Londoner's Diary: Desperately seeking ... a new Labour spinner

(Photo by Jack Taylor/Getty Images
Getty Images
6 January 2017

Hold on to your hats: The Labour Party is recruiting a new spin-doctor for Jeremy Corbyn. Given that the Labour leader is hardly a stalwart on the airwaves, could this be one of the easiest or most difficult jobs in Westminster? The role of Deputy Director — Strategy and Communications will be reporting directly to the party’s executive director, none other than feisty comms chief Seumas Milne.

“We don’t comment on ongoing appointments,” an uncharacteristically jolly Labour press officer told us when we asked how the recruitment drive was going but the lucky candidate can expect a turbulent ride. With a report by the Fabian Society suggesting the party could find itself with only 150 seats in the Commons barring a change of leadership and the New Statesman wondering how Corbyn can possibly win back the four million voters who have abandoned his party, the new spinner could be desperately short of normally sympathetic ears.

There may also be the choppy waters of Labour’s internal management to navigate. Interestingly, given recent accusations by Labour’s deputy leader Tom Watson that no one in his boss’s office tells him anything, the job is a personal appointment to Corbyn’s entourage. The ad on parliamentary jobs website W4MP says pay is dependent on experience and that “this is a fixed-term contract for the period only that Jeremy Corbyn is the Leader of the Labour Party and Leader of the Opposition”. Applications close on Tuesday. Fingers crossed he’s still in charge by then.

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The BBC gave an amusing display of the different points of reference that exist for sister channels this morning. The World Service reported that an iceberg “five times the size of Manhattan” was about to break away from Antarctica. A couple of hours later Radio 4 carried news of the same ’berg, this time rather Pooterishly describing it as “a quarter the size of Wales”.

The Oldie crowd retire to the bedroom

Is THE Oldie sexing up? The Londoner was browsing through the mag for well-connected retirees and amid all the adverts for vinyl records and river cruises our eye was drawn to services of a more horizontal nature. Oldies could choose from a variety of offers in desirable locations around Zone 1. Ads ranged from “Understanding Attractive Continental Lady offers a memorable massage to discerning gentlemen in discreet Marylebone surroundings” to a “Petite Oriental Beauty 1 min Sloane Square Tube”. In a world of digital advertising sales there seems something oddly reassuring about a quiet hour with Mature Lorna or Shereen in Lancaster Gate. Gentleman “walkers” also advertise as “Male courtesan for ladies: presentable discreet intelligent company for dinner, theatre and social occasions”. Retirement is looking rather fun.

Suki’s swordplay is a cut above the rest

THEY say you can’t have your cake and eat it but model Suki Waterhouse can. She turned 25 yesterday and posted celebrations on Instagram. In one video, she slices a giant sponge covered in rainbow icing with a samurai sword. Above is her second cake, a mini chocolate number. Waterhouse, who counts fellow models Cara Delevingne and Georgia May Jagger as friends, looks comfortable with a weapon: she is carving a career in Hollywood and played the tough Marlene in Divergent. Perhaps she could give instruction on swordplay to another pal, Prince Harry, to avoid a repeat of Princess Beatrice’s recent slicing of singer Ed Sheeran.

Poetic justice for Palmerston the cat

NOW that Sir Ivan Rogers has exited pursued by a Barrow, it’s good to know that he has a leisurely retirement to look forward to. Word reaches The Londoner that the Foreign and Commonwealth Office Association, the home for resting diplomats and spooks, is busily engaged in a poetry competition. Members are invited to “write at least three verses about Palmerston the FCO cat and Chief Mouser in the style of TS Eliot’s Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats”. Given recent moans that the FCO might have an institutional bias against leaving the EU, the choice of the competition’s judge might prove controversial. Briony Bax is poetry editor at The New European, the weekly newspaper for the 48 per cent which is evidently very popular in Whitehall. The Londoner chased up the association to ask if they subscribed but sadly it was after 3 o’clock so staff were already on their way home. Perhaps the time has come for Boris Johnson, the FCO’s outwardly respectable Chief Brexiteer, to enter into the spirit of things. The Foreign Secretary’s last attempt at verse won £1,000 in The Spectator’s Offensive Poetry Competition when he referred to Turkey’s President Recep Erdogan as a “wankera”. Palmerston might hope for milder language this time, because after all: “A Cat’s entitled to expect / These evidences of respect.”

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YOU have to hand it to Vanity Fair: it can take an insult. Last year Donald Trump criticised the glossy on Twitter, hitting out at its readership figures. “Has anyone looked at the poor numbers of Vanity Fair magazine?” he asked. “Way down, big trouble, dead!” How to respond? This month’s issue prints the tweet on its cover, a treat for thousands who reportedly subscribed after Trump’s anti-endorsement.

Kim and her kravings

HAVE we found the new It restaurant? This weekend Ferdi, a stylish new brasserie, opens in Mayfair’s Shepherd Market. The restaurant is the first London outpost of the original Parisian culinary destination of the same name. The founders, Alicia and Jacques Fontanier, call it “strictly non chichi,” while the New York Times celebrates its “beach bar meets neighborhood café atmosphere”. The Chiltern Firehouse, one-time must-go spot, may be worried about the competition, but so too might their Shepherd Market neighbours, Kitty Fisher’s, once a favourite of David Cameron when he still mattered. However, Ferdi might attract a slightly different crowd: the churros are apparently so divine that Kim Kardashian, pictured, once flew to Paris simply to indulge a craving.

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Revamp of the day: Arnold Schwarzenegger has taken over from Donald Trump as host of The Apprentice and has updated “You’re Fired” to “You’re Terminated.”

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