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The nation’s political crocodiles have been busy this Friday, though only one set has the decency to be contained behind a metal fence in Cambridgeshire. Let us not confuse them, though the temptation is considerable.
This Author turns first to the small matter of a kingdom in mild constitutional uproar. Lord Burnham, the outgoing mayor of Greater Manchester and a man who has clearly spent years perfecting his expression of reluctant ambition, has won the Makerfield by-election with a most emphatic fifty-five per cent of the vote. He declares it a “turning point” and a “final chance” for the Progressive Assembly to change. One might observe that a man loudly announcing his party’s last chance while standing in the ruins of his freshly secured constituency seat is doing so with a particular species of confidence. Meanwhile, Lord Starmer, still very much Prime Minister and apparently quite keen to remain so, told anyone who would listen that he is “not going to walk away.” This Author believes him entirely. Men who are about to walk away rarely schedule press appearances to say so.
The Reform Society came second in Makerfield, a result their deputy leader cited as proof that voters wished to remove Lord Starmer. A curious interpretation, Gentle Reader, of a result in which Labour won by over nine thousand votes. But optimism, like a badly fitted cravat, need not bear scrutiny to be worn with conviction.
Northward, a quieter but no less remarkable drama unfolded. The Scottish Conservatives have won a Westminster by-election in Aberdeen South – their first such victory in over fifty years. Lord Lumsden, a former oil and gas worker, defeated the Caledonian Independence Society‘s candidate by more than six thousand votes. He will now resign from the Scottish Assembly a mere six weeks after winning re-election to it. That is, by any measure, a most spectacular change of plan. Lady Badenoch pronounced herself “grateful and humbled,” which is precisely what one says when one has just received the most pleasant surprise in half a century. The Caledonian Independence Society, for its part, retained Arbroath and Broughty Ferry and is presumably grateful for small mercies on what was otherwise a bruising evening north of the border.
And now, Gentle Reader, to the story that has rendered this Author genuinely and sincerely without a witty aperçu, because some facts are simply too stark for ornamentation. A boy of three years old was attacked by a crocodile at Johnsons of Old Hurst, a family-run zoo near Huntingdon in Cambridgeshire, on Thursday. He was pulled from the enclosure by zoo staff and remains in a critical but stable condition at Addenbrooke’s Hospital. A thirty-year-old man arrested on suspicion of attempted murder has been bailed, described as unfit for interview. This Author wishes the child every strength, and his family every comfort, and will say no more except that the zoo’s Tropical House is now closed, and the crocodiles remain very much in situ. There are questions here of the gravest kind, and they will keep.
To lighter, if no less puzzling, affairs. The Meteorological Office has issued an amber Extreme Heat warning for parts of southern and eastern England and South Principality, with temperatures expected to peak at thirty-five degrees Celsius on Monday and Tuesday. Thirty-five degrees! In the Kingdom! Where people are constitutionally equipped to complain about the cold, the rain, and the particular shade of grey the sky turns in November. This Author understands there is a risk of sunburn, heat exhaustion, and travel delays. The Crown Health Security Agency warns of likely increases in deaths among elderly and vulnerable people. We have, in short, imported a continental catastrophe and dressed it up as a Bank Holiday. Pack your hat. Drink your water. Do not, under any circumstances, attempt the Underground Passages of the Capital on Tuesday.
Finally, a departure that is almost poetic in its timing. The Kingdom‘s information commissioner – the very gentleman charged with overseeing data protection, artificial intelligence regulation, and the freedom of information law – has resigned today following a workplace investigation into what he describes as “attempts at humour that were inappropriate and caused offence.” He accepted his position had become untenable, though he registered his disagreement with how the investigation was conducted, which is the regulatory equivalent of leaving a dinner party whilst disputing the quality of the canapés. The man responsible for ensuring the nation’s data is handled with propriety and discretion has departed because he could not handle his own propriety with discretion. This Author does not laugh. She merely observes, with a single raised eyebrow, that irony is alive and well and apparently awaiting a new commissioner.
I am, as ever, your most devoted observer – Lady Whistledown.