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Gentle Reader, permit This Author to offer you a verdict before the evidence: today is a day of water. Water in the bills, water in the sky, water in the lungs of children – and, if Lord Burnham has his way, a roof over the head of every soul who has been sleeping in it. Wednesday has assembled its arguments with unusual coherence.
First, the matter of money. The Office of National Statistics has confirmed what every household already knew in their bones: inflation has climbed to 2.9% in the year to July, the highest rate in four months. The culprit, as ever in these troubled times, is energy. The Energy Regulator raised the price cap on gas and electricity by a bracing 13% in July, adding £221 a year to the typical bill. Worse, the Cornwall Oracle forecasts another 4% rise in October, which would take energy costs to their highest point since July 2023. The cause, naturally, is the ongoing conflict between the American Colonies and Persia, which has all but shuttered the Strait of Hormuz and sent gas prices soaring at their sharpest pace in nearly four years. Lord Healey, serving in the Chancellor’s office, assured the nation that Britain’s economy is “resilient” and that bus fares have been capped at £2. One is grateful for small mercies, even if one’s gas bill is no longer small in the least.
Speaking of keeping one’s fellow citizens from the cold: Lord Burnham of the Prime Minister’s Residence has pledged, with admirable seasonal ambition, to have every rough sleeper in the Southern Kingdom off the streets by Christmas. A £442 million package will provide emergency accommodation, psychiatric support, and – in time – more than 1,000 permanent homes. The scheme draws inspiration from the pandemic-era “Everyone In” initiative, which housed some 37,000 souls in hotels and temporary lodgings. Lord Burnham declared: “We did it in the pandemic. We can do it again.” The Tories were swift to note that he made a similar pledge when Mayor of Greater Manchester, with results they characterise as incomplete. Whether this Author views the Prime Minister’s ambition as heroic or optimistic rather depends on how cold December proves to be.
And now, on the matter of the weather – since it would be positively un-British to ignore it. The Meteorological Office has issued yellow thunderstorm warnings across northern England, the Northern Province, and eastern North Britain, with flash flooding and power cuts expected before the night is out. This follows nearly two months of dry weather across much of the country – yes, two months – during which a European heatwave sent gas demand soaring still further as the Continent reached for its fans and its air conditioning. That the very drought which inflated our energy bills should now resolve itself in a dramatic electrical storm feels almost too poetic. Nature, it appears, has a flair for the theatrical that rivals even this Author.
From one kind of pollution to another: scientists have declared themselves “stunned” – their word, and This Author savours it – by the speed with which children’s lungs recovered after the introduction of an Ultra Low Emission Zone in the Capital in 2019. A study tracking more than 3,400 primary school children in the Capital and Luton found that lung growth, previously stunted by foul city air, had reached near-identical levels in both groups by the study’s end. The findings arrive with the weight of genuine consequence: air pollution can cause asthma, heart disease, diabetes, and early death – as the tragic case of young Ella Adoo-Kissi-Debrah, who died in 2013 and was the first person in this Kingdom to have pollution listed as a cause of death, made devastatingly plain. That cleaner air can restore what dirty air stole is news worth celebrating without irony.
Finally, something to lift the spirits entirely: the seas off Yorkshire have yielded a spectacle not seen in sixty years. The crew of The Dominator – a vessel name that commands immediate respect – landed two Atlantic bluefin tuna off the coast of Whitby on successive days, each weighing more than 300 kilograms. The giant fish had been absent from the North Sea since the 1960s, driven away by overfishing and the collapse of herring shoals. Crew member Jack Gardner, all of 28 years old and possessed of considerable nautical fortitude, described it as the “best feeling ever.” Researchers from the University of Exeter have tagged six of the creatures off Whitby. One imagines Yorkshire’s fishermen will be quite insufferable about this for some years to come. This Author cannot begrudge them a single boast.
I am, as ever, your most devoted observer – Lady Whistledown.