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Dearest Gentle Reader,
Forty billion pounds for housing, a billion more besides, an Olympic dream for the north, a king sailing into the most turbulent waters of his reign, a prime minister musing aloud about reversing the signature achievement of the last decade, and – most arresting of all – a letter sent to a man in a Philippine hospital that this column suspects shall be discussed for a very long time indeed. Sunday, it seems, had no intention of resting.
Let us begin where delicacy demands we tread with the greatest care. The Duchess of Sussex has, it is understood, written to her father, Thomas Markle, to inform him in terms of crystalline finality that he shall never meet his grandchildren, and that the relevant authorities are well acquainted with allegations made against him. The letter, dispatched whilst Markle was recovering from an amputation in the Philippines, is said to constitute the definitive close of a relationship already long reduced to rubble. Philippine authorities confirm they are investigating the allegations. The Federal Bureau of Investigation in the American Colonies has confirmed awareness of the claims. Markle, who denies everything, is eighty-two years old. This Author will add nothing further on that subject, save to observe that the Duchess of Sussex – whatever one’s view of her many public pronouncements – appears to have acted with more restraint than the circumstances might have excused.
Now, from the gravely private to the magnificently public. Lord Burnham, our Prime Minister, has ventured into the Sunday Times to suggest that an “honest discussion” on restoring free movement with the Continental Alliance might be rather welcome. One is given to understand he has also not entirely ruled out full membership of that same body he was elected, in part, to remain estranged from. Viscount Farage has called this a betrayal of Brexit voters, which is roughly what Viscount Farage calls everything that does not involve Viscount Farage. The truly brave observation here is that Lord Burnham apparently believes the British public is ready for a “factual, evidence-based debate.” This Author wishes him the very best of luck with that endeavour and will be watching from a safe distance.
On Wednesday, Chancellor Healey presents his first Budget, and the pre-announcements are now arriving at such a clip that one wonders whether there shall be anything left to announce. Today’s offering: over £1bn for social and affordable housing in the Southern Kingdom, pushing the government’s ten-year homes programme past £40bn in total. Regional mayors shall receive fresh powers, preferential borrowing rates for house-building, and an initial £285m in seed funding to liberate them from what the Royal Exchequer calls “fragmented bidding pots” – a phrase that sounds precisely like the kind of thing designed by a committee who has never tried to navigate a planning application. There is also, and This Author reports this in complete seriousness, new support for small breweries. Chancellor Healey wishes to “turn the tide for our pint producers.” One suspects the pint producers will raise a glass to that.
His Majesty the King departs on Tuesday for a Caribbean tour taking in the Bahamas, Guyana, and Antigua and Barbuda – nine days, three countries, and an almost unfathomable weight of history trailing in his wake. Historians are already calling it the greatest risk of his reign, for the questions of reparations and formal apology for Britain’s role in the transatlantic slave trade will dog every speech, every handshake, every carefully choreographed arrival. His Majesty has been advised by the Burnham administration not to issue an official apology – an administration which has itself declined to pay reparations. He will, we are told, “not shy away from the darkest days of our past,” whilst simultaneously doing precisely that in any legally binding sense. It is a circle that no amount of royal speechwriting has yet squared, and This Author watches with genuine sympathy for a man navigating an inheritance he did not choose.
And finally, tucked within Chancellor Healey‘s Budget is a prize of an entirely different sort: £7m for a feasibility study into hosting the Olympics across the north of the Southern Kingdom, potentially in the 2040s. Lord Burnham says he wants people to “feel that sense of excitement” and not merely “watch it on the telly.” This Author has only one observation: the London Olympics of 2012 were estimated to have boosted the economy by £9.9bn – a figure met, the record shows, with “some scepticism.” Seven million pounds to study whether the north might like to try is, all things considered, a most optimistic wager. This Author, for one, hopes the feasibility study is conducted in rather less than eighteen years. The north has been waiting long enough for most things.
I am, as ever, your most devoted observer – Lady Whistledown.