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Dearest Gentle Reader,
It being a Friday, one might reasonably expect the affairs of society to wind themselves gently toward the weekend. One would, as ever, be entirely wrong. This Author has barely set down her pen from yesterday’s dispatches before the world has furnished her with fresh absurdities, fresh deceits, and – most deliciously – a benefits fraudster who apparently believed that “housebound” was a flexible concept, much like the truth itself.
The government, ever eager to instruct us in the management of our households, has issued solemn guidance declaring that children under five ought not to spend more than one hour each day gazing at screens. Under-twos, we are told, should not watch screens alone at all. “Screen swaps” are recommended – wherein one substitutes a glowing rectangle for a storybook or a simple game. This Author cannot help but note that the government has now taken a position on what a toddler watches, which is more than can be said for several matters of rather greater national consequence. The guidance does concede, with admirable caution, that this is “still quite an unknown area.” A bold foundation upon which to issue advice, one must say.
Meanwhile, the Trades and Commerce Watchdog has turned its considerable gaze upon five firms – among them food delivery giant Just Eat, motoring site Autotrader, funeral company Dignity, reviews platform Feefo, and fresh pasta purveyor Pasta Evangelists – suspected of trafficking in fake and misleading reviews. Half of all online reviews, some researchers suggest, are fabricated entirely. Half! This Author has always suspected that the effusive five-star praise heaped upon certain establishments bore all the hallmarks of fiction, and now the authorities appear to agree. “Fake reviews strike at the heart of consumer trust,” declared the Watchdog’s chief. Indeed they do. One trusts the investigation will be conducted with rather more rigour than certain of those glowing testimonials.
And so to the affair that has kept the corridors of power in a most productive state of agitation. Officials are preparing to request that Lord Mandelson surrender the messages from his personal phone – his work device having already been surrendered – as part of the disclosure surrounding his sacking as ambassador to the American Colonies. The timing is entirely coincidental, the government insists, with the theft of the personal phone belonging to Lord Starmer‘s former chief-of-staff. One naturally takes them entirely at their word. Opposition members are, one gathers, most eager to learn how frequently Lord Mandelson communicated with ministers – and whether his friendship with the late Lord Epstein was quite as peripheral to his appointment as we have been led to believe. The personal phone, it seems, may prove more illuminating than any work device. How fortunate that anyone still commits their thoughts to writing at all.
Speaking of Lord Epstein – for one is apparently never far from that particular shadow – a letter has been dispatched to the Duchess of York by an American congressman, inviting her to testify before his committee regarding her “close personal and business ties” to the late convicted offender. A two-week deadline has been set. The letter references correspondence in which a certain “Sarah” described Lord Epstein as “a legend” following his conviction, and further suggests the Duchess solicited financial assistance from him directly. There is, mercifully, no legal mechanism to compel her testimony across the Atlantic. Whether she volunteers it shall be a matter of considerable interest to observers on both sides of the ocean.
Finally, This Author presents the week’s most breathtaking specimen of human audacity. One Catherine Wieland, aged thirty-three, of Goring-by-Sea in West Sussex, claimed over £23,000 in Personal Independence Payments on the grounds that her anxiety rendered her entirely housebound – unable, she stated, to cook or wash herself. Investigators, consulting bank statements with admirable thoroughness, discovered evidence of surfing and ziplining in Cancún, seventy-six beauty appointments, sixty visits to public houses, clubs and restaurants, and three separate trips to Thorpe Park. Confronted with this evidence, Miss Wieland offered the defence that she had not realised one was “not allowed to leave your house.” She was handed a suspended sentence and must repay the full £23,662. This Author has heard many things in her years of devoted observation, but seldom anything quite so magnificently, catastrophically bold. One almost admires it.
I am, as ever, your most devoted observer – Lady Whistledown.