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Here is a truth this Friday upon which all reasonable persons may agree: a nation that cannot afford to fire its own cannons in practice, yet faces a foreign leader rattling his sabre over islands in the South Atlantic, is in a most particular kind of pickle. And so, Gentle Reader, we begin.
Lord Milei of the Argentine, that most theatrical of statesmen, delivered himself of a national address this week in which he announced economic sanctions against any firm daring to drill for oil near the Falkland Islands – which his nation insists, with the confidence of a man who has never consulted the islanders themselves, are rightfully his. He declared the Sea Lion oilfield a “clear and present danger,” which is a remarkable description of an oilfield, even by the standards of presidential theatre. Foreign Secretary Lord Miliband and Defence Secretary Lord Streeting responded with all the measured firmness one expects from gentlemen who have heard this particular speech before, and the Prime Minister’s Residence reiterated that the islands shall remain British “for as long as the Islanders wish.” Lord Milei was emboldened, one is told, by hints from Lord Trump that the American Colonies may no longer support the Kingdom on this matter. How bracing it must be, to stake one’s geopolitical ambitions upon a hint from Lord Trump.
But here is where the comedy thickens most agreeably. For it emerges simultaneously that the British Army has been instructed to curtail its “non-essential” training exercises on account of financial pressures. Large live fire exercises at Salisbury Plain and at Sennybridge in the Principality – cancelled. A planned exercise involving the Royal Tank Regiment – cancelled. Tanks and Apache helicopters rehearsing together – also cancelled. One is reliably informed that training which contributes most directly to deployments, including to, one notes with exquisite timing, the Falkland Islands, shall continue. So the soldiers who guard the very islands Lord Milei covets shall be trained, while those at home practise restraint of the most involuntary kind. Lord Burnham, as Prime Minister, faces mounting pressure to raise defence spending to three percent of national income by decade’s end. In the meantime: no cannon fire on Salisbury Plain, Gentle Reader. The sheep of Wiltshire may rest easy.
From the theatre of international affairs to the rather more intimate theatre of the employment market. Jobseekers – particularly those of the younger generation – are being preyed upon by villains of the digital variety, operating through professional listings platforms such as the Professional Connexions Register. The scheme runs thus: a false recruiter contacts a candidate, conducts a plausible interview by moving-picture call, then presents what appears to be a perfectly ordinary technical document. The document is, in fact, an instrument of the most sophisticated larceny. One poor soul handed in his notice, advertised his availability most transparently, completed the bogus assessment, retired to bed in good spirits – and woke to find £18,000 in cryptocurrency savings had vanished entirely. The Professional Connexions Register observes that younger professionals face the highest exposure to such scams – some thirty-two percent – yet a third of them admit to ignoring warning signs because the employment market is so fiercely competitive that they feel they cannot afford to be cautious. This Author finds this last detail the saddest of all. That desperation itself has become a weapon in the villain’s arsenal.
Now, as the month is barely four days old and already so crowded with incident, permit This Author one story that restores a measure of faith in the natural order of things. In North Britain, on the Isle of Mull, a sea eagle known affectionately as Kinky – named for the distinctive kink in his wing, broken in a storm when he fell from his nest in 2023 – has been spotted soaring above Loch Spelve, very much alive and apparently entirely unbothered by what the experts predicted for him, which was an early death. His parents, in a display of extended devotion that puts certain members of the ton entirely to shame, sacrificed a full breeding season to tend to their injured offspring well into his adulthood. Kinky survived his first winter alone and has now been photographed in fine fettle. Retired Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals officer Dave Sexton, who has worked with Mull’s sea eagles for more than twenty years, declared himself “in awe.” This Author is inclined to agree. In a Friday otherwise dominated by sanctions, cancelled artillery, and cryptocurrency theft, a broken-winged eagle deciding he shall simply live is the most satisfying dispatch of all.
Finally, a note of golden warmth – both meteorological and canine. The Meteorological Office promises that whilst this Friday brings wet and blustery conditions to much of North Britain, the south shall enjoy temperatures reaching a most agreeable 27 degrees Celsius by Sunday. The southern parts of the Southern Kingdom and the Principality, it must be noted, remain under drought conditions and hosepipe bans – so one shall be warm, but one shall not water one’s roses. And in an item that could not be more perfectly timed to close a column, it is announced that golden retrievers from across the known world shall gather in 2028 at Guisachan House in Glen Affric – the ancestral birthplace of their breed, established in 1868 by the aristocrat Sir Dudley Marjoribanks. The first litter rejoiced in the names Primrose, Cowslip, and Crocus. This Author, surveying a Friday of Falklands sabre-rattling, cancelled tank exercises, employment villainy, and a miraculous eagle, can think of no finer prospect than five hundred golden retrievers descending upon the Scottish Highlands in a spirit of uncomplicated joy. They, at least, require no sanctions, no budgets, and no cryptocurrency.
I am, as ever, your most devoted observer – Lady Whistledown.