The Londoner: Battle lines drawn at Garrick over legal challenge

In today's Diary: Garrick members at war over women / LPO fear for their conductor in Norway / Michael Rosen on looking like Pep Guardialoa / Lib Dem candidate blasts Shaun Bailey as "total unknown"
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12 September 2020

MEMBERS of the Garrick are doubling down in the face of the latest legal attempt to allow female members of the august society club, The Londoner understands.

Emily Bendell, a businesswoman, hit the headlines this week after she launched a legal challenge against the Garrick, claiming that its “gentlemen only” membership policy treated women as second-class citizens.

“I don’t think anybody takes it remotely seriously as a legal challenge,” one member who is anti-women joining told The Londoner, adding: “The Equality Act is quite clear. We’ve lived with it for 10 years.”

In 2015 an AGM at the Garrick voted on whether to admit women members. A majority did vote in favour of allowing women, but the number did not meet the two-thirds threshold and the motion failed.

One pro-women Garrick member told us another challenge was mooted, but added: “We don’t want to alert the other side too much, we want to jump them,” explaining: “The anti side are far better organised than the liberal side, because we’re normal people with lives.”

Pistols at dawn.

Maestro may be trapped in Norway

Edward Gardner, the London Philharmonic Orchestra’s principal conductor designate, may be trapped in Norway ahead of a series of concerts planned for this autumn. David Burke, CEO of the LPO, tells us Gardner may have to quarantine as Norway’s cases are rising. But he adds that coronavirus has changed the live concerts they’ve done since lockdown. “The whole audience is just willing for it to be as exciting as possible. The appreciation of it is really heightened. I’ve been lucky enough to go to eight concerts over lockdown and the atmosphere is supercharged and really quite special. It’s worth all the effort,” he said. An upbeat note.

Annie shuts Doors on profligate Jim

 Annie Nightingale (Photo by Tristan Fewings/Getty Images)
Getty Images

JIM MORRISON left Annie Nightingale cold. The legendary DJ tells the How To Fail podcast she once asked him what he thought about money “and he got this hundred dollar bill out of his pocket and set light to it. I was like, ‘OK, yeah’. So I wasn’t that wildly impressed with him.”

Rosen: My hair’s a goner, not a Gooner

Metro

MICHAEL ROSEN, who is on the mend after Covid-19 put him in intensive care for 39 days, is looking on the bright side despite losing his hair. The author tells the Ham & High: “I say to my son, ‘I’m going to look like Pep Guardiola’, though being a Gooner, I’d rather look like Mikel Arteta.”

SW1A

AFP via Getty Images

A BOLD tactic in the London mayoral race from one of the two candidates hoping to be the Liberal Democrats’ pick. “London deserves better in this contest than ... [a] Conservative candidate who is completely unknown,” says former MEP Luisa Porritt in her introductory remarks on the London Lib Dems website. Luisa, we have bad news...

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Parliament

BOB BLACKMAN brushes off Speaker Lindsay Hoyle teasing him for looking like he’s in a cockpit when he appears remotely. “We are now heading to Bob Blackman, who is about to land his question,” trilled Sir Lindsay. “This of course refers to my rather natty headphones,” Blackman said, adding that they were supplied by Parliament’s digital services. At least, he adds, he can be heard “loud and clear” unlike “so many colleagues”. Ground control to Major Bob.

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