The sun is shining as we find our way into the  Queen Elizabeth Center on the South Bank of the River. The Uber drops us off and the driver waves vaguely in ‘that direction over there.’ Four men in yellow vests are lounging on a break and smile at our questioning faces. They point to a door set back in the wall and in we go. 

Greeted with smiles of relief by the student staff that we got there in time, Walter is ushered away to be gowned. Beatrice and I head for the coffee while David eyes the pastries. One by one the professors emerge with gowns over their suits and mortarboards and velvet caps held sheepishly in hand to mill about and also eye the pastries. Each gown is different, signifying their graduating university. Walter and Robin Baker, OBE, RCA, FRSA will be wearing the turquoise of Ravensbourne and, because they are both to be made honorary Doctors, a soft velvet cap, with the appropriate colored tassel. The lovely student hostess takes Bea, David and I over to our reserved seating to wait. David takes out his drawing pencil and paper. The students come in clustered like bees – grouped in their disciplines – smiling and nervous while their families sit behind them, also smiling, proud and nervous. 

Ravensbourne is a small university that has made its way to London from the Ravensbourne river in Kent. Robin Baker is the man most responsible and it is his vision of the challenges – combining art and business that these young graduates face today. Finally we are asked to stand as the professors file in to take their places on the stage and turn to face those young eager faces solemnly looking back at them from the audience. There had been a moment of panic before entering the hall, Walter’s tassel was red – for journalism – instead of blue – for Education, Public works and Art – but it didn’t seem to stop this new Doctor of Philosophy in Film from accepting his diploma and saying a few words. And then David could leave.  As we watched the students enter the stage, accept their diplomas and return to their seat –  each in their own personal manner – we could see that 99% of these students are from Africa, India, and the Asian Continent all studying here in London, very much made possible by the quiet Robin Baker who had long ago understood that what the English have taken away we need to return.   

This week ever mindful of the English summer season beginning, the Kings first official Portrait was unveiled at Buckingham Palace by the King himself. Did he know it was so RED?  Painted by Jonathan Yeo it is, in fact, rather nice – if Red. Posters for sale on EBay are doing a brisk trade in print sales, for the picture is of a kindly king, handsome in an elder way. His face is sweet and only his hands show the physical work of weekends spend hedge-laying and hiking his beloved moors in all weathers. 

Meanwhile Europe is getting antsy. There are growing protests in Georgia. We must look at an atlas, Georgia, now where is that? Well it shares a boarder with Russia and from some Georgian towns it is possible to see smoke and gun-fire coming from the Russian army training grounds not a hundred miles away. If your border nestle beside Russia then you will either – like Belarus and President Lukashenko – welcome your mother or, like Ukraine, and its President Zelenskyy fight to protect your country as the Russian army invades with battles fought back and forth along the roadside coast-line or now like little Georgia get very nervous about laws being passed and seawalls to be protected. These are not little squabbles. While the Slovakian Prime Minister Robert Fido’s life is no longer in danger, feelings are high and divided between the peoples of Europe about the war in Ukraine and if their governments should support Ukraine or Russia. It has been over 20 years since a European politician was shot. This suspect was 71 – an age where one doesn’t have too much more to lose – a retired security guard and a poet.

Last Sunday there was an accident. Iran’s President Ebrahim Raisi along with the Foreign Minister  and six others were killed in a helicopter crash. There were no survivors. President Raisi was a hardline cleric close to Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Khamenei. BBC Weather presenter Simon King – who used to brief RAF air crews ahead of missions in the Middle East says: “ … it seems it was clearly a disturbed weather day, forecasts suggest the cloud levels would be at a level that would have been covering the mountains, there would have been hill fog, so there would have been a lot of hazards to address.” Foggy weather can be a help or a hindrance – depending on your circumstances. 

The old TV series, ‘Yes Minister” carries a longstanding political joke. One minister says, “There will be an inquiry”. The Prime Minister replies “Oh good. Then nothing will happen.” So it has always been. But finally one inquiry has come to a halt. Since the 1970’s when contaminated blood and blood products were given to patients through until the 1990’s, the Infected Blood Scandal has been pushed aside, shoved from one ministerial desk to another but not given up on. Finally, after Teresa May’s 2018 appointment of Brian Langstaff his report has landed in Parliament and is damming. Langstaff was not the protecting Safe Pair of Hands that May’s government had hoped. Hearing the testaments of patients and their families, seeing the look on the faces of politicians and whoever else he spoke with as they lied to him made for a 2000 page plus report that defamed them all.

Through seven Prime Ministers and countless National Health executives and doctors, the truth was hidden. 30,000 people had been infected with HIV, Hepatitis C and B by tainted blood supples – bought from America – and at least 3,000 have died. On Monday morning the report came out and was handed to the victims and their families before going off to Parliament, giving Rishi Sunak the opportunity for his finest speech to date calling this: ‘A Day of Shame for the British State.’ He can think himself lucky that he is the apparent deliverer of ‘the truth’. He promised that this government will pay whatever it takes to the victims of this cover-up scandal. In such situations there are steps to be taken. Among the scandals of the last fifty years, the Contaminated Blood scandal sits at the head of the list, while the Grenfell Towers and Post Office scandals remain to be completed. 

“This must never happen again,” says our prime minister – as have others before him. Even as he says those words, in his deepest sincerity voice, another scandal has emerged. Smaller this time – possibly it can be swept into another sewage holding river,  as the South Devon Water Board ‘Invited customers to boil their water’. Luckily – in this instance – there have been no deaths, but severe ‘tummy problems’ caused by an itty, bitty parasite getting into the water supply. “There is no remedy for this,” says a very tidy looking Water Board spokeswoman. “The Tummy problems will go away after a couple of weeks.” But don’t worry, ‘there is going to be an inquiry and this must never be allowed to happen again.’

This has been A Letter from A. Broad. Written and read for you by Muriel Murch.

And always overseen by Beatrice @ murchstudio.com