O Britain! O Albion! O woe! Draw near, ye serially forsaken masses, for these are the darkest of days for this septic isle.

Thanks to Lady Bracknell, we all know what losing two of anything begins to look like – and last weekend's heartbreaking news that Richard Branson has moved permanently to his Virgin Island tax haven has suddenly become two-pronged. To an interview in Tuesday's Times, then, and a threat so grave that this column has been heavily sedated ever since reading it.

There really is no easy way to say this, but Trudie Styler, too, is thinking of ditching us. "I don't want to criticise my country," explains Trudie graciously, "but there are times I feel that Sting and myself have been treated unkindly [by the British press]."

I'm sure we all wish a pox on these scribblers – I myself seem to be coming out in hives just thinking about them – who have led Trudie to conclude she is far more relaxed in America "not having to second-guess myself". Her conclusion is as blood-curdling as it is self-effacing: "Sting and I need to think what our relationship is to England in the long term."

Rethinking their relationship with England? Why do I picture a wailing and snot-streaked England literally hanging on to Sting and Trudie's legs, and screaming: "Wait! Don't leave me! I can CHANGE!", before altering tack and sending them 473 abusive text messages threatening to kill itself if they don't relent and realise just how perfect we all are together.

But perhaps all is not lost. This may be just the denial stage talking, but I think it's important to recognise that Sting and Trudie have not definitely stated they will abandon us. The interview is possibly a warning shot designed to shock the nation into contemplating the reality of losing one of its cultural crown jewels.

Even so, what has brought it all on? "The unkind treatment," speculates the Times, "may be a reference to the damaging story a few years ago when the couple's personal chef successfully sued for unfair dismissal after losing her job while pregnant."

"It was very wounding," explains Trudie. "I wasn't even asked to speak up for myself. It was trial by Daily Mail."

Technically, it was trial by Southampton employment tribunal (case unanimously upheld, with Ms Styler's "shameful conduct" toward her servants cited in a blistering judgment) – but go on.

"Rockstars' wives have never been given an easy time," observes Trudie. "They weren't nice about Linda McCartney till she died."

As for her countryfolk's other faults, these mostly seem to be their failure to appreciate the altruism of the super-rich. "In the US you're expected to be philanthropic," she claims, "but in England you're considered a bit of a hypocrite."

No offence to our campaigning eco-warrior, but that feels like something of a false opposition. After all, Trudie's breakout appearance in Lost in Showbiz came when it was revealed that she had taken a private jet the short distance from New York to Washington to attend a White House dinner, accompanied by an eight-person entourage that included her hair guru.

Asked how this sat with her environmental campaigning, she retorted: "My life is to travel and my life is also to speak out about the horrors of an environment that is being abused at the hands of oil companies. I can't think of a cleverer answer than that."

Lost in Showbiz couldn't really think of a stupider one, especially given that she had recently made the 80-mile journey to the house of fellow environmentalist Zac Goldsmith by helicopter. But such reflections so incensed Trudie that she was moved to respond with a defence of her "use of private aviation fuel" published on this newspaper's Comment pages, in which – among many amusements – she suggested my offending article was something to do with "class envy".

Washington, she continued, is one of those places it is simply impractical "to reach by wagon train or boat" – forcing Lost in Showbiz to clarify that a standard choo-choo train could transport Trudie and her hairdresser and the rest of her entourage from New York to the US capital in three hours. Still, nothing was going to deter her from reaching a devastating verdict. "To be so undermined by the Guardian," she concluded, "albeit on its showbiz pages, feels like being hit by a particularly vicious burst of friendly fire."

And now the threat of abandonment, in the very same week as Branson explains he does a lot for charity, if not for the Inland Revenue. This is what a humanitarian brain drain looks like, clearly, and every Briton left behind should take the rejection deeply personally.