Londoner's Diary: Corbyn’s new spin doctor goes straight to the pint

In Today's Diary: A bad first day for Jeremy Corbyn's spin doctor | Helena Bonham Carter finds her inner cowgirl | Michael Portillo has no honour | Darcey Bussell and Natasha McElhone enjoy an evening of ballet | Peter York interviews Maggi Hambling 
(Photo by Christopher Furlong/Getty Images
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3 March 2017

Corbyn’s new spin doctor goes straight to the pint

Jeremy Corbyn has enough troubles with the mainstream media without asking journalists if they support Al-Qaeda. But Corbyn’s new spin doctor Steve Howell managed to do just that on his first day at work this week, according to The Spectator’s Steerpike column.

Ex-journo Howell joined the Labour leader’s team as deputy director of strategy and communications on Monday, and went for a pint after work with boss Seumas Milne at Westminster’s Red Lion pub, hoping to celebrate.

Instead, the comrades were joined by people leaving a “What now for Syria?” Commons event, organised by Labour think-tank The Fabian Society. Freelance journo Oz Katerji, who has attacked Corbyn for failing to call for regime change in Syria, began to buttonhole the pair, who began to retreat from the pub but not before Howell fired back at Oz: “Are you an Al-Qaeda supporter?”

Howell starts his job with Labour needing to win hearts and minds after by-election defeat in Copeland. Things can only get better.

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Hopes of a merger between Deutsche Börse and the London Stock Exchange may be fading but the German trading platform is keeping a cultural fingerprint in London. The Photographers’ Gallery in Soho hosted the private view of the Deutsche Börse Photography Foundation Prize last night. Does DB still want to be in London? “Especially with Brexit, it’s so important to build these bridges,” said Anne-Marie Beckmann, curator of the collection.

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Quote of the day: ‘Outside No 10 he’s seen as the dull-but-dutiful Spreadsheet Phil. Inside, he has been Hammond the Hammer’

Spectator editor Fraser Nelson on the Jekyll/Hyde dichotomy of our Chancellor

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Yee-haw! Helena swaps corsets for cowgirl

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A man never trifles with gals who carry rifles. We’ve always seen Helena Bonham Carter as more rock ’n’ roll than country and western but the actress embraced her inner Annie Get Your Gun last night as Save the Children co-hosted its annual gala at the Roundhouse in Camden Town

Bonham Carter, who hosted the event which saw a performance from the King of Twang himself Duane Eddy and a fundraising auction, throws herself into the changing theme every year: she has previously impressed with her reggae and disco costumes. And people say she’s just a corset queen...

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Sophisticated debauchery at the launch of debut novel Mother of Darkness by Venetia Welby at the Groucho Club last night. Violet Manners and Stanley Johnson were among the guests. With talk of Ukip honours, we asked ex-Tory MP Michael Portillo why he wasn’t a Lord yet. “I’m not allowed to comment on that,” he said, cryptically. He’s got our vote. And what about Nigel Farage’s honours fuss? “I feel sorry for people who worry about titles — they’re not worth worrying about,” he added.

Borne stars step out for ballet and ballroom blitz

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Ballerinas took over Banqueting House last night for Borne to Dance, in aid of premature-birth charity Borne. Hosts Darcey Bussell and Michael Nunn welcomed dancers from the Royal Ballet and English National Ballet, who flew gamely through the air under the ornate ceiling painted by Rubens.

Also performing were Strictly couple Janette Manrara and Aljaž Skorjanec, and Nunn’s own BalletBoyz, a fine troupe in flesh-coloured shorts.

Admiring from dinner tables were Natascha McElhone, pictured right with fellow actor O T Fagbenle, former tennis star Greg Rusedski and designer Emilia Wickstead.

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“I’m beginning to think Kim Philby was quite restrained. #russiagate”

Curtis Brown literary agent Jonny Geller on the questions over Donald Trump’s team and Russia.

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An artistic eye with a difference

Darren Gerrish/WireImage

Peter York interviewed “art-loving, ciggie-loving, lady-loving” Maggi Hambling, as he described his old friend at the British Library yesterday, for Names Not Numbers’ Near Distance conference. Talking about one of her paintings, a black canvas with gold trickling through it, he observed. “I thought ‘a new version of a Chinese lacquer screen’. Gorgeous. Then I realised it was a portrait of Leonard Cohen.

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Dutch courage of the day: Helen Lederer, who will dance to ABBA for Comic Relief this weekend, is prepared. “I’m on a Swedish diet”, she says. “It’s pure vodka only.”

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