The Londoner: Labour skirmish in Hampstead

David's Hare-brained review request | Bootle's book blunder | Brian May under pressure | Gosht! Stanley stops for a chaat | Reshuffle jitters | Lara Stone's engagement riddle
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13 February 2020

Hampstead and Kilburn last night became the latest front in the battle between Labour leadership contenders Rebecca Long-Bailey and Keir Starmer, as a packed nomination meeting saw both sets of supporters try to swing the meeting in their favour.

A local source tells us that “Momentum and Long-Bailey’s camp were desperate to make sure Keir didn’t get nominated” as it’s a neighbouring constituency of Starmer’s. But The Londoner also understands that Starmer’s supporters were “heavily whipped” to attend the meeting. It is claimed a plan was made by supporters of Long-Bailey that featured an email from Camden Momentum telling their members not to back Starmer and a letter to local paper the Camden New Journal attacking him and “pushing Rebecca” before the meeting was held. The letter from Katherine Bligh said “Sir Keir was the chief architect of Labour’s disastrous Brexit policy” and said he was “so London-centric, he is not going to appeal to voters in the North nor the Midlands either”. Bligh continued: “At least one candidate is everything that Sir Keir is not. Members would do well to elect Rebecca Long-Bailey together with Richard Burgon as deputy leader."

Bligh, who is chair of Hampstead and Kilburn Constituency Labour Party, then ran last night’s nomination meeting, which attracted around 400 attendees. “Momentum were out in full force and they whooped and cheered every time RLB was mentioned,” the source tells us. “There were some crazy speeches from them including one that said Tony Blair has been the worst prime minister in our lifetimes.”

When local MP Tulip Siddiq tried to speak, it is claimed the meeting’s chair Bligh “pretended she didn’t see Siddiq and people shouted out ‘Tulip wants to speak!’ She had no choice in the end but to pick her”. But despite the apparent skullduggery, the Starmerites ended up happy as their man won on first preferences — a trend of nominations so far. But there’s still a long way to go in this very long race.

Hare-brained review request

Sir David Hare had an unfortunate encounter after he’d just written the first part of his MI5 trilogy.

The playwright bumped into John le Carré in the street, who asked him what he was working on.

“In a rash moment, I informed our greatest spy novelist that I had just finished a new screenplay about MI5,” Hare writes in the New Statesman. “I mistook his politeness for interest and said, if he liked, I could send it to him. His reply was deserved. ‘By all means send it to me — but I shall be withering.’”

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Sir David Hare
WireImage

The title of Roger Bootle’s latest book, The AI Economy, received a mixed reception. The economist told an Adam Smith Institute crowd: “One reader said, ‘Why on earth are you writing about a major road?’. And a friend of mine with a farming background said: “What do you know about artificial insemination?” Too intelligent by half.

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Brian May angrily swiped at an Australian cameraman’s phone while posing with fans in Brisbane. The Queen guitarist explained the incident on Instagram: “I headed towards him with the intention of temporarily separating him from his phone... before my security guy gently dissuaded me.” Under pressure Down Under.

Gosht! Stanley stops for a chaat

Stanley Tucci and friends at Gymkhana
Dave Benett/Getty Images for Gym

At a VIP dinner to celebrate Michelin-starred Indian restaurant Gymkhana’s reopening last night, The Londoner caught up with naan other than Stanley Tucci. The actor told us about shooting the upcoming adaptation of Roald Dahl’s The Witches: “The strangest thing was acting with a green screen. I feel like a very old man, it’s so sophisticated now.”

Dancer Eric Underwood was sanguine about his appearance in feline flop Cats: “Well, you have to laugh or cry. It’s better than being forgotten”. Tucci was joined by his partner, literary agent Felicity Blunt, and fellow actors Thomas Brodie-Sangster and Sagar Radia. In Soho, meanwhile, Aston Martin Red Bull celebrated its partnership with technology firm IRIS with actors Gabriella Wilde and Cressida Bonas while on St Martin’s Lane chef Gizzi Erskine and presenter Myleene Klass celebrated the launch of Erskine’s pop-up restaurant The Nitery.

SW1A

Reshuffle day is always stressful for Westminster’s movers and shakers. Labour MP for Easington Grahame Morris recalls getting into a Commons lift with Lib Dem Lynne Featherstone during the coalition years. “Are you going up?” Morris asked her. A flustered Featherstone replied: “It’s too early, I haven’t heard anything yet.” Our thoughts and prayers are with ministers and their bag carriers.

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The Londoner spoke to a number of Tory MPs and ministers last night who were jittery about whether they would be getting the call from No 10 to either step up or ship out. But someone’s future seems assured by his peers. A junior minister told us: “I look forward to serving under Oliver Dowden.” His colleague quipped: “Mate, at some point we’ll all be working for Oliver Dowden.” Is now the time to buy shares in the MP for Hertsmere?

Is it rock on for Lara Stone and beau

Dave Benett/WireImage for amfAR

Lara Stone has dropped a big hint that she and her boyfriend David Grievson are engaged. Stone and Grievson were recently pictured leaving a jewellers in Primrose Hill, sparking speculation they had been buying an engagement ring. At the time they declined to comment. Was it a ring they were buying, we asked?
“There’s not an engagement ring... from there,” David Walliams’s ex replied. So there’s a ring? “There might be one,” Stone said coyly. Of course The Londoner congratulated her on the good news. Stone immediately said “thank you!” before hastily adding “maybe”.

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Quote of the day

'The system is not broken; it just needed flushing'

Tory MP Andrea Jenkyns sums up British politics on reshuffle day

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