The Londoner: Jeremy Corbyn collects a curious clique

Jeremy Corbyn's curious company / A phallic trend emerges / Stars turn out for Baz Luhrmann nights / Oscars interrupts award season 
Corbyn Clique: Barnaby Raine and Jean-Luc Mélenchon
9 August 2018

Jeremy Corbyn’s list of strange bedfellows grows. French socialist Jean-Luc Mélenchon, who will speak alongside the Labour leader at Momentum’s autumn festival, campaigned to ban the burka in France. And one of the Left’s newest stars is the son of a former Wonga chief.

Corbyn is the headline speaker at Momentum’s The World Transformed event in September. But also on the bill is Mélenchon who said the burka deprives the wearer “of social existence and undermines their physical and moral integrity”.

As if the party didn’t have enough controversial topics to discuss, we can reveal that a prominent new Corbynista has links to much-hated payday lender Wonga.

Barnaby Raine, who has appeared on major UK TV news channels this month backing Labour over anti-Semitism, is the son of the former head of regulatory and legal affairs at Wonga, Henry Raine.

It was Len McCluskey, Corbyn’s biggest union backer, who referred to Wonga’s business practice as “vulture capitalism” in 2013.

Raine has made waves on the Left for his nuanced work on anti-Semitism. In a piece for the Left-wing website Novara Media entitled “How Labour’s dreadful anti-Semitism debate has to change” Raine wrote of “anti-capitalists” who “should be the first to read these malaises as produced by and embedded in hierarchical societies rather than as marginal cases of a few bad apples whose presence is overstated by zealots”.

But it was his father who, according to a biography on his company’s website, “led the effort to ensure Wonga’s authorisation by the Financial Conduct Authority in January 2016” and defended the loan firm before a Parliamentary committee in 2013.

Barnaby attended the fee-paying Westminster School before going to Oxford University.

Awkward times on the Left.

Worst supporting act

The Academy is running the risk of stepping on the toes of our very own Baftas by announcing that it is bringing forward the 2020 Oscars to February 9. The British event, which is always held in early February, attracts international stars to London. However, they may be less inclined to make the journey if the Oscars ceremony has already occurred. But it appears that the British Academy will bow to its US cousin. “We are now looking at the timeline for the British Academy Film Awards, and will consult with the industry before announcing our date for 2020,” a spokesperson says. “Our intention will be to stay ahead of the Oscars.”

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Sophia Money-Coutts launched her debut novel The Plus One last night at Claridge’s. She wrote the book while working at Tatler, before she went to the office. “It’s a bit odd, I have to say, writing sex scenes at seven in the morning at Pret A Manger, while all around me businessmen ate their porridge. I suppose we all have our routines.”

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A crane has been brought in to remove a sex toy glued to the roof of the main building at the King’s Royal Hussars’ barracks in Tidworth in Wiltshire. Is a curious trend emerging? Last week a phallus was fixed on to Jacob Rees-Mogg’s car while he was away in New York.

Stars head west as Baz and the Bard prove a potent cocktail

Strictly Ballroom: Matt Cardle, Beverley Knight, Zizi Strallen, Jonny Labey: (Photo by David M. Benett/Dave Benett/Getty Images) 
Dave Benett/Getty Images

The work of Baz Luhrmann took over London last night as two events celebrated the work of the Australian director. Model Rafferty Law and actor Mark Strong were among the guests at the opening of Secret Cinema’s new Romeo and Juliet immersive experience. Guests at the west London event were involved in an “immersive” viewing of Luhrmann’s adaptation of the Shakespeare classic.

In the West End, singer Matt Cardle was at the Piccadilly Theatre celebrating his new role in Strictly Ballroom: The Musical, based on Luhrmann’s first film. He was joined by singer Beverley Knight, recently cast as Emmeline Pankhurst in a new suffragette musical at the Old Vic theatre. Knight hit out at critics who thought she did not have the correct skin colour for the role. “You mean like the hundreds of years of white actors playing Othello, Cleopatra, any number of Asian characters... like that?” she said. “Sometimes it’s better to keep quiet.”

SW1A

JOURNALIST Kate Adie has a type: politicians. Ruth Davidson, leader of the Scottish Conservatives, shared a secret while talking to Sir David Steel at the Fringe by the Sea Festival yesterday. Davidson tweeted a photograph with the Liberal Democrat with the caption: “Who knew we had being kissed by Kate Adie in common?”

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A timely job offering: the Labour Party is looking for a “head of disputes” after its investigation into Margaret Hodge MP was dropped. The lucky successful candidate “will be responsible for overseeing procedures related to internal disputes and disciplinary affairs, including undertaking investigations as necessary”. Not your average nine to five then.

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Nadine Dorries MP has called for a ban on a “medieval dress code”, referring to the burka. Social media users point out that this would also include trousers and shoes. Does Dorries want to get rid of them too?

Quote of the day

‘It was like being in the room with him for a moment’

Channel 4’s​ Krishnan Guru-​Murthy passes judgment on​ Rupa Huq MP’s Boris Johnson impression

Love's on the rocks, thanks to #MeToo

Dating concerns: Joanna Coles: (Photo by Roy Rochlin/Getty Images)
Getty Images

Joanna Coles, the British journalist who has edited US Cosmopolitan and Marie Claire and just stepped down as Hearst Magazines’ chief content officer, says the #MeToo campaign has made dating harder. "There’s a lot of stress on women feeling retro if they say that they either want to get married or have children,” she tells Monocle Radio’s Meet the Writers series. “So I think we need to fess up that we all need each other, that we are much happier sharing experiences with each other, and I think #MeToo has made that harder.”

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