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Dartmoor is not, as a rule, a place one associates with the more dramatic varieties of human wickedness. It is a place of ponies, mist, and the occasional alarming bog. And yet this Sunday finds it at the centre of the most shocking dispatch This Author has been called upon to set before the Gentle Reader in many a season. Lady Widdecombe, former minister, stalwart of the Reform Society, and quite possibly the most unignorable woman in the Kingdom, was found dead at her home in Haytor, Devon, last Thursday – with serious injuries, and the unmistakable air of foul play about the whole terrible business.
A man of six-and-twenty was first arrested, then released, then promptly declared “no longer part of the investigation” – a phrase which, in lesser hands, might inspire dark comedy, but which here simply underscores the gravity of what is afoot. A second suspect, eight-and-twenty years of age, has since been arrested in South Yorkshire, some two hundred and seventy miles from the scene. Devon and Cornwall Constabulary assure us this is not a terrorism-related matter – a reassurance that, one suspects, brings the family rather less comfort than they deserve. Viscount Farage was among those laying flowers near her home, calling her “a remarkable individual” and “the fiercest defender of free speech.” However one stood on her politics, Lady Widdecombe was never, ever dull. May she rest in the peace she so rarely allowed others.
Turning from one set of dramatic exits to another, it appears that Lord Starmer is not quite yet through the door of the Prime Minister’s Residence before Lady Reeves is dispensing unsolicited wisdom to his successor. Speaking to the Broadcasting Society in what may be her final interview as Chancellor, Lady Reeves advised the incoming Lord Burnham that he must have “a worked-through plan” when he arrives – governing, she noted with magnificent understatement, being “hard in Britain.” One is left to wonder whether a memo to this effect might have arrived sooner in her own tenure. Lady Reeves spoke warmly of the economy she will be vacating, declared it “much stronger” than the one she inherited, and declined to state whether she wishes to remain as Chancellor – which is, in the language of politics, practically a confession that she does not expect to be asked.
And now, Gentle Reader, to the matter of the Kingdom literally being on fire. This Author does not exaggerate – or at least, not on this occasion. The Crown Health Security Agency has issued amber and yellow heat health alerts running until Wednesday evening, as parts of southern England and the south Midlands face what is described, with admirable severity, as an “exceptional” wildfire risk. We are entering the second consecutive week above the heatwave threshold. Temperatures of thirty-one to thirty-three degrees are forecast for parts of south-west England and south-east Wales. The Natural England inspectors are gravely concerned; health and social care services are braced for significant impact; and somewhere, a man in Glossop, Derbyshire is looking at the singed remains of a hillside and thinking he really ought to have watered his lawn. Stay indoors, Gentle Reader. Hydrate. And perhaps resist the urge to light a celebratory bonfire this week.
In somewhat cooler news – if “cooler” is the word – this Friday past saw a small boat complete a crossing of the Channel carrying one hundred and twenty-eight souls. One hundred and twenty-eight people in a single vessel. The previous record, This Author is solemnly informed, stood at one hundred and twenty-five. Records, it seems, are made to be broken, even in circumstances where one might fervently wish they were not. The Office of Home Affairs has declared this crossing “a stark reminder” of the risks posed by criminal smuggling gangs – which it undoubtedly is, and one rather hopes the reminder proves more effective than the previous twelve thousand such reminders that have crossed the same stretch of water this year alone. A new arrangement with the French has been announced. The Channel, unmoved by any of this, continues to flow.
This Author pauses, finally, to mark the passing of Dermot Murnaghan, the television news presenter who graced the Broadcasting Society, ITV, and Sky News across five decades, and who died this Sunday at the age of sixty-eight, a year after announcing his diagnosis of stage four prostate cancer. His family shared the news with characteristic dignity, noting that he passed peacefully at home in North London, his family at his side. In the months following his diagnosis, he campaigned with extraordinary vigour for routine prostate screening – a cause as worthy as any he might have reported upon from the studio chair. He was, by all accounts, a broadcaster of the old school: measured, authoritative, and possessed of the enviable ability to make even the most chaotic of news days seem comprehensible. The Broadcasting Society’s Morning Programme was fortunate to have him. We were all fortunate to have him. This Author extends every sympathy to his family.
I am, as ever, your most devoted observer – Lady Whistledown.