Londoner's Diary: Putin’s Enemy No 1 wants UK to blacklist Russians

 
On the offensive: campaigner Bill Browder (Picture: Tony Buckingham)
TONY BUCKINGHAM
13 February 2015

Talk of a British Magnitsky Act — corresponding to the American list of persona non grata Russians — rang out in St James’s and on the BBC last night. At the British Academy, Bill Browder, the investment manager turned campaigner, was launching his new book Red Notice: How I Became Putin’s No 1 Enemy, and said it was high time the British government published a similar list. Meanwhile, Chris Bryant was calling on David Cameron to do the same on Question Time.

Labour leader Ed Miliband is said already to be sympathetic to such a list after a private briefing at human rights lawyer Geoffrey Robertson’s house, with Amal Clooney present.

Browder is the founder of Russian firm Hermitage Capital Management. His lawyer Sergei Magnitsky died after brutal beatings in a Russian prison in 2009 while investigating corruption. President Obama’s administration then pushed through a Magnitsky Act, which banned Russian officials — 60 in all — from entering the country and freezing their assets in 2012. However, the British government has no such declared blacklist, instead only reserving the right to bar people from the country for human rights violations or terrorism.

“I’ve heard that the UK Government already has a secret ‘Magnitsky list’, Browder told The Londoner last night at the launch, attended by former Chancellor Norman Lamont and Helena Kennedy QC. “My aim now is to make that secret list public.”

Over on Question Time, Chris Bryant said: “He [David Cameron] could say that anybody who was involved in the murder of Sergei Magnitsky, or in the corruption he uncovered, is not welcome in this country. And I don’t understand why David Cameron won’t say that.” Over to you, Dave.

Fifty Shades author 'happy to be home'

E.L. James has travelled the world publicising Fifty Shades of Grey but it’s not Christian Grey’s bed she wants to curl up in. “I’m so happy to be home,” she said at Aqua on Argyll Street after last night’s film premiere, “except I’m more excited about tomorrow night, when I will be able to sleep in my own bed in Ealing.”

More questions for Ukip on migrants

Warm words on immigration from Spear’s magazine. Noting research by the Mayor’s office, Spears appears to put its weight behind calls to relax immigration conditions set by David Cameron as he is “pushed right by the rise of Ukip”.

The research, backed by the likes of KPMG and Aylesford International, draws the conclusion that vote-winning efforts to cut immigration have led entrepreneurs and business to shun London. The article is no less critical of Ukip, which Spear’s staff have pushed, unsuccessfully, to clarify its line on high net worth foreigners, a position which may be more nuanced than Ukip’s approach to common-garden M4-driving foreigners. The Londoner wonders if they could have just asked Spear’s editor-in-chief William Cash, given he’s standing as a Ukip candidate?

Snapper’s delights

Photographer Mary McCartney, her director husband Simon Aboud and model Jerry Hall were at Mayfair’s Pace Gallery last night for artist Brian Clarke’s new exhibition. McCartney’s work borrows from her famous connections — she has shot Kate Moss and Gwyneth Paltrow — but she has pointed out in the past that it’s still hard work.

Wrapped up: Mary McCartney and Simon Aboud (Picture: Dave Benett)
Dave Benett

“When I go on a shoot, it all sounds so glamorous,” she said last year. “But it can be a slog and cold, and you can spend hours on end standing in a soggy field.” At least she wrapped up warm last night.

Faulks’ funk over Ferns kerfuffle

Yesterday — mere minutes after The Londoner had publicly chastised the salary-seeking novelist Sebastian Faulks for not taking up our generous offer of work on the Diary desk — what should arrive in our inbox?

“Now, about this job,” writes Faulks, right. “It’s tempting. And I have some diary experience (Daily Telegraph, 1979-83). The early starts would be a worry, though, as I can’t function until I have read the papers and finished the Times crossword. That can take time (still two short today at 10 o’clock).

I think it might be a drawback for you that I don’t know my Fern Britton from Fearne Cotton, have never seen The Voice, Big Brother etc. Unless maybe you could start a Thirty Years Ago Today columnette...”

The Londoner — who has also never seen The Voice and only watched Big Brother when it was an edgy “social experiment” — pointed out that the inability to distinguish between the two Ferns is a plus rather than a disqualification.

Come on, Seb, don’t you miss the thrills of the London party scene, chasing down stories and knocking back champagne? “Yours is the only offer so far,” mused Faulks, “but it’s early days … Let’s wait and see what comes my way.

I’m hoping British Gas might offer something.”

No gastric band for Lederer

Comedian Helen Lederer was at The Hospital Club last night to launch her novel Losing It, about a woman popping diet pills. She says she’d considered a gastric band when she landed a role on Channel 4 soap opera Hollyoaks. “But when I looked into it I realised I’d have to have baby food and a hole in my stomach like a porthole on a cruise ship. I chose my autonomy and freedom and fatness over the band.”

Scandis at the double

On February 26, Dancing in the Dark, a blockbuster autobiographical novel from Norwegian novelist Karl Ove Knausgaard, hits the shelves. Details are scarce, the embargo is high, and review copies under lock and key. All we know is that the story follows Knausgaard at 18, working as a teacher in a fishing village in the Arctic Circle.

But will another page-turner steal his thunder? Another Scandi novel, The Helios Disaster, lands on our desk. It is also out on the 26th, its plot revolving around a girl born from her father’s head, Greek god-style. The writer is Linda Boström Knausgaard — she is Karl’s Swedish wife, and this is her first novel. The press release only mentions the link in passing. Are London’s bookshelves big enough for both of them?

Political haunting of the day: footage has been found of former SNP leader Alex Salmond guest-starring in an obscure Pakistani soap opera. He played a Scottish ghost. Naturally.

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