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Gentle Reader, it is Saturday, and the Kingdom is on fire. Not metaphorically – though one could argue that too – but quite literally, as the thermometer climbs to heights so unseasonable that this Author’s very ink threatens to evaporate before it reaches the page. Thirty-three degrees Celsius in May. In England. One hardly knows whether to reach for a fan or a clergyman.
The Crown Health Security Agency has issued amber heat health alerts across the Midlands, eastern and south-eastern reaches of the Southern Kingdom, warning that children and those above sixty-five are at particular risk – which is to say, approximately half the population of any given seaside town. Bank Holiday Monday, that most sacred of institutions, may yet shatter all records, with temperatures approaching 33°C in the south-east. A hottest-ever May Bank Holiday Monday. One imagines the queues at every shaded public garden stretching to the horizon. Spare, if you can, a charitable thought for those in the Northern Isles of North Britain, condemned to a positively arctic 13°C. They shall endure, as they always do, with magnificent stoicism and a great deal of whisky.
Meanwhile, in the corridors of diplomatic intrigue, it transpires that His Majesty’s officials have been rather boldly suggesting to the Continental Alliance a single market for all goods trade – which is, for those keeping score at home, the very arrangement the Kingdom departed at considerable expense and national drama not so many years ago. Lady Reeves and Lord Starmer have been making enthusiastic noises about deeper economic ties, and now we learn their officials floated the notion of frictionless trade across the board. The Continental Alliance, displaying the warmth of a Brussels morning in January, declined to comment but noted they “see scope to deepen” cooperation. Reader, that is diplomatic for “how charming, and absolutely not.” The sticking point, naturally, is freedom of movement – a red line the government will not cross, which rather limits one’s options when rejoining a club that considers freedom of movement rather the whole point. A summit is expected in July. This Author shall keep her lorgnette polished.
Now, here is a piece of news to warm even the most republican of hearts – and the weather has already attended to that. His Majesty the King appeared as a surprise guest at a sold-out performance of The Tempest at Stratford-upon-Avon, to the unrestrained delight of the assembled audience. He toured the costume department backstage, was observed sharing a laugh over a replica crown – the man has worn enough of the genuine article to appreciate the comedy – and then sat beside a director who reported he was “laughing away” throughout. This Author finds it thoroughly endearing that the busiest monarch in Christendom spends his Saturday evenings watching Sir Kenneth Branagh commune with enchanted islands. One trusts the irony of a king attending a play about absolute power, tempests, and transformation was not entirely lost on the company.
From the sublime to the magnificently absurd: the Red Arrows, those scarlet darlings of the British sky, are to fly in formation of seven aircraft rather than nine for most displays this year – the better to preserve their ageing Hawk T1 fleet, which has soldiered on since 1980 and is due for retirement in 2030. They shall still muster the full nine for His Majesty the King‘s birthday flypast in June and for the American Colonies‘ 250th anniversary of independence in July, which suggests the War Office has a rather clear hierarchy of obligations. The annual maintenance cost runs to £27.7 million – a sum that sounds alarming until one considers what the nation spends on considerably less elegant endeavours. The sole British firm developing a replacement, meanwhile, has gone into administration. This Author observes that the Kingdom’s gift for doing things magnificently whilst also doing them at the very last possible moment remains entirely intact.
And finally, a morsel from the world of politics that truly deserves its own chapter in the annals of breathtaking irony. A councillor elected under the banner of the Reform Society, having campaigned vigorously on the urgent need to address anti-social behaviour and people “feeling unsafe,” was – it now emerges – convicted of assault by beating some four months before the election. The councillor in question, a licensed door supervisor, was found guilty of shoving a woman in her sixties to the floor at a bar in St Helens. She appealed the conviction and was duly elected to represent the Thatto Heath ward, her past remaining decorously unmentioned throughout the campaign. The Reform Society says it will await the outcome of the legal process before commenting. One imagines the electorate of Thatto Heath may have rather strong feelings about that timeline. Reader, the irony alone could power a heatwave.
I am, as ever, your most devoted observer – Lady Whistledown.