – were attacked upon Highfield Avenue in what the Metropolitan Constabulary has seen fit to declare a terrorist incident. A forty-five-year-old man, a British national born in Somalia, was apprehended by officers who, it must be noted, were not armed and yet feared their quarry might be carrying an explosive device. That they subdued him by means of a Taser, administered CPR to the fallen suspect, and emerged uninjured is testament to a courage that deserves every tribute Sir Rowley, Commissioner of the Metropolitan Constabulary, has paid them. Both stabbed gentlemen are, mercifully, reported to be in a stable condition. Lord Starmer called the antisemitic attack “utterly appalling” – a sentiment with which This Author, for once, finds no cause to quarrel. This comes, it should be noted, after a spate of arson attacks against Jewish property in the Capital in recent weeks. One sincerely hopes the relevant authorities are attending to the pattern with rather more urgency than they have hitherto displayed.
Turning from the gravely serious to the merely alarming, This Author draws your attention to the High Streets of this Kingdom, where Trading Standards officers – those unsung guardians of honest commerce – are apparently now engaged in something considerably more perilous than weighing dodgy produce. A survey of more than two thousand officers from the Chartered Trading Standards Institute reveals that a full ninety-six percent of front-line teams must contend with organised crime, whilst more than seventy percent have faced outright threats of violence. One officer, referred to only as Mandy, received a midnight telephone call from a Kurdish crime gang threatening to kill her and burn her house down. Her car was rammed off the road. Twice. In some areas, half of all mini-marts and vape shops are thought to have links to organised crime. This Author had previously believed that the greatest hazard of purchasing a counterfeit biscuit was disappointment. She stands corrected.
Now, to a matter considerably more diverting. His Majesty the King has, it appears, delivered what commentators are calling a state visit for the ages – charming, teasing, and landing subtle blow after blow upon Lord Trump whilst the latter smiled blithely onwards, apparently unaware that he was being bested. One observer compared the King’s address to a “Love Actually speech written by Plato,” which is either the finest compliment ever paid to a sovereign or a sign that certain commentators have been at the sherry. Even confirmed republicans reportedly applauded. For a monarch whose recent months have been rather comprehensively clouded by the antics of certain ducal relations – This Author names no names, but the initials rhyme with “Prince Andrew” – this represents a most welcome reversal of fortune. The royal mojo, Gentle Reader, appears to have made a triumphant return from across the Atlantic.
On the matter of the great energy transition, Lord Miliband, Secretary of State for Energy, continues to assure the nation that the shift from oil and gas to glorious renewable employment shall be smooth, equitable, and thoroughly “just.” This Author commends the sentiment. She merely wonders if he has spoken lately with anyone from Aberdeen – where workers who once watched Ferraris and Lamborghinis cruise past are now, in several documented cases, stacking shelves or pulling pints on the minimum wage. One chemist of twenty-five years’ experience, made redundant two years ago and unable to secure a single renewable energy post, is currently employed in a Glasgow public house. She is, by all accounts, content enough – but she is not, one suspects, what Lord Miliband had in mind when he spoke of a bright green future. The “just” in “just transition,” it would seem, is doing rather a lot of heavy lifting.
Finally, because even the grimmest of Thursdays deserves a moment of theatrical bewilderment, This Author notes that a large statue has materialised overnight in Waterloo Place, the Capital – a suited gentleman striding purposefully from a plinth whilst holding a flag that simultaneously obscures his own face. The name “Banksy” has been scrawled upon the plinth, though the elusive artist has not confirmed authorship. The sculpture sits in distinguished company, neighbouring memorials to Florence Nightingale and the Crimean War, which is either an act of inspired audacity or the art world’s most elaborate practical joke. This Author, who has spent a professional lifetime obscuring her own identity whilst making pointed observations about the powerful, feels a certain collegial sympathy for the anonymous sculptor – whoever they may be.
I am, as ever, your most devoted observer – Lady Whistledown.